Current issues explored in Provost’s Coffee – Kari Jääskeläinen receives Success Contributor Award

At the beginning, the Success Contributor award was presented for the first time. HR Director Tiia Tuomi and HR Manager Rita Heinrichs presented the award to IT Coordinator Kari Jääskeläinen, who is the IT support at Lämpömiehenkuja.
‘Kari Jääskeläinen is a real expert in his field. He is always ready to help others, to ensure successful results by being proactive and by planning things carefully, and to spread positive spirit in the work community,’ Tiia Tuomi said in praise of Kari Jääskeläinen.

Picture: Kari Jääskeläinen (left) being congratulated by Provost Ilkka Niemelä.

The Success Contributor award is intended to give recognition to joint services staff in matters such as work quality, promoting new ways of working, contributing good work atmosphere by following the Aalto values, creating value for our core activities by providing first-class support service solutions through co-design, digitalisation and partnering. The award is presented 2 to 4 times a year, and Rita Heinrichs is happy to receive suggestions for the next award recipients.

Rankings success

After the award was presented, Provost Ilkka Niemelä shared the latest developments at the University. Among other things, he mentioned rankings results that have recently been published. These are important because they receive public attention. ‘In the spring, Times Higher Education put Aalto University in the 28th place in its list of universities that are under 50 years old. This is a wonderful result, bearing in mind that the majority of the world’s universities are young universities. A splendid result was also achieved in the Business of Fashion’s website rankings, in which the Bachelor's Programme in Fashion at Aalto University was positioned in third place worldwide,’ Niemelä added.

Ilkka Niemelä also spoke of the strategy dialogue carried out in August.
‘The Schools' strategic plans and target settings for 2020 show a strong commitment to our common goal of building a high-quality university which is ready to change the world.’

Service portfolio put into practice

Director of Development Sirkku Linna spoke of the current implementation of the services development programme. ‘A huge amount of work has been put into developing services at Aalto. We are now putting our service portfolio into practice, with the project being led by Project Manager Riikka Mäki-Ontto. We will continue the service development work from the customers' perspective and, at the same time, we will be thinking about how the production of some services can be standardised and streamlined. The work will begin with pilot projects. The goal is also that a joint service promise will be formed for all services,’ Ms Linna explained.

Riikka Mäki-Ontto went on to describe what kind of services Aalto will have in 2020. ‘They will be continually developing, flexible and customer-orientated, and they will take advantage of digitalisation and the shared campus. New multiform facilities will support new forms of work,’ Ms Mäki-Ontto envisioned.

The Dipoli building will be ready next spring.
‘Both the University management and service staff will be working in Dipoli. Some of the staff currently working at Lämpömiehenkuja will move to Dipoli. More detailed plans will be ready by the end of the year,’ Mäki-Ontto added.

New policy for facility use published

The campus is developing rapidly and the work is being led by Vice President Antti Ahlava who is responsible for the campus development . This week the new Aalto space guidelines (inside.aalto.fi) were published. They encourage to sharing, encounters and diversity.
‘As part of updates to the University’s strategy, the campus strategy was also updated. A shared campus will support co-operation between different fields. It is important that these new kinds of facility solutions are supportive of modern working styles and are user-driven. One motivation for the changes is also the need for space savings,’ Mr Ahlava said.

Presentations at the event (inside.aalto.fi):

Aalto University Current Issues, Ilkka Niemelä (pdf)
Services 2020 and relocation of services on developing campus, Riikka Mäki-Ontto (pdf)