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Finland and foreign workers - red carpet treatment for some
- By Vellamo Vehkakoski
Photos: KARI PULLINEN
- This is the first of a series of articles on the employment of foreign workers in this country. Links to a second article can be found at the end.
Francis Tam, 40, is originally from Hong Kong, but since March he has been
working at Nokia's Research Centre in Helsinki. |
- The rapidly-expanding Finnish datacom and telecom corporations are running short of local expertise, and increasingly they are hiring staff directly from abroad. The big guns pamper their foreign recruits to get the brains they want into the offices and laboratories. There might even be a so-called “relocation unit” to provide a soft landing for newcomers before and after they make the move up here. Foreign imports are also often allocated someone within the company - on the “buddy system” basis - to advise them personally on the practices and routines of their new employers.
- Within the smaller concerns, however, the funds do not stretch to quite so much red carpeting, and foreigners are often left to their own devices. Only the really essential information is forthcoming in the working language - which is of course English. Other useful advice is given on the company's intranet pages, but it is in Finnish, which usually means it might as well be in Martian. A German software designer employed by one such small firm takes a sanguine and very practical view of the situation: “I have worked on the premise that the stuff in English is what you have to know, and the material in Finnish is less important. It's like this in small companies everywhere.”
- But with the big corporations like Nokia, the helping hand is offered already well before the foreign recruit sets foot in Finland. Nokia assists in the procurement of residence and labour permits and passes on details of temporary accommodation or apartments to buy or let. A foreigner hired by Nokia will also get in the mail a copy of the Ministry of Labour's booklets for those planning to move to Finland, along with the company's own brochure covering everything from Finnish history to hobbies and sports and the price levels to be expected in the shops.
- Nokia's foreign legion are given an intensive day's baptism in the company's strategies, core values, in data security questions, and on personnel issues, right along with the Finnish newcomers. These courses also explore what it is like to work within a multicultural Nokia. On top of this comes a half-day “Finland Immersion” for the foreigners alone. This gives hints on how to cope with practical matters in the country, information on the society and its sometimes curious habits, and on Nokia's own international club. In addition, Nokia either arranges for or helps with the Finnish studies of foreigners on the payroll. The same system of individual support staff for newcomers applies to foreign staff as to new Finnish employees in any given department.
- Nokia has around 23,000 employees in Finland. Around 5% of them - between 1200 and 1400 - are foreigners, hailing from 70 different countries. The numbers are growing and every day around 200 job applications come in from the internet from outside Finland, according to Veli-Pekka Niitamo, Nokia's Director of Strategic Resourcing.
- Aside from employees hired directly by the company, a sizeable proportion of those foreign students here as trainees wind up staying on at one of Nokia's units around Finland. Nokia also buys in contract labour from abroad, but for the most part the staff become permanent, says Niitamo. “When one or two foreigners join us, they start calling their friends and passing on the message”, he comments. Now Nokia's foreign legionaries are most commonly from China, India, and Pakistan. There are also contingents of Russians, Germans and Swedes, and a couple of dozen Somalis.
- The majority of the foreigners are working with software systems or in technical customer support. The bulk of them are also recently-qualified young men. In terms of their age they have no difficulty blending into the Nokia corporate environment; the average age of employees at Nokia is around 33.
- According to Niitamo, foreigners know English better than their Finnish colleagues, though it is not their first language. “It is also easier to find raw talent from abroad, because the numbers to choose from out there are so colossal. And their ability to learn is phenomenal. The Finns on the other hand have the edge in the training they come to us with, and in expertise.”
- Anette Bergström, who oversees the process of "running in" new staff and teaching them the ropes as Product Manager for Induction at Nokia Networks, says nevertheless that the company's policy these days is to take exactly the same approach to foreign recruits as to new Finnish employees. “We are no longer a Finnish company as such. All the material is produced in English”, she says.
- Foreigners are undoubtedly a blessing and not a nuisance, is the Nokia line. “For instance, efficiency goes up in those teams that have more foreigners”, comments Veli-Pekka Niitamo.
Finland and foreign workers - red carpet treatment for some (13.5.)
Ministry of Labour - Are you planning to move to Finland?
(.pdf format, requires Adobe Acrobat)
Ministry of Labour - Migration Affairs (a list of links, including the one above)
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 13.5.2000 |
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