Building communities makes companies stronger

Believe that it’s a luxury to treat your people and their extended lives well and you’ll be out of business in no time. Disengagement is costly, efficiency loss and dysfunctional teams lead to millions of losses in companies’ revenue and in a country’s GDP.

Treating our people and their extended lives (families, friends, dogs, social environments) well, is a way of paying forward. One, because it feels good. Second, because it makes commercial sense: great talent and paying customers alike want to be appreciated, know what you stand for and if you are genuine and authentic in your endeavors or just talking nice corporate words.

Seeking meaning and purpose are deeply anchored in any decision making and buying behavior process, and working for a company that doesn’t live up to its own standards will not be acceptable for many. Especially the latest generations, such as millennials, are looking for work-life integration — they will only choose employers and service providers who are consistent and authentic on the in- and the outside.

I am passionate about creating value for my business and about shaping an environment where people can thrive and unleash their full potential. This, however, cannot be done alone. No-one is an island. I firmly believe in partnerships and in close collaboration with communities, which can and should be very diverse. For me, a community is a powerhouse of like-minded people, with complementary strengths and a massive load of ideas and inspiration to draw upon.

Having gone through a good school of creating and sustaining rewarding communities in my previous life in Vodafone and Adobe, I’m keen to continue this practice at Nortal. The first communities I’ve helped build at Nortal are already up and running at full speed.

For example, did you know that Nortal is owned by its employees? The top 5% performers of our company are partners and we have dedicated time and energy to boost our 2017 partners’ community: we selected 25 of our best colleagues that have demonstrated high performance on their role, exemplary role modeling and dedication, and they live by our values every day. They all went through a rigorous selection process, and their applications stood out as most compelling and most promising in terms of commitment, leadership potential and impact to Nortal, and ultimately to our customers, to our vision of a seamless society.

These partners are working on distinct acceleration programs that will help boost Nortal’s presence and impact in the marketplace. This community is sponsored by our CEO Priit Alamäe directly, which shows how serious we are about enabling our partners to be successful. Which in turn makes Nortal successful.

We have also developed a multi-layer approach to provide our analyst community with valuable up-skilling opportunities, organizing events like Analysts’ Morning and the upcoming Analyst conference this autumn. We sponsor the first country-wide recruiters’ network, ‘Recruitment Thursday’, we do this in partnership with our valued partner Lever.

On top of that, we continue the tradition of a strong Summer University. This year we’ll welcome 40 young professionals across three countries and core professions, a more than double intake compared to last year, and we are launching strategic partnerships with select schools and universities later this year.

These are just some examples of our community work; we also want to be a good partner, neighbor, and society member. So, we’ve opened our doors and our hearts to hosting Tallinn Music Week’s concerts in our beautiful atrium in Tallinn, we give back through charity, volunteer work and many small gestures every day and across all our sites.

At Nortal, we genuinely care. And this is what I am going to proudly share and teach at the Work 2.0 Conference, a unique gathering of experts from multiple domains around wellbeing.

Tatjana Tasan is going to speak at Work 2.0 conference in London on May 25.