Working Life Barometer in the Baltic Countries 2002 (pdf) - mol.fi

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dicators. Also the low level of initiative among personnel in this sector 2 tells
of special problems in it. The fact that there are few development suggestions
does not always mean that there is no need for improvement.
Lithuania also differs from the other two Baltic countries as regards the activity
of different-aged personnel in the above-mentioned development initiatives.
The older the age-group studied, the fewer suggestions for improvement
have been made in Lithuania. The activity in this regard has not been at a peak
level even among the youngest, but it decreases still further with age. In Estonia
and Latvia, no corresponding linear relationship between age and development
initiative activity is discernible.
The making of improvement suggestions, in all the countries, is strongly
linked to the educational background of those concerned. The higher the level
of education, the more actively suggestions are made aimed at improving the
working conditions or the quality of a product/service; and vice versa. In all
the Baltic nations, a minority (43 % in Latvia, 40 % in Estonia and 23 % in
Lithuania) of those working people who had only a basic education had shown
initiative; whereas a clear majority (67 % in Estonia, 66 % in Latvia and 63 %
in Lithuania) of those with higher education had made one or more suggestions
during the year preceding the survey. Only in the case of higher education
did Lithuania not differ significantly from the other Baltic countries. At
lower educational levels, by contrast, it is conspicuous how working people in
Lithuania clearly made fewer improvement-aimed suggestions than those in
Latvia and Estonia. It can be concluded that the ”bottom-up” type of thinking
and information flow does not work properly in Lithuania.
There has clearly been more of a tendency in Lithuania than in the other Baltic
countries to take a ”top-down” approach to development activities, and evidently
it is done fairly often without consulting the workers. Noticeably often,
a consultant has been hired for the workplace or some other similar project has
2 Of those working in the Lithuanian private sector, 11 % had made one and 25 % more than one suggestion
during the past year. Of those in the public sector, 17 % had made one and 33 % more than
one suggestion during the same time span. In the Latvian private sector, 19 % had made one and 36 %
more than one suggestion; the corresponding figures in the public sector were 17 % and 40 %. Of
Estonia's private-sector workers, 15 % had made one suggestion and 39 % more than one during the
previous year. The corresponding proportions for Estonia's public sector were 17 % and 36 %.