Jon Hellevig:
Employee Engagement in Russia – How to Build a Corporate Culture of Engagement, Customer Focus and Innovation (Preview version).

The e-book can be downloaded free of charge here.

You can also access the select articles from the book on our blog here.

This is a new Awara Guide. Awara is a leading business administration, IT, market consulting), management and organizational consultant firm which also provides recruitment and executive search services in Russia, Ukraine and CIS countries.

In the last few years, the management theory of employee engagement has gained increasing recognition. This theory tackles the question of how a company can achieve its strategic goals by creating the conditions for human resources to thrive and for each staff member, manager, and executive to eagerly deliver their best efforts in the best interest of the business.

In this book, Jon Hellevig discusses the challenges and opportunities involved in managing a Russian organization. It is stressed that true modernization of the Russian economy can be achieved only by thoroughly reviewing the administrative practices on the macro level (level of the country) and on the micro levels, the corporate management practices and corporate cultures. The practices and culture have to be made customer focused and innovative. For this to happen the leadership of Russia, corporate owners and executives have to embrace the employee engagement theory in all governance and business management.

The book explores the qualities of the Russian worker and expels a lot of the myths of what Russians are like, while at the same time being very critical of the prevailing management practices which still to a far too great extent are based on the hierarchical and bureaucratic management models of the Soviet command system.

The book builds on Hellevig’s experience of managing Russian organizations since the 1990s and his studies of human behavior and social practices as expressed in his books: Expressions and Interpretations, All is Art, and the two books in the series of A Biological Philosophy: The Case Against Noam Chomsky and Mental Processing.

It is a fully finalized book. Nevertheless, with the view to develop a further version of the book which will take into account the experience of the larger public, we have chosen to call it a previewversion. For this purpose we have decided to publish this preview version as a free e-book to solicit the opinions of any reader. We will also actively distribute it to specialists who might be interested in the topic. As a special effort we are currently contacting a host of CEOs and HRDs working for major foreign and locally owned firms in Russia in order to incorporate their experience in the book. – Yes, what we want to do is be innovative and engage the public in this effort.

Publication details: 

Preview e-book published September 2012
Publisher: Russia Advisory Group Oy, Helsinki
publications@awaragroup.com
Copyright: Jon Hellevig
Cover by Alexandrа Mozilova on motive of painting by Henri Matisse
ISBN 978-952-99785-9-5

A print version of the final book will be due in December 2012/January 2013.

Media Requests:

Jon Hellevig
Mobile +7495-5170969
E-mail – hellevig@awaragroup.com

Eugene Isaev
Mobile +7926-2581518
E-mail – isaev@awaragroup.com

ABOUT AWARA

Awara is a leading business administration services provider on the Russian market, serving international as well as local organizations and individual entrepreneurs. Awara’s services comprise a wide array of advisory for strategic business development, establishment and investment, and the implementation and execution of our advice; covering all areas of: management consulting, law, accounting, audit, financial administration, recruitment and other HR services, and IT-development.

Awara’s advantages over others in the industry include its international background and a superior knowledge of local practices, and the combination of all fields of expertise in an integrated act of professional services that meet the client’s specific needs. Those who choose Awara as their partner in Russia enjoy truly comprehensive and cost-effective solutions that optimize their business processes and leverage their corporate knowledge, leading to an increased competitive advantage, profitable growth and enhanced shareholder value. Awara serves its clients all over Russia, from offices located in Moscow, Saint-Petersburg, Tver, Yekaterinburg and Kyiv, as well as a customer support office in Helsinki, Finland.

Awara Direct Search is the recruitment, executive search and HR management consulting arm of Awara Group. Its mission comprises assisting clients in turning strategies into reality. Areas of work comprise talent search, assessment and development; elaborating sustainable strategies for the local context; developing corporate cultures; interim management resources and succession services. Awara’s recruitment and executive search experts possess the solid experience required to provide a quality service in Russia, Ukraine and the CIS countries, based on years of experience working with global companies of all sizes and industrial dedications. Awara’s method for matching the best people with the best jobs is direct search. It is an individual search tailored to meet the challenges of the particular search assignment and designed to identify on the wide market the unique professional in demand. In Russia, Ukraine and the CIS countries, it is additionally of special importance to have a detailed knowledge of the latest governance regulations, compliance solutions, and best practices – Awara’s got it. Learn more about our recruitment services here.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jon Hellevig, Managing Partner, Awara

Jon Hellevig mounted his career in Russia at the inception of the nation’s market reforms in the early 1990’s. Hellevig gained experience with running organizations in Russia at an American-Russian joint venture SFAT, where he worked as a CFO and lawyer, and subsequently taking on the same duties for Armstrong World Industries (Central and East Europe). Hellevig is the founder and managing partner of Awara Group and the group’s recruitment and executive search company, Awara Direct Search. He is also a member of the Board of AEB (Association of European Businesses), the most influential business association for foreign companies in Russia.

As Awara’s Managing Partner, and in view of his solid experience with Russian business and Russian culture, Hellevig has acquired hands-on experience with Russian Human Resource Management. He is involved in organizational consulting and executive search with Awara Direct Search. Hellevig has also conducted extensive research on Human Resources Management theory, Corporate Culture, and social practices in Russia, and consequently written numerous articles and books on the topics.

As an inquisitive lawyer Hellevig developed an interest in the philosophy of law with the aim to answer the question: What is law? This was the inspiration behind his works, Expressions andInterpretations and All is Art. These books deal with the philosophy of law, social practices, and democratic competition. These interests further led him to deepen the studies of social practices, the fundamentals of human knowledge, and human behavior. Hellevig postulates that knowledge (or what is called so) is founded in social practices and in turn represents the individual interpretation of feelings in the context of social practices. The latter ideas form the premises for Hellevig’s linguistic theories as expressed in The Case Against Chomsky.

Hellevig has earlier written Avenir Guide to Russian Taxes (2002, 2003, 2006 English and Russian editions); Avenir Guide to Labor Laws (2002, 2003, 2006 English and Russian editions); Expressions and Interpretations, a book on the philosophy of law and the development of Russian legal practices; All is Art. On Social Practices and On Democratic Competition (2007 English, 2009 Russian Vse Tvorchestvo); The Case Against Chomsky – A Biological Philosophy Volume 1 (2010); and Mental Processing – A Biological Philosophy Volume 2 (2010). Hellevig is active in public discussions of current affairs and social structure contributing with articles and commentary in the media. He regularly lectures at international seminars on topics within his specializations.

Before entering the Russian market, Hellevig gained experience at the Central Bank of Finland; the successor bank of present day Nordea; and the private bank which is now called Mandatum – having been a co-founder of the latter. Jon Hellevig has a University degree in Law from the University of Helsinki, Finland (1985). In 1998 he acquired an MBA with the Ecole Nationale des Ponts et des Chaussees and University of Bristol Graduate School of International Business with KPMG European Training Center, 1998.

Jon Hellevig is multi-lingual with respect to the following 4 languages: English, Russian, Swedish (native) and Finnish (native); and also has knowledge of Spanish, French and German.