Established in 2007, Dr Ildiko Loikanen’s recruitment agency Sillat aimed to fill the labour shortage by bringing Hungarian workers to Finland. ‘There was a need for workers in 2007,’ explains Loikanen, who originally came to Oulu in 1996 to do a PhD in biochemistry. ‘So the idea was to bring people from Hungary which I can do because I know the legal system and how everything works.’
Loikanen, who married a Finn and started a family while researching her doctorate, has developed contracts with various Finnish companies and advertised in Hungary for workers. A lot of her customers come from cleaning services and others from the construction industry.
‘Usually they speak English okay,’ she says of her recruits. ‘But there’s not that much talking in many of the jobs.’
Nevertheless, Ildiko points out that Hungarians tend to find it very easy to learn Finnish. ‘The words are completely different but the structure is very similar,’ she tells me. ‘Hungarian works in the same way as Finnish. There are no prepositions and everything does onto the end of the word.’
Though the language is similar to Hungarian, the culture and climate are not. Ildiko is deliberately very friendly to stereotypically ‘reserved’ Finns.
‘I like teasing people. I always smile at Finnish people I know and in the end they started smiling back . . . so I won!’ She adds that, ‘I think it takes longer to get to know a Finn than a Hungarian, but their friendships last longer and they’re deeper.’
‘Roofing’ has been especially popular amongst Ildiko’s clients. ‘There’s no training to be a roofer in Finland,’ she says. ‘The builder just teaches to young employee and it’s complicated so eventually he gives up and wants to do something else! So I have recruited trained roofers from Hungary. They are trained in the same way and know how to do it.’
Ildiko prides herself on ensuring that her recruits are well-paid and receive reasonable benefits. Her client companies pay her and she takes a percentage of the workers’ salaries as her commission. She recalls one worker being amazed to find that she was allowing him to have ‘holiday allowance.’ ‘He said to me, "Holiday allowance? What’s this!"’ Ildiko laughs.
As the recession has hit in, Ildiko has altered her focus from bringing in foreign workers to finding employment for the ones who are already here. ‘For example, one of my recruits is an Australian,’ she recalls.
At the moment, Ildiko is focussing on cleaning jobs. ‘We can offer a cleaning service where foreigners who are looking for work – for example students – can come and clean your house.’
It won’t be any cheaper than employing Finns to do the same work but it will be helping foreigners find work which Ildiko sees as ‘a bit like buying fair trade bananas’ rather than ordinary bananas.
It costs around 20 euros an hour to hire a cleaner to clean your house through her agency. However, you can claim 60 percent of this back from the government.
‘I think it’s the way that Finland tries to stop a black market developing,’ Ildiko claims.
‘Sillat’ translates as ‘bridges’ and specialises in not only recruiting but temporary staffing and ‘language services’ including Russian, Hungarian, Lithuanian and Polish translation.
http://www.sillat.fi/
