“There are of course factors that have to do with Estonia itself, being centrally located among multiple countries,” explains Country Senior Executive Tiina Käsi. “Finnish is widely spoken or understood, Nordic languages are taught in schools and universities, and English is a norm, so we are already in an open environment, which makes us attractive for a broad spectrum of jobseekers.”
Nordea has been in Estonia since 1995 and served local customers until 2017, when the direct local customer activities were handed over to Luminor Bank. The split kick-started the Nordea Estonia of today: a highly specialised workplace, serving Nordea’s Nordic customers and organisation via a wide range of services and functions. It’s also a workplace that has doubled its number of employees in just three years.
In September the Estonian Human Rights Centre and Ministry of Social Affairs have awarded Nordea Estonia the Diverse Workplace quality label for the second time. The Diverse Workplace label is awarded to employers who respect equal treatment and an inclusive organisational culture and whose efforts to manage diversity are an example to others.
“Because of our rapid growth, we’re open to a variety of competencies and backgrounds – you don’t necessarily need banking skills to start a career with us,” points out People Consultant Jaana Pedras. “With English on top as the main working language, we’re almost diverse by origin. But diversity on its own doesn’t mean inclusion – only variety. It’s up to us as a company to ensure that everyone feels valued and included, and we have quite a detailed action plan for how to make that happen.”
The plan includes support for jobseekers from outside Estonia and a cross-cultural employee resource group supporting newcomers. But that’s a relatively minor part. Among other things, the plan also addresses flexible working conditions for people with ability variations and parents of children with disabilities, equal family leave opportunities for rainbow parents and regular trainings for leaders where the emphasis is on people development, organisational culture and values.
According to Tiina Käsi, the importance of the employee resource groups is not to be underestimated. These groups are also supported by Nordea’s top management. Head of Compliance Jamie Graham is a sponsor of the cross-cultural employee resource group, and recently attended a leadership meeting in Nordea Estonia to talk about diversity and inclusion.
“I myself have been a newcomer to the Nordics and know that moving to a new country can be a life-changing experience. The new culture can feel very unfamiliar and learning a new language can be quite time-consuming. Our network of internationals and international-minded people strives to create more awareness about language inclusion and multiculturalism by offering networking opportunities, social gatherings and cultural events. This is to ensure every colleague, regardless of their ethnic background, language skills, religion or nationality, can feel comfortable,” he explains.
That Nordea in Estonia was the first corporate team ever
to attend Pride in Tartu, Estonia?
“I believe we’ve learned quite fast that the diversity we want and need requires us to work much more consistently with inclusion,” Tiina Käsi asserts. “We can’t ignore it if people don’t feel welcome. We want people to share how they feel, so we can take action and make our workplace an even better one.”
She explains that it has also been necessary to critically examine some organisational structures: “For example, we had a D&I council that wasn’t very diverse when we started out, as it mostly consisted of white female local leaders. Today, we have a good mix of different roles, functions, job profiles and cultural backgrounds in there, and also representatives from our different employee resource groups. So we get more ideas coming in and can work on our blind spots together.”
Employee Resource Groups are voluntary, employee-led groups whose aim is to foster a diverse, inclusive workplace. In Estonia we have several, including cross-cultural and LGBT+ ERGs.