100 new heads, 200 ears and hands
It dawned to Anne Pihlava, HR Manager of YTK, in March that very soon we will need many new employees. The YTK staff of some 150 people is of very permanent nature – the longest employments have lasted for around thirty years – so only 5–10 new employees are recruited per year.
Preparing for the coronavirus crisis began in February, and the recruitment plans were upgraded to a new level within a couple of weeks. The first 14 new employees started their induction at the beginning of April, another 10 this week, 60 more will start next week, and another 10 in the week after. In addition, we will get a few more new faces, so to even out the peak of applications we will recruit in total one hundred people who have not worked for us before. That’s quite a number!
The new employees are recruited for a fixed period and will either work as unemployment security guides in the customer service, answering messages and calls, or familiarise themselves with the processing of certain types of applications. Normally, YTK’s induction for new employees lasts several months, because the unemployment issues are fairly complicated, but now we are completing the induction in weeks. That requires rethinking of the ways of working as well as efficient training and support from colleagues.
The most surprising challenges related to recruitment are quite unique these days: when our employees come to pick up equipment from Loimaa, the groups need to be scheduled precisely, so that we can maintain safe distances. Luckily we started acting so early that we managed to acquire the headphones, displays and keyboards needed for everyone, as they are not so easy to find at the time.
You can follow the feelings of our new employees in our social media channels. All of us at YTK are happy to have many new colleagues!
