Employer Branding at Ciklopea: What Really Makes Us Tick?

When we considered applying for this award last summer, we recalled what we had heard many times from our potential partners: You are like a hidden gem. Are you a Croatian company?

Positive as they are, these comments on our well-established processes naturally inspire us and drive us in our efforts to continuously improve, but they also reveal that our story is still something of a mystery.

This is why I wanted to share our story with you.

What we do?

The legendary German chancellor Mr. Willy Brandt once very conveniently formulated one of those big and eternal truths: “If I’m selling to you, I speak your language. If I’m buying, dann müssen Sie Deutsch sprechen.” This sentence is at the very heart of everything that we do, so if I had to pick one word to describe our job that would be adaptation.

We develop individual language solutions for our clients to help their business operations on international markets, or to help them Deutsch sprechen.

Translation and localization are our core businesses and we employ specialized team of subject matter experts, from linguists (translators, reviewers, proofreaders, terminologists, content producers) to technology specialists (CAT, QA and DTP tools), project managers and account managers who are the driving force of the company because their job is to organize and harmonize the tasks of all stakeholders, so we may think of them as genuine wizards who sometimes can do the impossible in terms of organization and delivery.

Ciklopea and the language industry

The translation/language industry is developing and changing every day. The levels of development of various language technologies, from various CAT solutions in cloud to AI-based machine translation are visible to the user and potential clients. We are glad that we can say that we are recognized as one of the key companies in the region that, in addition to its continuous business and process improvement, sets examples for collaboration with the academic community, volunteering in the industry associations, involvement in various meetings and conferences, webinars and all other activities that are also covered on our online channels.

Combining the powers of technology and people

We believe that our narrow focus on high technological translation, in a way, shows the future because it is closely linked to development of innovative products and their launching on new markets with constant improvements and new developments that need to be adopted constantly so the product could survive.

Ciklopea team is an expanded close community because some collaborators have worked with us remotely since before the pandemic, so work in virtual teams has never been an issue for us. We are fully aware, however, that a healthy and clear communication is the key to every good relationship, so we still work on transparency and promote development of each of our employees and positions.

Even in these challenging times, Ciklopea employs new experts and collaborates with language and IT students through onboarding in accordance with the established company procedures, mentorship plans, career development plans etc.

Clear and open communication

Meetings on personal development, challenges and new initiatives are held quarterly and, in addition to monetary and other awards that confirm their good work, the employees are given recognition whenever there is a reason for that.

Likewise, the employees in their regular feedback to the management state that everyday live communication either as part of a briefing or through other means, IT support and support of their colleagues in task organization in cases of temporary overloads are extremely important.

Some of key organization values that we develop are definitely transparency, development of professional skills, personal growth and development of our employees that influences the success of our company and that is supported by the organization culture.

Of course, some of the awards that we have received over the years confirm this, but testimonials of our employees are the closest to our hearts. These testimonials feature some “organic keywords and phrases” such as: opportunity to grow and develop, great atmosphere, continuous support from colleagues, understanding of managers, development of new and innovative positions, opportunity given fresh after studies etc.

All of this inspires us and motivates us to become better and more successful.

We see our employer branding as a living and breathing thing, something that should be maintained and developed in accordance with the times, expectations and needs of our employees.