The staffing company Hansavest Rental OÜ was founded in Estonia in 2005. The Hansavest story includes all of its own employees, its client companies and the workers recruited for them, but one way to tell it is through Janek Sirg from Pärnu.
Founder and owner Janek Sirg has entrepreneurship in his blood: he set up his first company when he was just 17. Over the years, for a man who has also studied psychology, the core of the business has become making sure that everyone – client companies, workers, Hansavest and he himself – can develop themselves and the way they work.
Sirg, 43, is a native of Pärnu. Estonia’s popular summer town of Pärnu is also home to the Hansavest training centre, where the company assesses its workers’ skills and gives them any additional training they need.
Sirg holds a degree in business from Tallinn University of Technology. He later earned a second degree in psychology.
An entrepreneur at 17
Before Hansavest, Sirg had a company called Elektra Valveseadmed, which sold and installed alarm systems. He founded it with his father in 1994, when he was 17. Estonia had broken free from Soviet rule and declared its independence again in 1991. The country was looking to the future. Mart Laar, aged 32, was elected Prime Minister of Estonia.
“Back then, nobody in Estonia looked for solutions by listening to people anchored in the old system,” Sirg says, describing that optimistic time. “Young people’s opinions were valued, and they were free to start businesses and try new things.”
Estonia had a great many outdated Soviet-era alarm systems, and demand for equipment that actually worked was high. As Elektra grew, the new business also brought Janek to Finland. One of his Finnish clients was Europlan Engineering, and he worked together with its then owner, Jari Savola.
Hansavest’s roots at the Turku shipyard
Alongside the alarm business, Elektra placed electricians from Estonia in Finland, and soon welders and other workers as well. Before long, most of the workers the company placed were not electricians, and Janek found himself wondering whether his business was really alarm systems or staffing. Staffing won, and Janek sold his original company.
Jari Savola suggested setting up a new, separate company. It was named Hansavest Rental. In 2006 Jari sold his share, as he wanted to focus on his main business, Europlan. The new company, Hansavest, had plenty of work at the Meyer Turku Oy shipyard. Shipbuilding had a great need for welders, and Hansavest recruited them from Latvia to Finland. Most entrepreneurs face ups and downs, and a downturn came in 2009, when the whole Turku shipyard was in difficulty because of problems at its South Korean parent company. A recession was raging around the world. Janek’s company very nearly went bankrupt, and the bank came close to taking his home. Hansavest’s business moved back to Estonia. Times were hard.
“It almost feels as if Hansavest had a guardian angel watching over it when we finally managed to avoid bankruptcy,” Janek recalls.
In the end things eased, and – in Janek’s words – welders are always needed. Industry became Hansavest’s area of special expertise, particularly the metal, wood and electronics industries. Logistics and construction are also among the sectors Hansavest works in.
Hansavest returns to Finland
After returning to Estonia, Janek completed a degree in psychology. He also applied what he learned to his experience in the staffing business.
“I came to the conclusion that in many situations the company itself needed to grow, but the owners did not necessarily want to. That held back the company’s development,” Janek says.
Janek had no particular plans to start doing business in Finland again, but as sometimes happens in life, the pieces suddenly fell into place. He had studied psychology together with a friend called Raiko Mikk, who spoke Finnish. In addition, Janek had known two Finns, Panu Sarvilahti and Jari Heikka, for almost twenty years through Round Table, the international association for young men.
Panu and Jari had seen what Hansavest was doing in Estonia and wanted the same concept in Finland. They were the driving force behind setting up the Finnish subsidiary, and Raiko became Managing Director of Hansavest Finland.
Janek Sirg specifically wants to stress that the founding of Hansavest in Finland was based precisely on the active role of the Finnish partners, Jari and Panu.
Hansavest’s business idea
Janek Sirg has his own view of how staffing works and how it should be done.
“I haven’t really seen many companies in the industry that do things the way I think they should be done,” Janek says frankly. “Everyone promises to bring in professionals, but many companies don’t actually know the sector they work in.”
In Hansavest’s view, professionals can only be placed successfully if two conditions are met. First, you have to know the sectors you operate in in detail yourself. Second, you have to be prepared to assess a worker’s skills carefully and also give them the additional training they need.
“When we at Hansavest have spent a lot of money finding a worker and the client has spent its own time on the recruitment process, there is no sense in supplying unsuitable workers,” Janek explains. “When we take on a worker, we want to test and understand exactly what they can really do.”
It is not possible to succeed 100 per cent of the time, but performance can be brought closer to that. This saves both your own and the client’s time and money. Hansavest began working this way from the very start.
The Pärnu training centre: testing and training people
The Pärnu training centre began operating as early as 2010. Janek had noticed in Finland that it was difficult to find a welder from Estonia who was ready straight away, in other words good enough for clients. The same applied to other companies in the industry. Welding is a good example of work where new working methods and machines are so complex that people coming from, say, Latvia or Ukraine did not necessarily master them right away. Different countries also have different standards for welding work. So training was needed. Typically, Hansavest gives a new worker two weeks of training, after which they are ready to work for a client. Even though the newcomers are professionals, 95 per cent need additional training. Whatever the field, today’s work tasks are not simple.
Why do we do what we do?
How would Janek Sirg like to develop Hansavest in the longer term? “It’s easy to start a staffing company,” Janek begins with a smile. When he thinks of a certain kind of entrepreneur in the industry, he pictures a man in a black leather jacket driving a black BMW X5. The company’s capacity is 30 workers at most, made up of the original workers and their friends. There is no ambition to develop the business. At the other extreme are the big staffing firms with their fancy, shiny head offices and the other expensive trappings of a large corporation.
“We want to be a professional operator that people want to work with,” he begins. “That applies above all to the workers we place.” Hansavest does not seek to make a profit by paying its workers minimum wages.
Janek looks at business through people. “Deep down, we are all the same kind of people. Everyone is good at something.”
“I think about the big picture and I set up the company. But I’m not a good welder. Someone else is, and they need to develop in exactly that trade just as much as I need to develop in what I do.”
And why do we need to develop? A third of life goes on sleep, a third on family, friends and free time, and a third on work. Work takes up such a large slice of our lives that people need to be satisfied with their work.
Hansavest in the future
What goal does Janek Sirg set for himself and for the company?
“I want to grow as a person. The way a tree grows,” Janek says. “Some people somehow get stuck in life and for some reason can no longer grow. Then there is no adrenaline in them and no real interest in life – it is a kind of death of its own.”
And what about Hansavest in five years’ time?
“We are a reliable staffing company that understands people and their motivations, their values and how they want to develop. We want to be a partner to client companies and their HR teams, helping comprehensively with all matters concerning their staff. We are an attractive company both for businesses and for the workers we recruit.”
If the goal is achieved, Hansavest will be surrounded by positive energy. You will practically be able to smell the right atmosphere around it. Then Janek Sirg can start thinking about his next goal.
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