Successful Business talks with the head of HR department of Admirals Svetlana Gildebrandt about the current trends and programs in Cyprus, which are used to maintain the well-being of employees.
What is your recruitment strategy to ensure that candidates are a good fit for Admirals’ culture?
Admirals is a team of over 400 professionals spread across 30 different countries, making us a truly global organization. Despite the kaleidoscope of cultures we nurture inside the company, the cornerstone of the interview process is alignment with company values. We need to ensure that our future teams will enjoy our active pace, find opportunities for growth and development, as well as bringing their professional expertise onboard. Our HR representatives participate in the interview process to ask relevant questions, ensuring candidates are the right culture fit. In light of the company’s rapid global expansion, our recruitment strategy is closely aligned with our business strategy, bringing specific attention to expansion within 6 hubs where we have space to sustain our growth and Cyprus (for example, in Limassol and Nicosia).
What challenges (if any) do you face in Cyprus when it comes to finding talent for your company?
Throughout our 9 years of operation in Cyprus, we have been quite successful in finding professionals with different backgrounds and expertise. Cyprus is a great place to develop a business, especially when we speak about IT, product development, finance, management and other roles that we welcome at the HR IN FINTECH company. Cypriots and residents of Cyprus contribute greatly to the enhancement of the professional landscape of the country. The taxation regulations make Cyprus financially attractive to foreign workforce, so more and more professionals consider Cyprus to pursue further job opportunities every year. So far, 2022 has proved very fruitful in terms of our expansion activities - we have doubled our presence in Cyprus, opened an office in Limassol and can confirm that Cyprus is currently the fastest growing Admirals hub. With such a rapid expansion, the key challenge is emphasizing the importance of open communication throughout the organization and securing the buy-in from our employees, which is key to staying successful and competitive in the industry.
How do you promote wellbeing activities at Admirals?
Covid-19 has highlighted employee wellbeing as a priority for HR. With the start of the pandemic, our HR team focus has been supporting our employees’ physical and mental health in remote working environments. In the first part of 2021, alongside our global virtual health week, we offered lectures to help develop resilience, adaptability and agility to sustain a healthy mental state and recommended ‘home’ exercise programmes, such as chair yoga and posture training, to support physical wellbeing.
In the second part of 2021, we introduced a hybrid working model to our employees. In 2022, as Covid-19 restrictions started to fade, Admirals introduced a ‘great sense of togetherness’ campaign, to ensure a working from home and office balance was established. We also continued investing in our people by organising various events promoting healthy lifestyle habits, some examples are Summer sports days, team building activities, health week and children’s day.
What are some of the benefits that employees of your company can look forward to?
Admirals is a company with Estonian roots, and for many years we remained Estonia-centric, which affected the range of benefits we were able to provide. Nowadays, with our active expansion, we are focused on improving our employee benefits packages consistently throughout the hubs in line with more diverse EU offerings. Benefits packages across Admirals hubs include reimbursement of training activities, a bonus system that is aimed at recognition of high performing team members and a high standard medical insurance (to name a few key benefits). We actively request feedback from our workforce to ensure the benefits packages are aligned with our employees’ needs, with improvements every year. Local variables are also taken into consideration, ensuring we provide appropriate and tailored benefits to our employees across all locations, including Cyprus.
As an HR professional, what do you think of the trends and the future of employment in Cyprus in the financial industry?
I am very optimistic about the future of Cyprus, being one of our leading hubs, to keep attracting talent. During the past 5 years, I have seen Cyprus taking the lead as one of the world’s most important contributors to the IT and Financial Services industries. I deeply beleive that talent attracts more talent, and as Cyprus grows its talent organically, it will continue to be more desirable as a destination for business and talent worldwide.
In my opinion, employment trends in Cyprus, are aligned with global career trends:
Tech: Automation, Artificial Intelligence and Data Analytics enable people to spend more time on meaningful activities and improve the speed and accuracy of decision making.
Benefits: Customised and tailormade benefits continue to satisfy people’s expectations.
Work-life balance: Hybrid working models remain a top choice and a norm for knowledge workers, and wellness is emerging as one of the newest - and most important - HR KPI metrics to measure.
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