Staff interview with Jari Korpela, Elinar’s Quality Manager
Jari Korpela started working at Elinar as a Software Designer around seven years ago. He studied industrial management and information technology at the Tampere University of Technology in University Consortium of Pori. Korpela started at Elinar as a summer intern. After his first summer, he stayed as a part-time Software Designer while continuing his studies. Later he continued as a full-time employee. Now Korpela works as the Quality Manager of Elinar.
Korpela is motivated by the development aspect of his job. It’s no wonder how he’s the company’s Quality Manager. IT industry is well fitted for his idea-rich personality: ”In this field of business, even the sky isn’t the limit and the only thing permanent is the change”, he laughs. Korpela’s job description goes from software development and support to developing processes and quality standards. He spends half of his resources on quality management. Among his daily tasks, he notices opportunities for further enhancements, making notes about them and advancing them later on.
Flexible employer and customer service provider
Elinar’s working community differs from the mainstream in a positive way. The open discussion environment and the easy access to meet superiors is daily basis at Elinar. In addition, Elinar’s flexible working times and possibilities get a lot of praise. ”As a single father of two young children, I highly appreciate the employer’s flexibility when I really need it.”
Company’s flexibility is also appreciated by the clients. The Quality Manager knows that one of the secret’s of Elinar’s success is well-working customer service. ”Our clients get to discuss directly with our experts”, Korpela explains. ”When most of our experts work at the customer interface, we can react to their needs in a fast manner”. Even though Elinar is doing well on customer satisfaction inquiries, Korpela doesn’t want to settle with the current level of it. ”There is always room for improvement”, the Quality Manager smiles.
Not colleagues, but friends
Korpela likes working at Elinar especially because of interesting tasks – according to him, the work never gets boring. Korpela also greatly appreciates the supporting colleagues: ”I’ve never felt alone with my work because I can always get help from the field professionals around me, my coworkers”, he thanks. He says his coworkers have always felt more like friends to him rather than colleagues.
Korpela admits, that before starting at Elinar, he wasn’t that much of a sporty person. Nowadays he does many activities with his coworkers in his free time. ”Billiards, badminton, running and marathon long marching events – to name a few”, he recites. Without encouragement from his employer Ari Juntunen, Korpela wouldn’t have most likely started taekwondo. Recently he just reached 1.dan black belt in it. “I wonder how many companies have a work benefit of having a sparring match with their employer“, Korpela laughs.
Elinar’s summer fest supports well-being at work
One of the main reasons for a close working group is Elinar’s yearly workplace health promotion, summer fest. Korpela had just started working at Elinar when he joined the summer fest for the first time. ”While playing frisbee golf, the atmosphere was easy going and relaxed. After that, we arrived at the cottage and I saw the inflatable sumo wrestling suits. Then it finally dawned on me that this is, after all, a pretty fun working community!”, Korpela laughs. He sees great importance to the time spent together. Especially getting to know his colleagues on a more personal level, improves communication at work.
Elinar’s summer fest is not only for having fun – even though it’s that, too. Elinarians held a common discussion about the values of Elinar to really bring their people together and to establish a better understanding between employees and employers. This year Jari and other members of Elinar’s occupational well-being group prepared a model of early care and updated the self-set playing rules of Elinar.
