In 2018, ISS Finland started active recruitment through the Startup Refugees volunteer network, which aims to help asylum-seekers find work or start their own business.
Startup Refugees brings immigrants and employers together, mapping the skills, educational background and motivation of asylum-seekers, and creates a knowledge profile based on each applicant’s personal information. The network then seeks to connect the applicants with employers, or to help them to set up their own business or pursue further education or training.
“The Startup Refugee network has many skilled and motivated applicants, and it goes without saying that we want to employ them. We have, in any case, employees from 75 countries at ISS Finland,” says Chief People & Culture Officer Sari Suono- Rasehorn from ISS Finland.
Startup Refugees has a significant number of applicants who are interested in the industries ISS operates in, says Maiju Mitrunen, Head of Business and Employment Programs at Startup Refugees.
“Our cooperation with ISS Finland has been brilliant. It is great that we – Startup Refugees and ISS Finland – can support each other this way. Work has a huge importance regarding the way of life that our immigrants will have in their new homelands, and work is also a really important motivator when people are integrating into the new society, for example in learning the Finnish language,” Maiju Mitrunen explains.
“From our point of view, ISS Finland is one of the most multi-cultural workplaces in the Nordic countries. The people that ISS has hired through our network are very happy with their employer. And we are happy to help ISS in every step before and after the recruitment.”
One of the employees that ISS Finland has hired through Startup Refugees is Israa Saaed Hasan, who came to Finland from her native Iraq. She loves to cook and is happy to work in an ISS restaurant. “ISS is a great company. I’m so proud of this elegant workplace. I work in a team where we are all friends together and we also have fun at work,” Israa says.
