Clowns enlisted to raise spirits of Tampere municipal workers
“Laughter is the core of well-being”, says city’s personnel chief
By Irja Hyvärinen
Four red-nosed figures waddle into the personnel cafe of the City of Tampere. A performance of the city clowns is about to begin, and one of them is already praising a diner for his choice of the Tampere speciality, black pudding.
When the pot belly, the jacket suit lady, the dancer, and the bus driver start into their workplace well-being rap, even administrative chief Mauri Eskonen smiles behind his plate. “Process, report, delegate, visualise”: the list of words sounds so absurd (especially as in the original Finnish, as they all rhyme).
The idea for the city clowns came from comedian Mona Ratalahti, occupational well-being trainer Riitta Harilo, and its godmother was Kirsi Koski, head of the Mayor’s office.
Koski has worked as the city’s head of personnel for three years.
“I have thought about what would be the core of well-being. Yes, it is laughter”, Koski says. “It is all right to laugh at craziness - at what is not said out loud in business discussions.”
Ratalahti feels that a clown nose “changes us and the viewer in such a way that forces people to look at things differently”.
“When people enjoy their work, it is reflected directly on the bottom line.”
Tampere’s city clowns are the 41st idea that the “Creative Tampere” programme has decided to support. The programme has a budget of EUR 12 million to back corporate ideas worthy of development.
The EUR 25,000 earmarked for the clowns makes it possible for four artists, who have mostly worked alone, can concentrate on joint projects.
Some of the funding is used for the purchase of performances for training seminars, for instance.
Head of development Lasse Paananen says that the funding is not a question of moving money from one municipal pocket to another, but rather a startup for a new enterprise.
The city clowns have a number of established routines, from “The ABCs of Customer Service”, to “Lightening the Guilt Pack”. One planned sketch involves a training session for supervisors on how to effectively put subordinates in their place.
Each of the clowns have created their own characters. Ratalahti is a pot-bellied boss, Harilo is a jacket-suit lady. Tuula Linnusmäki is a dancer whose workplace calisthenics putts the meat on the move.
When tenor Jouko Uusipaasto taps into his 30 years of experience as a bus driver, the cobblestones of Tampere’s main thoroughfare, Hämeenkatu, become familiar to everyone. Greetings to all: there will be a moment of silence on behalf of silent knowledge.