The article discusses the rising incidents of aggressive behavior towards employees of Kela, Finland's social insurance institution, particularly during phone interactions, and the measures taken to document these occurrences.
The article highlights the challenges faced by Kela employees as they frequently encounter aggressive and threatening behavior from clients, especially during times of financial distress and prolonged processing of applications. Kela, which handles social security, is seeing a notable increase in reported incidents, with employees facing hundreds of such situations annually. This alarming trend has prompted the institution to implement a reporting system specifically for these threatening encounters.
Kela's security chief, Sami Niinikorpi, explains that there is a particular channel in their internal system for processing these incidents, known as the threat report form. This system encourages employees to provide a general description of problematic clients without disclosing personal information. Importantly, it aims to protect staff members while maintaining a professional approach to documenting these incidents, which are predominantly reported in phone interactions.
About half of the reported threats arise from phone service interactions, despite existing measures to record calls. The remaining incidents predominantly occur in physical service locations, illustrating that employees are vulnerable both remotely and in direct client interactions. As such incidents threaten not only the morale of Kela staff but also the quality of service provided, there is a growing concern regarding client behavior and the need for better management strategies in handling difficult situations.
