Jarkko and Tapio made their dreams come true

A couple of years ago, Jarkko Hallikainen and Tapio Koivisto were in a situation where a change in their daily lives started to sound interesting. Jarkko was thinking about his childhood dream of becoming an electrician, and Tapio was planning a long bike trip in Europe. Both of them were able to realise their dreams thanks to the flexible working opportunities offered by Hansel: Jarkko works part-time and Tapio took a year off.

Jarkko is a lawyer at Hansel four days a week and spends the fifth day of the week doing electrotechnical work.

“I’ve always been interested in electricity and different kinds of technical devices. After building a career in administration for twenty years, I wanted to try something different and studied to become an electrician,” Jarkko says, describing what happened a few years ago.

Shortly after starting as an electrician, he joined Hansel as a lawyer, and was immediately able to agree on working part-time. This opportunity was very important for Jarkko, because the electrical engineering industry is constantly evolving and one must keep up with new requirements and technologies.

Jarkko says that combining the two jobs has been a great success. He makes sure to always mark his days off from Hansel in his calendar in good time so that his colleagues are aware of them and aims to regularly take his day off from his lawyer job on Mondays. Being an electrician has lived up to Jarkko’s expectations, and he really enjoys his second occupation. The two completely different jobs nicely balance each other out.

“As an electrician, I get to make my clients really happy in a tangible way when they get a new sauna oven for Christmas or are able to optimise their energy consumption according to electricity price fluctuations, for example. Doing something with your hands gives nice variety to the brainwork,” Jarkko sums up the benefits of his two jobs.

On job alternation leave, you have time to relax

Development manager Tapio says that he had been working since 1997 without being away from work any longer than a summer holiday. For a couple of years, Tapio thought about taking a break and also talked about it with his supervisor. In spring 2024, the time was right to take a break from his daily working life and see what it would be like to plan his day’s in the morning, just doing what he felt like doing at that moment.

“When I formally voiced the idea of job alternation leave, I was really pleased with the encouragement I received and how smoothly my supervisor and HR handled things. It was a nice to know that a new person would be coming to do the job when I left,” Tapio says after having already taken his job alternation leave and with only 2.5 months of the subsequent unpaid leave remaining.

He has spent most of his twelve-month leave enjoying outdoor activities in the daytime, reading, listening to audio books and spending time at his summer cottage. Tapio has also taken a few trips, most notably a six-week cycling trip during which he covered more than 3,000 kilometres across Europe. Such a break would not have been possible without a longer leave.

“I was quite happy with my life while cycling alone, as long as I was able to meet my basic needs. Every day was different, even though it was basically just pedalling,” Tapio recalls, adding:

“It’s been interesting to get to know myself more deeply and see that I can be myself without the work community and the intellectual challenges provided by my work.”

While Tapio was enjoying his peaceful mornings, his regular hobbies and his spouse, who was still working, kept him anchored to a regular daily rhythm. The winter days have also passed quickly, although at first Tapio thought there would be more to do in the summer and that it would be more natural having time off when everyone else was on holiday too.

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