20 lessons learned in 20 years of business
As EVS Translations UK approaches the celebration of its 20th anniversary in February, its founder and CEO, Edward Vick, has been joining us on the blog each week to speak about the business and life lessons learned from the UK chapter of his international business.
This week Edward and our Head of HR, Martina Radina, speak about their experiences.
Edward, can you describe your experience of growing an international team?
It was not easy recruiting the first employees. I had to persuade them that I would be able to pay their salaries, that we would be there next week and also next year, that the job was interesting, and that their boss was worth working for. In the beginning, I did all the interviews and put together the contracts as best I could. For the employees, it meant taking a risk on a company virtually without clients and staff. I am still thankful for the first employees which pioneered with me together.
Now, as one of the leading translation companies worldwide with in-house translators and in-house teams, it is much easier. But one of the best (and most difficult) parts of growing a company is finding the right people to do the job and allowing them to take responsibility for doing it, especially when you are sat in a different country from many of them. The 29th employee was HR – the Head of HR, who is still with us now as we pass the 200+ mark for staff.
Martina, as Head of HR for EVS Translation, how has your experience been?
It’s not easy to do HR work from a distance. But back in 1991 the company went international for the first time and EVS Translations UK opened its doors. It’s been challenging, but to see the growth is rewarding.
In the beginning, EVS Translations UK was unknown, so it was very difficult to find translators. We started to organise trips to different universities in the UK to speak about opportunities at our company. Those trips resulted in our now-famous graduate trainee program, which I am very proud of. We train young people to become professional translators in specialised topics.
The UK office will continue to be very strategic to EVS Translations Germany. It helps us to access a high-quality candidate-pool of native English-speaking translators. But Brexit is a concern; not knowing what the future status will be of the German, Italian or Bulgarian citizens in our team. We do not want to lose them!
That said, up until this point, we’ve always overcome any obstacles or issues. So I’d like to wish the EVS Translations UK team all the success for the next 20 years!
Lesson learned: It’s not easy building an international team. But find the right people who you trust and you have a good chance of success.
EVS Translations is always interested in hearing from talented professionals. Visit our careers page at https://evs-translations.com/gb/careers/
Or contact our team on careers(at)evs-translations.com.
