Well-being of Employees in the Early Childhood Education and Care Sector in Finland

Objectives The main objectives of this study were to research the current state of work well-being in early childhood education and care field and examine what could be done to enhance the employees’ well-being. Before the well-being could be assessed it had to be defined. Once the key theories and concepts were discovered an interview was conducted that gathered primary data on the well-being of Finnish early childhood education and care employees. Throughout the research an international perspective was kept in mind. Summary The study first investigates the early childhood education and care field and seeks answers from the literature about what others have discovered about the field’s well-being. Then the study goes deeper into what work well-being is and what factors affect it. Once the literature was assessed an interview was conducted in Finland and the data was analysed to find answers on how the employees viewed their well-being. Conclusions It was found from the research that early childhood education and care field in Finland suffers from poor work well-being. In general, the employees were dissatisfied with their salaries and experienced a lot of stress. They liked their everyday work and were proud of what they do for a living. Bad management practices in addition to requiring too much from the employees harmed the motivation of the employees