Our references

Optomed is a listed health technology company and the world leader in handheld fundus cameras.

After the previous HR Manager left the company, Minna Rahkamaa from HR Plus started in the Interim HR role with a few weeks' notice. Her main responsibilities were to analyze and identify the HR related key development areas, promote development, harmonize and develop HR activities for the future growth of the company and take responsibility for the day-to-day HR operations.

Minna took over the task quickly, analyzing and identifying the development needs in the HR area and moving forward with the agreed development actions. Minna swiftly became part of the work community and collaboration with her was seamless and straightforward. Minna was described as professional, approachable and pragmatic, and due to her experience and her way of communicating with the management, Minna was able to influence the management's decision making and help the management to see the benefits from both the HR and the business perspective.

The Interim HR assignment lasted a total of 11 months. Upon its end, Minna made a smooth handover to a new HR person.

HR Plus' Senior Advisor Riina Hamrén implemented the HR part of the outsourcing project for a large international company in a transfer of undertakings. In the transfer, Riina's areas of responsibility were all measures related to employees and communication related. After the transfer and integration of the employees, she also supported the company in reviewing and developing HR functions from local legislation and best practices point of view. The focus was on key HR operations such as working hours, annual leave, and payroll. The practices were developed together with the organization's global HR team and payroll administration to harmonize global guidelines and local practices, as well as to improve the employee experience.

According to the client, Riina was fantastic with the company and its services, and her contributions were appreciated. She was described as diligent, knowledgeable, and extremely presentable in her approach. In addition to the HR tasks, Riina also offered support for strategic business negotiations in Finland. The project length was 1 year and 9 months.

Wärtsilä wanted to streamline its HR Operations’ organisation by addressing inefficiencies, reducing overlapping processes and ways of working. HR Plus provided an experienced consultant to step in as an interim leader for the HR Operations team, overseeing a network of 200 HR professionals. Together with the team, the consultant worked to design a more efficient and scalable HR organization that could adapt to future changes.

Sari Mononen from HR Plus was able to start on a couple of weeks' notice and very quickly got a firm grip on the team and the ongoing projects. She carried the project forward in good cooperation with her colleagues and other stakeholders. Sari's attitude and performance received very positive feedback from the team. We loved her warmth, humor and pragmatism. Sari assisted in the search process and selection of a new HR Operations Director and made a controlled transfer of responsibility.

Large global corporation divested part of its business in 2022. In this connection, parts of the divested business including app. 1000 employees remained in the company and were integrated into the remaining business divisions.

In this connection, a global HR information system was launched in the corporation. The HRIS launch to the remaining parts of the divested business was done as a second phase, after finalizing the divestment.

HR Plus helped the organization during the divestment and integration process by providing Business HR support during the transformation period.

• development and implementation of global people processes outside the HRIS system during the divestment process: performance and goal review, goal setting, personal development discussions, job grading , salary review, recruitments
• participation in integration management including people data management, HR operational model design, change management, knowledge transfer and transition management
• general Business HR support during transformation.

In the second phase, HR Plus helped the organization as a Project Lead in the HRIS implementation into the remaining parts of the divested business, together with the inhouse and technical project team. The project included the overall project management, data transfer and management, definition of country specific requirements for HRIS development, communications, change management and coordination of training.

Our collaboration with YTM-Industrial Oy, which specializes in the sale, design and after-sales services of technical equipment, components and systems, began with an HR analysis to assess the customer’s human resources practices and management. The assessment was made by interviewing the company's management and supervisors, as well as by reviewing the personnel policies and guidelines. Based on the evaluation, we prepared a report on the strengths of the human resources management and personnel policies, as well as areas of development with recommendations for action. This report was presented to the management team. The joint discussion resulted in a clear perspective on HR priorities and development projects. After this, our cooperation continued on various HR matters, such as working hours questions, updating employee policies and personnel plans, developing the compensation system, and advising on personnel matters.

Elematic Oyj, a company that has grown significantly and has become international, needed an external assessment to evaluate its current HR practices and to propose priorities for leadership development and how they could be implemented. The HR analysis was performed by reviewing materials and HR practices and interviewing a group of managers, executives and HR experts in Finland and in two units located abroad. The final report was a summary of the strengths and development opportunities of the HR practices and recommendations for both short and longer term action.

As a part of the leadership analysis, we also carried out a series of interviews in the background. The results of the interviews were used in a leadership workshop with the customer. Based on the company's strategy values and interviews, we prepared a proposal for the company's leadership principles. As a final report, a suggestion was made to the customer to strengthen and implement the leadership principles in the organization and in various HR management processes. In addition, on the basis of the interviews and the workshop, we made a proposal to the customer about the content of the leadership development programme and different ways of implementing it.

An international organization requested in 2024 HR Plus to investigate cases of suspected inappropriate leadership and bullying in a white-collar team. The project consisted of three phases: data collection, internalization & analysis and reporting of the results. Markus Taina initiated the data collection by reviewing the materials, conducting interviews in relation to internal company policies and local legislation. As the project proceeded, a joint overview of the situation was built up and further detailed discussions were held between the parties involved – where needed. Markus prepared a report for the client including an analysis based on the data points to determine whether the claimed behavior had taken place. The report also included recommendations about improving HR practices. The findings were then discussed with company representatives and the HR team.

In autumn 2022, NCC Building Finland's HR Business Partner moved out of the company to new challenges and we needed an experienced business-oriented HR professional on short notice to drive HR projects together with the business. During the fall, we made structural changes in the business and conducted change negotiations in the business area supported by Sari. Sari played a strong role in the strategic HR planning process from Work Force Planning and with her positive and proactive approach she contributed to all HR projects in excellent cooperation with the business and the HR team.

Sari received excellent feedback from both the HR team and the business. I highly recommend Sari for demanding HR assignments, as an experienced HR professional she quickly covers all the tasks and complexities in a short time frame. 

When conducting change negotiations, it is important to ensure that this is done in accordance with labour law, in a way that people are respected and that enables genuine interaction. We supported an expert organisation in HR, which needed to initiate change negotiations with workforce reductions. We created a roadmap for the process and the necessary documentation. We were involved in coaching at all stages of the process and participated in the meetings, including preparing the written reports. During the negotiations, many questions were asked, to which the CEO responded openly and comprehensively, ensuring that there was genuine interaction in the change negotiations and that the negotiations were conducted in a constructive spirit.  

The customer's feedback was that "especially Eija's careful preparation with various documents was much needed and also during the process the professional sparring gave great support to achieve the best possible outcome. I had started as CEO of the company only a few weeks before and the process would have been really challenging without a skilled partner." 

A company in the food industry needed an experienced Senior HR Advisor for their People organization on short notice. The company had launched a change project regarding their HR service model with the goal of finishing the project with in-house HR professionals. The focus of the project was on clarifying the service model, defining the roles and responsibilities of the new service model, distincting work roles in regards of overlap, and leading the change. The project was successful and the new service model was implemented.  

The company was also initiating a corporate-level Future of Work project, which approached the future of work from both a strategic and operational perspective: what are the long-term changes in working life, and what is the company's approach to them? How will work and working be approached after the pandemic? For this project, HR Plus conducted a background survey, gathering views on the future direction and basis for decision-making from a number of different channels.

The duration of this interim assignment, which focused on two projects, was 4 months.