Perspectives on strategy work.

September 18, 2025

“A good municipal strategy genuinely guides operations”

Reijo Löytynoja
Chair of the municipal executive and steering group for strategy work

According to the Municipal Act, every municipality must have a municipal strategy in which the council determines the long-term goals for the municipality’s operations and finances. The strategy must guide the municipality’s activities and address key issues regarding the provision and organization of services.

Municipal strategy – why is it needed?

In short, the strategy enables long-term thinking in decision-making. It also provides a framework for officials to prepare matters in line with the strategy’s goals. This work requires input from residents, decision-makers, municipality’s staff, and municipal officials. In other words, all of us!

Therefore, a strategy is needed!

A good strategy takes into account the unique characteristics of the municipality. Janakkala is our municipality. We must elevate our opportunities in the preparation of the strategy. After all, we are a municipality whose geographical location allows us to be at the center of a conducive environment for entrepreneurship with good transport connections. A diverse range of plots enables various safe and functional housing solutions as well as remote work opportunities. New school centers meet changing learning needs.

Our operating environment is a jungle of rapid changes. Although we face new challenges, fortunately there are also opportunities. We need both strategic foresight and financial preparedness for changes. A well-planned municipal strategy that considers all stakeholders and is based on its own strengths and opportunities provides a foundation for responding to future challenges. A good municipal strategy genuinely guides operations. A municipal strategy is needed so that the municipality can develop purposefully step by step, and residents can also do better.

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September 11, 2025

“Janakkala needs a bold strategy that meets new challenges”

Eerika Lampen
Higher education intern

Strategy, strategy, what strategy? A dry little document that no one understands? Or a magical key to vitality and happiness?

In reality, perhaps neither. Working as an intern in the Janakkala strategy team has been an incredibly interesting project, along which I have truly learned and got to contribute! I am natively from Janakkala and have completed my education from daycare to upper secondary school in Tervakoski. At 19, my studies in administrative sciences took me to Tampere, and my internship brought me back to Janakkala in May 2025. I could say I was taken away by the train and then brought back.

The purpose of the internship was to gather information to support the strategy process, form future scenarios for the municipality of Janakkala, and conduct a survey to uncover residents’ perspectives. I quickly got to work on the strategy survey using a completely new software called Maptionnaire. Many ideas were tossed around for resident participation in the strategy process, but the tight schedule for the strategy’s drafting largely determined how the project would progress. The residents’ strategy survey slowly but surely gathered 1910 responses. The respondents’ ability to bring new ideas to light and describe issues in various ways, such as through humor, has added enthusiasm to the work. Thank you to each respondent for your honest, humorous, and idea-rich comments!

Janakkala is, in many ways, an average municipality facing typical challenges. From my perspective, most residents enjoy a calm and nature-oriented life, but the municipality’s challenges go deeper than daily life. The population and birth rate have generally declined over the last nearly 15 years, so one cannot too eagerly identify it as a growing municipality. While studying population development, I was surprised by how early in life people move away from Janakkala. I remember back in 2010 when Janakkala had so many children that the school buildings were struggling to accommodate them. These memories do not reflect the present. Of those children who attended primary school in various buildings back then, only a fraction remain in Janakkala. In my age group, there are currently 32 women living in the municipality, while there were over 100 at our peak. The municipality faces challenges for which no one seems to have a direct and easy solution.

Janakkala and the whole municipal sector have changed tremendously, even if it may not seem so at first glance. The means by which the municipality was previously managed are no longer sufficient today. The strategy process has involved contemplating how to increase the municipality’s attractiveness and reverse migration trends. We are indeed not living in past times; the municipality’s future requires re-experimentation and entirely new perspectives. Janakkala is strongly characterized as a municipality for families with children and logistics. These strengths have taken us far, but they are no longer enough for the desired growth. The beauty of the strategy lies in reorientation and setting bold goals.

The author is a student of administrative sciences and a higher education intern at the municipality of Janakkala.