Category: Blog posts

At Etlia, we decided to throw development discussions into the trash can and that’s how Career Radar was developed – an employee-oriented concept supported by an external coach. We’ve already covered the background of this concept in our previous blog post about What Is Etlia Career Radar, so if you haven’t read it yet, check it out.

But does our external coach Lassi Albin Viljakainen have to say about our concept? 

Lassi Albin is an entrepreneur and ICF-PCC certified management and career coach, who has also been involved in developing the Etlia Career Radar program. Lassi has impressive 3000 working hours in coaching. He has done coaching and sparring in organizations of different sizes around the world. His strength as a coach is his excellent knowledge of people, which is also one of the biggest reasons he has ended up in career coaching. 

The most important thing for Lassi as a coach is that the person being coached feels liberated, empowered, and good after the coaching session. Lassi Albin hopes that the coachee will think that they have been able to talk openly and confidentially and that they have been able to reflect on themselves and possibly make new insights. Several trainees have said that the sessions open up several interesting perspectives and ideas, which are nice to think about afterward. 

According to Lassi Albin, the Career Radar coachees have come to sessions with very open minds. He never once felt that someone didn’t want to talk or had deliberately left something unsaid. 

According to Lassi Albin, freedom and straightforwardness are definitely what makes Etlia Career Radar so special as a career coaching program. Since the program is completely new and developed exclusively for Etlia, it cannot be directly compared to the training methods used in other companies. However, in his other coachings, Lassi Albin has seen excellent results, especially in companies that are both transparent and close to the employee, so that the employee feels safe and valued. Another difference compared to other methods that Lassi Albini encountered is that Etlia Career Radar is intended for everyone, and not just for, for example, the management ladder. The fact that everyone is offered an equal opportunity increases the spirit of togetherness and the feeling of belonging in the company. 

The result of Etlia Career Radar is that everyone will get a personal career development plan, which is regularly calibrated and implemented together with colleagues and the company. With Etlia Career Radar, we aim for an increasingly open and transparent work culture where everyone is allowed to pursue what they want and aim for their development results. We want to offer our employees all the necessary tools to support professional growth, as well as a safe and open work environment. We think that every person from Etlia deserves to have the freedom to develop their career individually and freely in the direction they want, receiving the support of both the company and the community for their desired career path. 

Interested in Career Radar? We will be happy to tell you more! Feel free to contact juuso.maijala@etlia.fi 

At Etlia, we decided to throw development discussions into the trash can and that’s how Career Radar was developed – an employee-oriented concept supported by an external coach. We already covered the topic in our previous blog post, so if you haven’t read it yet, you can read it here.

How the Etlia Career Radar Process Works?

1. Step: Let’s take a look at your situation.

In order to pursue your dreams, they must first exist. In the first step, the coachee will do some self-reflection by using a questionnaire from the coach. It is used to find out one’s strengths and areas for development. In addition, we map out what kind of career plans and goals the coachee may have.

2. Step: Meeting with an external career coach.

In the second stage, the coachee’s personality and career plans will be explored with an external career coach in a confidential environment. In this step, we also start building a plan to achieve the goals. The plan will include a bridge between the present and the goal and a schedule drawn up by the coachee and actual actions to reach the goal.

3. Step: We recommend sharing your plan with colleagues.

This is based entirely on voluntariness and the coachee has the freedom to keep their plans to themselves as well. We recommend sharing and joint tracking because by sharing their plan, the coachee gets the support of both the work community and the company. In this way, we also strive to build an open, transparent, and empowering work culture where it’s safe to talk openly about your plans.

4. Step: Regular calibration sessions.

The purpose of the calibration sessions is to take a look at the coachee’s plan together with the team leader. In this session, we discuss how the process is going at that moment, and make sure that the coachee has received all the support they need.

5. Step: Annual discussion with an external coach.

We recommend updating your plan regularly with your coach as well. Normally, this is done once a year, but if necessary, for example in situations of life change, we recommend a more intensive coaching period to keep your plan up to date.

More about Career Radar coaching in our next blog, stay tuned! 

Interested in Career Radar? We will be happy to tell you more! Feel free to contact juuso.maijala@etlia.fi 

Your manager invites you to the annual development discussion. Again, another useless chitchat. Forced by both of you. You’ll have a stiff dialogue and fill out the compulsory information on the form that is irrelevant for both you and your employer. After the session, the form is forgotten to wait for next year’s round. Sounds familiar?

Etlia decided to do things differently and focus on the employee’s wishes and plans. That’s how Etlia Career Radar – a new generation career coaching concept was born.

Etlia’s values include the appreciation of people, empowering others, trust, and continuous improvement of operations. Our ultimate purpose is to provide top experts with an environment and community with the best opportunities for professional development.

Whether you want to reach the top of your career at Etlia or set up a diving shop in Thailand in a few years, the purpose of Career Radar is to clear a path in the direction you want on your terms, without forgetting the support offered by the community and the company. We encourage all Etlians to move forward on their paths because we believe that freedom is the best way to care.

Etlia Career Radar is a career coaching program where an external career coach helps the coachee reflect on themselves, and examine their values, skills, weaknesses, and their career prospects. After this, with the support of the coach, the coachee builds their career plan with schedules.

We will tell more about our journey with Career Radar in the upcoming blogs!

Interested in Career Radar? We will be happy to tell you more! Feel free to contact juuso.maijala@etlia.fi

We at Etlia want to provide our employees with the best premises for working and we find it important that our employees always feel welcome at work. Investing in job satisfaction is not only empty words since we do concrete actions to ensure that working at Etlia is meaningful and it is possible to adjust the work to different life situations and circumstances. For example, we make sure that at Etlia it is possible to work flexibly, and we take care of well-being at work in various ways. Appreciating each other is also an essential part of Etlia’s values.

Flexible Ways of Working at Etlia

At the latest during the Covid-pandemic, it become clear that different ways to work regardless of time and place are becoming more common, and many people want to arrange their work flexibly. At Etlia it is possible to work from our office at Keilalahti Espoo and at home. In addition, it is also possible to work from abroad since our employees come from different countries all over the globe. We also want to consider different cultural backgrounds, and our employees can switch the Finnish holidays to their cultural bank holidays.

Shubham Keshri is working at Etlia as Principal Data Engineer. He has appreciated the opportunity to work flexibly from India, where his parents live. Keshri says the company has taken this well, and the permission to work from abroad hasn’t required any extra hassle.

“I have been working in different service-based companies here in Finland. Apart from a few non-Finnish-origin companies, the work culture has been excellent. Still, one thing that has been bothering me most was my parents living back in India. I always wanted my employer to be understanding in this area. More than anything, I just needed that flexibility to be able to work from India whenever I needed it (not the whole year). And without the need to take approval from some “HR” (Even when the end customer is totally fine with me working from India). Unfortunately, most of the companies didn’t give me that freedom because they just wanted to skip the hassle of getting into tax calculation.”

Keshri believes that at Etlia, people truly care about the well-being of the employees and trust their ability to arrange and do their work independently.

“I chose to join Etlia because they not only support you in your career development but also your family’s wellbeing. I have been able to work from India without hassle. I didn’t have to sign a clause or take approval from any HR. It is just like working from your summer home (why can’t I have a summer house in India?). There hasn’t been any micromanagement and Etlia has not only been trusting but also been supporting my decisions. I do my work with honesty and that only matters for the company and that’s how we build the culture here.”

For Keshri, the attitude and atmosphere at work also make difference:

“Simply the approach to any request here is different. We have no bureaucracy in taking any decision whether it is buying your favorite working equipment or if you feel like taking a trip to Spain. Etlia is ready to help you!”

Well-being and Work Culture at Etlia

Good settings for working are an essential part of job satisfaction. Due to our growth, we could move to bigger workspaces with an amazing view, located at Keilalahti Espoo. Our co-working spaces enable the formation of good community spirit and the free spreading of ideas and thoughts between colleagues.

To maintain a good atmosphere, we also find it important to meet up with colleagues outside of work. This involves team days and Christmas parties. The picture on the left is from our team day organized in August at the water sports center Laguuni. At least there was no lack of speed. The picture on the right is from Etlia’s previous Christmas trip to Kakolanmäki, Turku. We didn’t get stuck in the funicular.

Taking care of your well-being is important to cope at work. We want to encourage our employees to be active at work and in their free time and we offer the chance to have a company bicycle, with which one can go to work and get a workout all at once. Every Tuesday, we also have a tasty breakfast at work.

Appreciating people is part of Etlia’s values

Etlia exists for its employees and customers. Our goal is to provide the most talented data professionals with the best environment to develop professionally and help our customers create business value with data. This is the foundation of our culture, which guides our work. Our company values show in everything we do, and they have been compiled together with all our colleagues, so it is easy for everyone to adapt to them. Our values are based on four factors that are empowering others, continuous improvement, trustworthiness, and appreciating people.

We empower others

Supporting the members of our community to reach their potential gives us joy. We always strive to be transparent and objective with our clients and colleagues. We foster respect for each other and accountability for our actions. We are proactive and practical when interacting with other people.

We keep improving

Continuous development is the foundation of our work, and we want to be better every day. We are not advocates of any pre-decided agenda, like technology, but strive to come up with the most suitable solution. While not reinventing the wheel, we don’t get stuck in doing things like we always have.

We can be trusted

We are a reliable and trustworthy partner. We commit to the highest standards of expertise and honesty. We create value and superior quality in a professional matter. We say things how they are.

We appreciate people

In the end, people matter – not technology. We treat everyone equally regardless of race, sex, or background. We take care of the work-life balance. We do the right thing.