Oksana Izmailova, Chief Human Resources Director of iGaming-holding company PIN-UP Global invites market professionals to get more closely acquainted with PIN-UP and its team at the upcoming SBC Summit in Lisbon.
Oksana, on September 24-26 PIN-UP will be one of the largest participants of SBC Summit. Tell us about your involvement.
We will be represented by a large delegation in Lisbon. At our stand, number C350, anyone can meet the team and learn more about PIN-UP. As always, we plan our booth to be visible, functional and easy to find for our partners.
I think SBC Summit is an effective event where you can see market trends and meet potential candidates. In addition, there are separate zones for networking, where it will be possible to find representatives of our team in different areas of business. And these are tech, payments, affiliates, product, finance, marketing and many others. Therefore, our stand is an ideal place for organising meetings.
Are you talking about hiring people? The event will feature specialists from the HR Department – will it be possible to find out about open vacancies in the holding company?
Absolutely!!! I can definitely say that this is a feature of PIN-UP, because we understand – to create the best product and be an industry leader, you need to hire the best. And trade shows like this are a great recruiting opportunity.
We are constantly hiring as the holding company is growing rapidly. Currently, we have more than 400 vacancies in various areas. For example, now, if we talk about hot vacancies, we are looking for Head of Igaming, COCS (chief of contact centre), Head of Poker, Head of Events, CFO and HRBP. By the way, over the last year our team has increased by 1,300 employees.
What do you look for when selecting a team and what qualities should a candidate possess to work at PIN-UP?
We are continuously looking for highly-qualified specialists who are able to apply their experience and knowledge to achieve our common goals. It is important for us that each new team member has not only technical competence, but is also ready for continuous development and training.
After all, our business is very dynamic and fast-growing. And it is important that all team members are able to adapt quickly, learn new tools and be flexible.
Our ideal employee corresponds to a certain portrait based on the values of our holding. These are leadership, professionalism, results orientation, teamwork and open communication. It is not easy to gather such specialists together, but it is possible!
We have a very cool and professional team: everyone is responsible for their own area of work, but we are definitely all moving in the same direction. Once hired, we continue to invest in the development of our employees. There is internal and external training, opportunities for career growth and professional development.
What kind of training does PIN-UP Holding offer? Can team members choose external education?
At PIN-UP, we are actively developing the Learning & Development Department. We create customised training courses for the needs of different business areas and functions of the holding company with their examples and cases, develop our own LMS (Learning Management System), and additionally, we purchase external training courses to meet the needs of specialists.
For specialists whose work involves the active use of English, we offer specialised English courses, which we develop ourselves taking into account the specifics of their work. That is, the English course depends on what our specialists do and what vocabulary they need.
We also actively develop a culture of knowledge sharing. We create professional communities, encourage PIN-UP specialists to share and exchange knowledge and expertise with colleagues.
How do you manage to retain specialists?
Oh, this is a separate, very large area of work. As I have already said, we are constantly growing, and our specialists are growing with us. Accordingly, PIN-UP is constantly offering opportunities to try themselves in new roles.
Many of our specialists, who today occupy top positions in the holding, came to lower positions and grew within PIN-UP. We also have an atmosphere of openness at all stages – every member of the team can ask the C-Level any question they are interested in. This eliminates misunderstandings and gives everyone a clear understanding of where their area of responsibility begins and ends.
We have very competitive salaries, an extended social package, and the possibility of relocation. All this contributes to attracting and retaining the best specialists. The opportunity to work with different geos, go on business trips, get additional training. Working with very strong and professional colleagues, the best in the market – this is what makes up our magnetism.
Sounds good. And how does the holding company help its specialists if they want to relocate?
We try to react quickly to changes in the labour market and constantly integrate modern trends into the work of our holding company. And, of course, we have new positions, such as, for example, relocation managers, to support employees in the process of adaptation to a new country of residence.
These managers help with official employment, obtaining working status, and solving various everyday issues in the new country, both for the employee and his/her family.
Do you use new technologies to recruit and retain talent?
Yes, of course. In today’s world, you can’t do without it. There is no hiding from AI any more. So we are actively introducing new technologies to improve the work of our holding company.
We have created our own social network with elements of gamification, on the basis of which we have developed an LMS (which I have already mentioned) for training employees. Currently, we are creating an ATS (Applicant Tracking System) for recruiting and a HRM (Human Resource Management) for People Partners working with their teams.
Also in the works is an AI assistant that will answer questions from employees. This will significantly speed up and improve the quality of answers, as well as offload our People Partners.
By the way, if we talk not about new technologies, but think about interesting innovations instead, we launched the “Donate Vacation” project. Our employees, who do not always go on vacation, can take advantage of this initiative and donate days, and PIN-UP will convert them into money for Ukrainian and international funds, which will be chosen by the employee themselves.
What challenges do you see in retaining talent in today’s business world in the iGaming market, especially in the context of international companies?
In talent retention, we see several key challenges. Anything that can be automated should be automated so that employees are not doing routine work. Also, the role of managers is very important, as they need to assign tasks correctly and help employees accomplish them. And building a talent pool, especially for management positions, is critical.
The advantage of PIN-UP is the availability of budgets for experimentation, which allows us to try new things and implement successful solutions. So, again, I invite you to visit our booth C350 at the SBC Summit in Lisbon, meet us, have a coffee and discuss everything.
