Frequently asked questions about courses

When the programme for a course or professional training days is ready, it’s published in the course’s details in the course and event calendar on JHL’s website. If the programme has not yet been published on the website, you can always ask for it from JHL’s Education Advice. You can either send your enquiry using the contact form or call 010 7703 510 Mon−Thu, from 9 am to 12 noon.

JHL members can register for courses through myJHL. See the instructions for registration.

If you are a member of JHL’s organisational member union, see here for registration instructions.

Online registration for a course closes at 11 pm on the last registration day. If you want to sign up for a course after that, you can either use the contact form or call 010 7703 510 Mon−Thu, from 9 am to 12 noon.

If you send a message that you want to sign up for a course after the registration deadline, please remember to include your membership number and the name and time of the course that you want to attend. Note that priority is given to those applicants who have registered for the course before the deadline.

Please check first of all the junk mail folder in your email, and for example the Promotions folder in Gmail. If you still do not find your course confirmation or cancellation message, contact JHL’s Education Advice by using the contact form or calling 010 7703 510 Mon−Thu, from 9 am to 12 noon.

All course applicants are always notified by email about course selections and cancellations. You can also check this by choosing My Courses in myJHL and then selecting the checkbox “My courses”.

If you receive a notification telling that you are waitlisted, it means that the maximum number of course participants has been reached before the application period has ended. You should keep you place on the waitlist until the end of the application period because there may be other criteria besides the registration order for selecting the course participants.

Please do not contact the Education Advice before the application period ends because they will not be able to tell yet whether or not you will have a place at the course.

Yes you can, but this always needs to be agreed case by case with your employer, the course leader and ultimately with the principal.

That is possible, but decisions on attending the courses are made case by case. Shop stewards are given priority at courses for shop stewards, occupational safety and health representatives are given priority at courses on occupational safety and health, etc.

Non-members can be accepted for courses if there are free places.

The course fee depends on the type and length of the course.

Course fees are very affordable for JHL members because they are part of the membership benefits.
For example, a two days long occupational course at JHL Institute without accommodation costs EUR 60 for a member and EUR 650 for a non-member. Joining JHL pays off.

If you will be late from the course, always inform preferably JHL’s Education Advice by calling 010 7703 510 Mon−Thu, from 9 am to 12 noon, or by sending a message on the contact form. They will forward the information to the course instructor and JHL Institute’s reception.

If you employer pays you for the course time, this has to be agreed case by case with the employer, course instructor and Education Advice.

The union will reimburse its members’ travel expenses on the condition that the course participants commit themselves to being present throughout the course/professional training days. Those who have been present all the time will get a certificate at the end of the course or professional training days.

Log into myJHL. Your course history is in myCourses. The course history information gets updated with some delay; the previous year’s courses will appear on your list at the latest after the turn of the year.

The prices of shop steward, co-determination and occupational safety and health courses are determined each year and vary depending on the agreement sector. These fees are collected from the employer as so called course or meal expense compensations per course day. See Course compensation collected from the employer for more information.

The participation fee for occupation-specific themed courses is EUR 50 per course day with accommodation, and EUR 30 per course day without accommodation. You can apply for financial support for the participation fee from your employer or your union branch. You can also pay the participation fee yourself.

Yes. See Cancellation of course participation for details.

If you do not cancel your participation or cancel it less than a week before the course, we charge you a fee of EUR 50 and other possible expenses, such as travel tickets and accommodation expenses. We do not charge you this fee if you have a doctor’s certificate of an illness or other verifiable reason. You need to deliver the certificate at the latest within a week from the end of the course.

If participation is not cancelled or it’s cancelled less than a week before, we charge the participant a no-show fee of EUR 50 and other possible expenses, such as travel tickets and accommodation expenses.

When you register for a course through myJHL, fill in the e-invoice address form if the course will be invoiced. Provide your employer’s e-invoice address that you have first confirmed from your employer and reference details, if any. We also need your employer’s Business ID for the invoice.

You can ask from your union branch if they can pay your course fee. It not, then the course fee will be invoiced from you.

You can cancel your course participation yourself at myJHL if you do it before the application period for the course closes.

If you cannot come to the course, cancel your registration by contacting Education Advice using the contact form at the latest one week before the start of the course. Your cancellation is confirmed when you receive a confirmation message.

If you have not cancelled your participation or cancel it less than a week before, we charge you a fee of EUR 50 and other possible expenses, such as travel tickets and accommodation expenses. We do not charge you this fee if you have a doctor’s certificate of an illness or other verifiable reason. You need to deliver the certificate at the latest within a week from the end of the course.

JHL normally reimburses for travel expenses based on the least expensive means of travel, for example train or coach.

Course participants have the right to travel by air to national courses in Helsinki if their home is to the north of Vaasa-Kuopio-Joensuu line, including these cities. (Åland is an exception to this rule; the right to fly from Åland is always considered case by case.)

The course confirmation includes more detailed instructions for ordering the travel tickets.

The flight ticket includes:

• one additional piece of carry-on luggage, dimensions: 55 x 40 x 23cm
• a small bag, dimensions: 40 x 30 x 15cm

For those who travel by their own car (and travel alone), we pay 50% of the kilometre allowance announced annually by the Finnish Tax Administration (EUR 0.30 per kilometre in 2025).

If at least one other course participant travels with you in your car, and you do not have the right to travel by air, we will pay you the Finnish Tax Administration’s kilometre allowance for the use of your car (in 2025 the allowance with an additional passenger is EUR 0.63 per kilometre).

View JHL’s travelling instructions.

Tax-exempt allowances in 2025 for business travel.

If there is no public transport in the mornings or evenings at you home location, we reimburse you either the cost of the taxi ride or if you drive your own car (and travel alone in it), half (50%) of the kilometre allowance announced annually by the Finnish Tax Administration.

NOTE! If your spouse or someone else drives you to the station or home from the station, we only pay for the drive each way once and only for those kilometres when you are in the car.

We do not pay for a taxi ride from the airport or railway station to JHL Institute. If you attach a receipt to your travel expenses form, we pay you the cost of a HSL’s single ticket.

You need to buy a ticket for your commuter train journey before the start of the journey. If you have value on your HSL travel card, you can use that with the card reader on the train as usual.

Tickets are no longer sold on VR’s commuter trains. You can buy a ticket with a few taps in the VR Matkalla mobile app or on VR’s website. You can also buy a ticket from the ticket machines, at R-kioski kiosks or at stations.

If you use the mobile app, write the fare of the ticket that you bought in the app on the travel expenses form. If requested, show the mobile ticket either to JHL’s education assistant or the course leader. If mobile tickets cost more than EUR 20, they must always be shown to JHL’s education assistant.

We do not pay parking fees. Instead, we encourage using public transport. However, if you travel by air and the only way for you to get to the airport is by your own car, we reimburse for the airport parking fee based on the receipt. We also pay the course hotels’ own parking fees during regional paid courses (shop steward, occupational safety and health, and co-determination courses, as well as topical days for these). Attach the receipts for these fees to your travel expenses form.

When you come to training, you receive a travel expenses form at the course location. Attach the receipts for travel expenses, or write kilometres when you have used your own car. Send the form and all attachments together.

The processing time of travel expenses forms is about one month from the end of the course. The payment day is Friday. Processing times may be longer than this during the busiest periods.

Example: You arrive to JHL Institute from Jyväskylä by train. You depart from home at 6 am and arrive at JHL Institute at about 10 am. The journey to the location takes about four hours one way. If the return journey takes the same amount of time, the total travelling time is about eight hours, which qualifies for a partial per diem.

Daily allowance for travelling is not paid to participants of professional training days, topical days for members or union organisation courses.

If your employer pays you salary/wages for the course time and your journey to the course location and back takes at least 10 hours in total, JHL pays you the per diem approved by the Finnish Tax Administration (and when the journey to the course location and back takes more than 6 hours in total, JHL pays you the partial per diem).

If union organisation courses take place on weekdays, JHL pays a tax-exempt course grant based on a certificate of loss of income. In 2025, the daily amount for calculating the course grant is EUR 88.87 per day. For example, if the course is five days long, the course grant is EUR 444.35. The course grant consists of a course scholarship and a daily allowance.

If the total sum of course grants that a course participant receives is higher than the levels stated above, the course participant needs to pay taxes for the part that exceeds these levels.

Apply for a course grant with this form (in Finnish/Swedish).

Training agreements specify which target groups are entitled to pay and other compensations. Learn more about which JHL’s courses are paid time.

Accommodation for the trade union’s courses in the regions and in Helsinki varies, and so do the prices. You can always check the price for a single room in the course confirmation.

Accommodation is normally arranged in double rooms. Accommodation for the night before or after the course always requires prior approval from JHL’s Education Advice; contact Education Advice through the contact form.

If you have signed up for separate courses on consecutive days, use the contact form and tell JHL’s Education Advice well in advance that you need accommodation between the courses. Decisions on need for accommodation are made case by case.

The right to accommodation is determined based on the distance between the course location and the participant’s home.

The union pays for accommodation for the night before the course only if you cannot take a train or fly or if the time needed for travelling causes you loss of income. JHL’s Education Advice grants a permission for accommodation for the night before the course after you have provided an account of the transport connections.

Order your travel tickets for the previous day only after you have been given permission for accommodation.

 If you want to share the room with a specific person, make a request when you register for the course, and we will do our best to fulfil it if possible.

Checking into the hotel is done at the end of the first course day.

Log into myJHL. Provide the information about your special diet again each time when you register for a new course.  We do not store this information anywhere else because of data protection. The information is only passed on to third parties (kitchens, hotels, restaurants) for one course at a time. Members are responsible for providing the correct information.