Crossing the language threshold together – new recruitment model was awarded as the most effective act of the year

The recruitment model developed by the City of Espoo, OP Uusimaa, the Kielibuusti project and Omnia Skills Centre for immigrants was awarded as the most effective recruitment act of the year at Rekrygaala 2025 held in Helsinki on 30 October. The event is organised annually to celebrate meaningful recruiting actions and new openings in the recruitment industry.

In the award-winning pilot, OP Uusimaa recruited multilingual customer advisors for its offices in Espoo and the Helsinki Metropolitan Area in spring 2024. The aim was to challenge the traditional language skills requirements, which are often too strict, and to experiment with what happens when the employer realistically determines what kind of language skills the tasks really require.

The job advertisement was drawn up in plain language, and it attracted a great deal of interest: in three weeks, almost 210 applications were received. The interviews were conducted in plain language, with language experts supporting the applicants and assessing their language skills.

As a result of the pilot, OP Uusimaa hired four customer advisors, each of whom signed a permanent employment contract after a successful pilot period. The cooperation strengthened the work community’s ability to encounter diversity and made banking services more linguistically accessible.

The City of Espoo played a key role in the pilot. The city brought together different actors and supported the planning of the process so that the same model could also be repeated by other employers.

The Finnish teachers of the Omnia Skills Centre for immigrants and the experts of the Kielibuusti project helped analyse the language requirements for a customer advisor’s work by familiarising themselves with the linguistic environment of the workplace. On this basis, they developed support for both the employer and new employees from the perspective of language learning. The cooperation generated a clear process. The model supports the employment of international talents and strengthens the diversity of working life.

The Rekrygaala jury decided to award the model developed in the pilot on the basis of its easy applicability to other sectors as well. According to the jury, a successful pilot carried out in a large organisation can be repeated even more extensively. From there, it can be transferred to the entire sector and other customer service work in an increasingly diverse Finland. The success of the pilot was driven by OP Uusimaa’s courage, enthusiasm, and strong commitment to the process. Since then, the model has become a permanent part of the bank’s recruitment practices.

Our goal is to make the Helsinki Metropolitan Area more open and attractive to international talents. The recruitment pilot is a concrete example of how the city promotes the goal in cooperation with companies and educational organisations.

“Hiring an increasingly diverse workforce is an opportunity that employers should seize boldly. In Espoo, we want to show that skilled people can find their place even when their language skills are still developing,” says Melissa Arni-Hardén, Senior Planning Officer of the City of Espoo.

The cooperation model developed in Espoo supports the city’s long-term efforts to strengthen the integration, employment and inclusion of international talents. The model is part of a larger entity in which the city acts as an active partner for companies and communities that want to recruit employees in a diverse and sustainable manner.