{"id":583,"date":"2020-06-03T12:12:40","date_gmt":"2020-06-03T09:12:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/upcloud.com\/global\/us\/2020\/06\/03\/welcome-sonja-our-new-head-of-people-operations\/"},"modified":"2020-06-03T12:12:40","modified_gmt":"2020-06-03T09:12:40","slug":"welcome-sonja-our-new-head-of-people-operations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/upcloud.com\/global\/blog\/welcome-sonja-our-new-head-of-people-operations\/","title":{"rendered":"Welcome Sonja, our new Head of People Operations"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Our company culture has always revolved around the exceptional talent of our employees. UpCloud is currently accelerating its growth, and the key in this development is people. Therefore, we\u2019re excited to welcome <strong>Sonja Semmelmayr<\/strong> as the new Head of People Operations at UpCloud!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sonja is a highly skilled HR professional with a broad experience across many positions and comes to UpCloud from SSH Communications Security.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">100 new UpCloudians joining us this year<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The launch of our new HR department is part of our growth strategy fueled by an <a href=\"https:\/\/upcloud.com\/global\/blog\/upcloud-secures-18-million-funding-fuel-growth\">\u20ac18 million investment<\/a> announced earlier this year. Over the next 24 months, UpCloud plans to recruit more than 100 new employees in Helsinki, London, Seattle, and Singapore offices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\"><i>\u201cWe\u2019ve been meticulous in our&nbsp;focus on our culture as we grow the company, and we believe our experienced employees are a testament to this work. We\u2019re delighted to have Sonja join us, and help us take the growth to another level in coming months and years,\u201d&nbsp;<\/i><\/span><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">says UpCloud\u2019s CEO Antti Vilpponen.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Cultivating UpCloud&#8217;s unique culture<\/h2>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/upcloud.com\/media\/IMG_5392_web-scaled-1-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"Sonja Semmelmayr at UpCloud\" class=\"wp-image-14628\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As Head of People Operations, Sonja is responsible for boosting our staff growth and wellbeing, as well as setting up the face of UpCloud&#8217;s recruitment for the future. What is she most excited about her job? We asked Sonja a couple of questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">What new processes or changes would you like to launch at UpCloud?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Of course, there are necessary HR processes that need to be implemented and reviewed. But the most important thing is to cultivate UpCloud&#8217;s unique culture and align it in all regions. With accelerated growth comes a chance for all of us to develop it further together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">What are you looking forward to at UpCloud? What do you think might be challenging?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">It will surely be challenging to learn all the names by heart! But to be a little more serious, the People Operations team\u2019s first challenge is to hire all the new talent that we will need this year. It is both exciting and scary because we get to onboard many new colleagues!<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">What are UpCloud\u2019s plans for this year in the field of HR?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">We are going to double our staff this year, so at the moment, we\u2019re looking for a Talent Acquisition Manager to help managers in their recruitment needs. I\u2019m sure we\u2019ll fill this role with a capable professional who will bring our recruitment to a whole new level.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I have had my fair share of my own unpleasant candidate experiences in the past. Therefore, I want everyone who applies for a job at UpCloud to be happy about our recruitment process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">What achievements do you feel good about in your job?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Empowering employees and giving them tools for success. I always aim to support and help people to be better at what they do. &nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">I am also very happy when I manage to handle a difficult case with a positive outcome. They might vary from uncomfortable discussions to complicated labour law issues. The most important thing is that the people involved feel respected and valued in the process. I\u2019ve always been a warrior for equal treatment and fairness, so being really into law and HR is no surprise. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Launching new Careers page<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Together with appointing the Head of People Operations, we are also launching our brand new <a href=\"https:\/\/upcloud.com\/global\/careers\">Careers page<\/a>. There you can find what talent we\u2019re currently looking for as well as read insightful interviews with our people.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-layout-flex wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-button\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link wp-element-button\" href=\"https:\/\/upcloud.com\/global\/careers\">See our open positions.<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Our company culture has always revolved around the exceptional talent of our employees. UpCloud is currently accelerating its growth, and the key in this development [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":60670,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"115,175,322,307,634,616","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"Blocked by a filter function","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-announcements"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/upcloud.com\/global\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/upcloud.com\/global\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/upcloud.com\/global\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/upcloud.com\/global\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/upcloud.com\/global\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=583"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/upcloud.com\/global\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/upcloud.com\/global\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/upcloud.com\/global\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/upcloud.com\/global\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}