Director General Taito Vainio: our reliability will be maintained in all circumstances

Taito Vainio started his second five-year term as the Director General of the Emergency Response Centre Agency in early March. In the coming years, his work will be characterised by the challenges arising from the changes in the operating environment.

The population is ageing, exceptional weather conditions are intensifying, cyber and hybrid influence operations are increasing and the global political climate causes uncertainty for citizens, even leading to a reduced sense of safety. 

The safety environment in Finland is in a constant state of flux, which reflects on the provision and quality control of emergency response centre services. According to Director General Taito Vainio from the Emergency Response Centre Agency, safety has taken central stage due to the war in Ukraine. 

“Emergency response centres and ERC services are the backbone of internal security, because we receive emergency reports, make risk assessments and dispatch the necessary help. If we are unable to function, people will not be able to receive urgent help from authorities,” Director General of the Emergency Response Centre Agency Taito Vainio says.

Vainio stresses that emergency response centre operations must be secured to ensure that emergency response centres are able to operate in exceptional circumstances as well. This requires preparing for physical safety and data system security. As an example of this, emergency response centres will be moved inside rock shelters in the coming years. 

“As part of our premises programme, we are improving physical security by moving emergency response centres inside rock shelters. Very few people probably realise that the primary reason for renewing emergency communications is to separate emergency calls from the safety network and distribute them to improve our reliability in various circumstances in the future,” Vainio says. 

Preparedness has also been improved through the hiring of a full-time director of preparedness affairs, whose tasks include drafting preparedness schemes.

Five-year post

Vainio started his second five-year term as the Director General of the Emergency Response Centre Agency on 1 March 2025. Before working for the Emergency Response Centre Agency, he had served in several posts in the Department for Rescue Services at the Ministry of the Interior since 1998. His most recent post with the Ministry of the Interior was Director of Strategic Steering in 2018–2020. 

His development and change management skills are also needed at the Emergency Response Centre Agency, which will see changes in its core operations in addition to its operational environment, including the introduction of the new RTT emergency report model, in the near future. At the same time, new operating models between emergency response centres and the situations centres of various operators are being built.

“We need to develop, but I will continue to work towards eliminating urgency from the preparations, because we want to do things well. This requires improved prioritisation and focusing on what matters. In accordance with our new strategy, we will strive to streamline our operations even further in the Agency’s administrative and operative tasks. I think that it is crucial to develop guidelines and operating models that shorten the time it takes to process calls in the ERC room, for example,” Vainio says.

Skilled employees who feel well

One of the focus areas of the Emergency Response Centre Agency’s new strategy is skilled and committed employees who feel well. The aim is to highlight the importance of competence, functional organisation and work community as well as excellent workplace atmosphere in the performance of the Agency’s core tasks. 

“Our focus on personnel competence and well-being leads to strong commitment to the Emergency Response Centre Agency. I wanted to keep focus on this area of our strategy. We have seen great results and we have moved in the right direction. We must, however, continue our efforts in order to maintain and further improve occupational well-being.” 

The Emergency Response Centre Agency’s organisation was reformed at the beginning of 2024. The Agency moved from managing things to managing people and employing an inclusive operating culture.  The Agency has created new channels to facilitate personnel participation, for example. Operating cultures are not, however, changed over night.

“Staff inclusion has been and continues to be close to my heart. It is essential that we have channels through which our staff can voice their opinions. These channels are probably not being used as effectively as they could be, but I am sure that we are making progress all the time,” Vainio says. 
Vainio emphasises that employees must have an opportunity to voice their opinion on matters that concern them before any decisions are made. They must be included in the preparation process at a sufficiently early stage. The Emergency Response Centre Agency has created the ‘Johdamme Paremmin’ (we lead better) operating model which is used to develop leadership continually. 

“Supervisors must first and foremost manage people to make progress. We have to realise that even though our performance targets are about things, we can only reach them by managing people, not just things,” Vainio says.
 
“As I often say, what matters is the direction we take, that is to say, we need to keep moving forward in a better direction. Changes seem to happen slowly when you are in the thick of them, but we can often see in hindsight that things actually changed quite quickly,” Vainio says.

Streamlining needed

Government organisations are currently preparing productivity programmes. The administrative branch of the Ministry of the Interior together with the administrative branches of the Ministry of Defence and Ministry of Justice got away with lower savings targets than the administrative branches of other ministries. This is a sign of the current international political situation that requires ensuring overall security. 

Nevertheless, the productivity programme will require increasing operational efficiency in the coming years at the Emergency Response Centre Agency, too.

“I strongly believe that with a good and analytical approach, we will be able to achieve the goals of the productivity programme while maintaining a high level of service. Again, all employees must be strongly committed to working together for us to succeed. Attitude may seem like an minor detail, but it carries plenty of weight,” Taito states.

According to Vainio, high-quality emergency response centre services will continue to be available in all circumstances going forward. 

“I believe in our personnel’s genuine desire to help, and what could be more rewarding and respectable than participating in the saving of people’s lives? That is something we do every day. I trust and believe in our personnel’s robust expertise and willingness to help. The people do not need to be concerned: you will receive help at the time of need.” 

The Government appointed Taito Vainio, MSS, MSE, to the post of Director General of the Emergency Response Centre Agency for his second five-year term on 27 February 2025. The term started on 1 March and will last for five years.