International House for foreign specialists will be opened in Tallinn in Fall 2018
On December 18th, Enterprise Estonia (EAS) signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Mainor AS, which signals the start of cooperation towards the creation of a service center for the foreign specialists arriving to Estonia in the Ülemiste City development area.
On the initiative of Mainor AS with the participation and cooperation of Work in Estonia (WiE), the International House project will be developed. The International House is planned to open in Fall 2018.
The aim of the International House is to provide all necessary information and services to foreign specialists in one place, so their adaptation to Estonia would be as smooth as possible. Work in Estonia contributes to the International House project in the role of advisor for the development of service offering and, in the future, including different government organizations.
Improving the User Experience of international specialists in Estonia
According to Alo Ivask, Chairman of the Board in EAS, different companies and foreign specialists have drawn attention to the fact that there is a great need for such a English-speaking service center.
‘We are very glad that Mainor AS has come up with such an initiative to create an English language service center for foreign specialists and that in cooperation with EAS such a solution can be built up. Next year there will also be a specialist in the WiE team that will start to work on the International House project’, said Alo Ivask. ‘So far the foreign specialists that come to Estonia have had to deal with all the juridical procedures by visiting different places and looking for information from several different channels, so hopefully now they can get all necessary dealings from one single visit in one single point‘, he added.
Alo Ivask mentioned that the attraction of foreign specialists to Estonia is an important priority, to which next years’ ICT development program will also focus. ‘ We compete for ICT foreign specialists with several other countries and thus, we need to approach this issue as a whole in all areas that relate with the foreign specialist’ journey and adaptation in the country’.
Many companies plan to hire specialists from abroad
‘Here in Mainor we have dealt with questions regarding foreign specialists already from the year 2013 and having spoken with many employers and learned from the examples of other countries, we have understood, that such a one-stop shop service center is of utmost importance to be more successful in the race for international talent.’, said the Chairman of the Board at Mainor AS, Kadi Pärnits.
According to Mainor Ülemiste AS Chairman of the Board, Margus Nõlvak, Ülemiste City is the best place for the development of such service center. ‘Ülemiste City is the biggest business development in the Baltics where several foreign companies are situated, which is of huge importance to the growth of the Estonian economy in order to create additional jobs and where local specialists can exchange knowledge with experts working at the foreign companies while cooperating with them.’ ‘The establishment of the International House greatly improves the value proposition for foreign specialists, which gives an important tone that we are moving from passive receivers to active attracters’, Margus Nõlvak added.
Foreign specialists’ attraction programme Work in Estonia will focus its activities on helping companies in the recruitment of international ICT specialists; attracting foreign specialists to Estonia and offering the most suitable (e-)services for the foreign specialists. In addition to its participation in the International House project, Work in Estonia Action Plan for the year 2017-2020 focuses on the goal to attract 2000 ICT specialists to Estonia by the end of 2020 in order to mitigate the big demand for them. The Action Plan also includes foreign recruitment support for companies; providing advice to the foreign specialists and their families; mapping out the needs and problems of the companies recruiting from abroad and the internationals coming to Estonia; increasing the number of companies who participate in their marketing campaigns abroad.
