Women we rely on

For the first half of the day Jacklyn is on her own, helping her Asian colleagues to solve their IT issues. Her IT colleagues in Germany and the U.K. work in different time zones and might not be able to support Nordmann Asia until seven hours later. That’s unthinkable for Jacklyn, especially if it would impact day-to-day business needs. “I do my best to understand the IT issues and resolve them as quickly as possible,” Jacklyn says.

During her first six months on the job, she also spent time with the European IT team to hone her IT skills and become equipped to provide the necessary support to the business. Despite the time difference and the many new experiences, she learned the ropes quickly. Although she is part of an international IT team, she is the only IT expert at Nordmann in Singapore, so her services are in high demand. The Managing Director and her colleagues in Singapore and the Asian offices are always very understanding and wait patiently without complaint. Jacklyn is grateful to each and every one of them.

Nordmann allows employees to take courses to continue their professional development. With the support of her team leader and managing director in Singapore, Jacklyn has also pursued opportunities to further expand her skillset and use new IT technologies.

Nordmann Asia’s IT capabilities are now on the same level as Europe, thanks to Jacklyn. Some of the highest praise for her work has come from Jacklyn’s managing director in Singapore, who said, “Before, we were separated by several thousand kilometers, several hours of time difference, and a language barrier in communication between non-IT users and IT professionals. In one fell swoop, Jacklyn eliminated all of those problems for us. All of us in Singapore are enjoying the benefits Jacklyn brings to our team.” It doesn‘t get better than that!

Starting a new job is challenging enough, but what about having to do it in a foreign language? Aleksandra Pietak, originally from Poland, joined Nordmann UK’s team in February this year. She works as a bilingual customer service representative, doing business in English and German rather than her native language of Polish. She knows German well because her mother was a German teacher.

“Lexie”, as Aleksandra is called by her colleagues, grew up in Poland but has spent most of her adult life in the UK. This has given her an appreciation of different cultures that she now applies to her work in customer service. Nordmann, of course, has been supportive all along: “What helped me the most at first was the tailored one-on-one training I received. Then, after I had the hang of things, I continued to get the support I needed but also the freedom to grow and learn on my own,” Lexie recalls.

Lexie’s team in the UK gave her a warm welcome and did everything they could to get her off to a smooth start. Since then she has settled in and is continuing to progress with every new task she’s assigned. Recently, she took over as a vacation replacement for her Spanish colleague – and lo and behold: “It was actually a great learning experience! It wasn’t entirely stress-free, of course, but my colleague was very pleased with the work I did. I learned a lot – including how to write ’delivery date not confirmed’ in Spanish,” Lexie says with a laugh.

It is the day-to-day international cooperation, team spirit and words of appreciation that she finds especially inspiring about having Nordmann as an employer. Lexie recalls a few highlights: “One exciting experience, for example, was when we celebrated International Women’s Day. I really enjoyed interacting with our other colleagues around the world and hearing their stories. It was also special to meet Markus Grulich, Nordmann’s Global Sales Director Monomers & Optical, when he came from Germany to visit the UK office. I found him very motivating and he made me feel like an important part of the team.”