As November closes its murky grip on Helsinki, many Indian residents in the capital are counteracting the darkness by celebrating Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights. An important event on the cultural calendar for many South Asians, festivities take place over five or six days, with bright light displays, decorations and abundant food symbolising the spiritual victory of light over darkness.
Helsinki employees at Finnish insurance and banking cooperative OP, observed the festival with both a long-lunch gala and a family evening on 9 November. It’s the second year running for workplace Diwali celebrations at the Finnish company.
"We believe in the good things. You have reasons to celebrate the winning of the goodness in society and. So that's what we are doing here, trying to produce as much love as we have and spread the happiness around," said Test Manager and festival volunteer Sachin Kumar.
This year's event is more elaborate than the last — garlands with dangling lanterns are strewn across the vaulted ceiling of the company's vast, internal courtyard and LED candles line the main thoroughfares.
Volunteers put extensive time and energy into the preparations for the staff event, according to Kumar. In their own time, staff have crafted all the decorations, including scores of large paper adornments that sit in almost every office window overlooking the space.
"It's days and nights of effort people have spent after work. More than a thousand hours of effort already," said Kumar. "All the decorations, planning, foods, many things are coming directly from India. Some things are built here with craft workshops, people have actually learned it … those lanterns are handcrafted, we've made them here locally."
At the centre of it all, a stage decorated in candles and bright garlands in corporate colours hosts traditional dancers and a Finnish-meets-Indian fashion parade.
Cross-cultural collaboration
While the festival effort was spearheaded by Indian staff members, Finnish employees were actively encouraged to join in both the preparations and the celebrations on the day. Volunteer organiser Prabha Arya, who has lived in Finland for four years, says that her Finnish colleagues were enthusiastic about getting involved.
"They participated in all the activities of Puja worship and shared sweets with us. They enjoyed it a lot and contributed to all the activities we do in Diwali festival — the decorations, lighting the area," says Arya.
"I think Finnish workplaces are becoming more inclusive to different cultures, and it's a welcome attitude. It is quite unique, they are ready to adopt new things, to learn new things and want to contribute their [culture] as well. My Finnish colleagues are very interested in Indian attire and they are looking very beautiful in it," Arya adds.
Dressed in a radiant orange sari, Sari Ilonen-Virta has just finished participating in the fashion parade. The Product Owner and native Finn says she is enjoying the vibrancy and colour of the event at this otherwise dark time of year.
"I think it's wonderful. Because in India, they have a lot of beautiful festivities. They use beautiful dresses and lots of decorations. So it's something that we don't have in Finland other than Christmas. And I get to wear what my name is!"
Rising demand for foreign talent
However, the extravaganza is more than simply a morale booster for staff. It is also a considered move for a company that says it must operate strategically if it is to attract and retain the international talent it requires.
"We're seeing our employee base become more diverse and we want to be an inclusive employer," says OP’s Director of People and Culture, Tommi Korhonen. "Seeing that we have a substantial base of people from an Indian background, we wanted to make sure that we also celebrate what's important in their culture."
He is aware that Finland does not have the same lure for foreign workers that other countries may have.
"It's difficult to attract foreign workers. We're not, as a country, as well known as some other countries in Europe. We're not one of those sort of international hubs compared to say London, Singapore or New York. We are on the fringes of Europe here, which makes it difficult."
Yet Korhonen said the need for skilled foreign workers is becoming increasingly pressing for many Finnish firms, especially as technology plays an ever larger part in banking and finance.
"We're actually seeing concrete areas where we can't necessarily find that talent from within Finland. So we have to look further afield and find people to help us build our business and the technologies," said Korhonen. "So we do have a lot of experts, a lot of talent coming in from outside of Finland, especially from India."
Foreign workforce almost doubled in the last decade
OP has around 1,200 foreign employees either directly employed with the company or working for its contractors, according to Korhonen. He estimates that some 700 of them are from an Indian or South Asian background.
The Finnish workforce as a whole is becoming more multicultural, with foreigners comprising just over nine percent — almost one in ten — of all people in Finland at the end of 2021, according to figures from Statistics Finland.
All in all, over 240,000 people in the Finnish workforce reported having a native tongue other than Finnish or Swedish — a key metric by which Statistics Finland assesses foreigners in the workforce. This figure represents almost double the 124,000 or so foreign workers recorded ten years earlier, in 2011.
In 1980, there were some 9,000 foreign-language speakers in Finland, meaning their number has increased more than 25-fold over three decades. Foreign workers remain heavily concentrated in the bigger cities, however.
OP's diverse workforce reflects changes across the sector in Finland. Nordea, which is headquartered in Finland, said that in Finland it has employees who are citizens of more than 50 countries and that staff speak at least 63 native languages.
The firm said it also celebrates Diwali as well as Chinese New Year.
Some cultures feel "more included" than others
While the Finnish workplace is statistically becoming more multicultural, there is still room for progress when it comes to inclusion, particularly for the ethnic groups that more often find themselves victims of discrimination.
According to the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare, THL, people of African origin (excluding North Africa) reported substantially more workplace discrimination than other foreigners. The 2022 MoniSuomi report on the health and wellbeing of working age immigrants found that 38 percent of African men and 24 percent of African women had experienced discrimination in job hunting or the workplace in the preceding year.
Meanwhile, 16-19 percent of Southeast Asians reported the same — a figure roughly on a par with the number of women from the whole population (Finns included), who reported the same.
So, do these figures hint at the need for other cultural occasions to be added to the corporate calendar, such as Eid or Africa Day?
"We've got nothing against it in the future. We'll have to see where the demand lies and how our population evolves," said OP's Korhonen. "Step one is Diwali. And I think, looking outside at November in Helsinki… a festival of light… I think that’s something I, personally, am happily embracing."
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