In recent years, we in YTK have thought about the turning points of the working life and how we can help our members to implement them successfully. We found out that the tuning points are not exceptional conditions, but continuous processes of change which involve both uncertainty and hopes for the better.

According to our studies, the turning points occur cyclically, and are repeated in the career of each individual every few years. We also believe that the turning points will increase as the working life changes. Hence there is a growing need for finding new opportunities and determining our own path in the working life of each of us.

I have often dealt with management of change during my career. Change in organisations enables active dialogue, development mentality, and becoming inspired by new and different things. By maintaining and feeding these themes any organisation will succeed. As YTK also has done.

A definite turning point is approaching in my own working life. I have decided to turn the page and transfer to a new position during the autumn. My last working day at YTK will be 31 October 2021. The Board of Directors of YTK has initiated the recruitment process of a new managing director. I can warmly recommend the position for all those who are interested in the working life, earnings-related security, and managing a truly inspiring organisation under the steering of an encouraging and visionary Board of Directors.

My new job will focus on being able to help different organisations to succeed and thus use the experience I have accumulated. That is something I have been dreaming of for some time. I am extremely grateful to you, the personnel and members of YTK, for having taught me the secret of YTK’ green heart. This crowd holds a great deal of expertise, plenty of common sense, and an incredible sense of dedication.

When we talk about the working life and its turning points, it’s also interesting to think that the changes are not rational things at all. The feeling in changing jobs is specifically a FEELING with capital letters – at first quite fuzzy. At the same time the mind is filled with uncertainty, excitement, enthusiasm, anxiety, impatience, fear, and pain of loss. So it’s quite an emotional range.

It would be great if we could see the personal need for change clearly and work for it in determined fashion. But it does not work that way – things float, take up space and only become clear little by little. And then, when decisions have been made and new careers have been opened, they will again become complicated and tangle into new piles of emotions.

During this turning point of my working life e.g. the following kinds of questions have been surprisingly difficult for me:

• I am only building a new employment role for myself. How do you put such a phase in life into words?
• Am I selfish when I want to change from an absolutely great and rewarding job to another one just because of my own desires?
• The leaving of a key person always generates a change situation in an organisation. What kind of a responsibility do I take for my choice?

There are no unambiguous answers to these questions, but everyone has to build their own working life path. Perhaps what I want to emphasise in this situation is being honest to yourself. When you are able to recognise the need for something new, it’s good to grab it despite the uncertainty about the future. Otherwise that feeling will gradually poison your mind and then it will also affect others. Hopefully there are not many of those who have stayed put for too long and will thus make their working community less pleasant.

Against the wind it is! I wish you courage with the independent and sometimes difficult choices at the turning points of the working life!