​Finland’s Ilmarinen could cut up to 90 jobs in structural revamp

Finland’s biggest pension insurer has started negotiations with its entire staff of 685 in order to effect a restructuring – which could see up to 90 jobs cut from the fund.

Ilmarinen said it was making the changes in order to flatten its hierarchy and improve the efficiency of decision-making within the company.

Jouko Pölönen, chief executive of Ilmarinen, said: “Our goal is to improve our customer experience and staff experience. The customer-orientated organisation must be as agile as possible and decision-making should take place close to the customer.”

According to a preliminary estimate, Ilmarinen said up to 90 job functions could change substantially through the revamp, or cease entirely.

At the same time, however, it said there would also be dozens of new or amended functions open, meaning that potential staff reductions were estimated to be much smaller.

“We want to reduce the hierarchy, make decision-making more efficient, and improve co-operation both internally and with our customers,” Pölönen said. “At the same time, this also means more efficient operations,” 

Ilmarinen merged with its smaller rival Etera at the beginning of last year in order to become more competitive. Following the merger, Ilmarinen is now marginally the biggest of the country’s pension insurers with €46bn of assets, having supplanted the €44bn fund Varma in the ranking.