Financial Services Center has a great sense of community
“We all make Uponor together.”
Meet:
- Esa Äärelä
- Senior Specialist, Invoice to Pay
- Uponor Oyj
- Helsinki, Finland
Meet Esa Äärelä, Senior Specialist, Invoice to Pay, who works for Uponor’s Financial Services Center in Helsinki, Finland. With many years of experience in accounting and accounts payable he feels energised to work in a team where he can learn from his colleagues who are a good mix of ages and nationalities.
Originally, from Sodankylä, Finnish Lapland, Esa moved to Southern Finland almost 20 years ago. During his extensive career in finance, he worked first as an accountant for six years. Since 2001, Esa has worked with accounts payable in different industries.
To Uponor Esa came to work in the newly established shared Financial Services Center in October 2019. He is a part of Invoice to Pay team and is responsible for Uponor Infra’s accounts payable. Daily work includes handling invoices in financial systems. This means forwarding invoices and targeting them to right orders as well as moving invoices to accounting and advising in accounts payable matters. Due to his experience in accounting, Esa also assists accountants and controllers with accounting duties for monthly reporting.
“I am glad that my work includes a lot of contacts with different stakeholders e.g. sourcing.”
Invoice to Pay team consists currently of eight people plus summer trainees. After a quick and somewhat challenging start when Esa felt that all he was doing was trying to catch up with work, team works well together and things have settled down. The team has carefully divided responsibilities. This division of responsibilities has been a good thing and makes work more efficient. Now they have even time make improvements to processes.
“The division of responsibilities makes work more efficient and we have time to further develop processes.“
Esa feels that the best thing about his job is that he can work independently, but still be a part of a team. He can quite well manage his workload and working times. Certain things like monthly reporting come as given, but you know these dates well in advance and can plan your work accordingly.
With approximately 30 employees, shared Financial Services Center gathers work previously done in multiple locations to one place. It took a bit time for the newly established team to get all the pieces together and find common way of doing things. Nevertheless, Esa feels that his colleagues are a great bunch of people of different ages and nationalities.
“It is nice to work with people from different backgrounds and who have different ways of doing things. You learn a lot from them.”
According to Esa, the colleagues in Financial Service Center and around the company are nice and easy to approach. You can always ask questions if you have problems and it is nice just to have chat with them. Superiors are great although establishing new shared Financial Services Center has required quite a lot of work from them. Superiors always think of employees’ best. Sense of community can be felt in the workplace and Esa hopes this continues. In the future, it would be great to get even more interaction with all Financial Services Center’s stakeholders.
“We all make Uponor together.”
Esa feels that Uponor as an employer is a good one. It is a traditional company where ways of working can be deeply rooted and certain things can feel a bit old-fashioned, but there is a lot of pride in what we do and employees are well looked after. It is quite unique how Uponor has been able develop itself as a company during the years and has now a broad offering.
When Esa is not working, he enjoys wiring down by doing long walks in the forest. He has two dog friends who he takes out with his family. Another great way for him to get mind off from work is football. He is a big fan of English football and especially Liverpool FC. He has been supporting the club since 1981 and has even been to Liverpool to watch their games a couple of times. Those are trips to remember.
#myuponor #uponorians #weatuponor
“I am glad that my work includes a lot of contacts with different stakeholders e.g. sourcing.”
Invoice to Pay team consists currently of eight people plus summer trainees. After a quick and somewhat challenging start when Esa felt that all he was doing was trying to catch up with work, team works well together and things have settled down. The team has carefully divided responsibilities. This division of responsibilities has been a good thing and makes work more efficient. Now they have even time make improvements to processes.
“The division of responsibilities makes work more efficient and we have time to further develop processes.“
Esa feels that the best thing about his job is that he can work independently, but still be a part of a team. He can quite well manage his workload and working times. Certain things like monthly reporting come as given, but you know these dates well in advance and can plan your work accordingly.
With approximately 30 employees, shared Financial Services Center gathers work previously done in multiple locations to one place. It took a bit time for the newly established team to get all the pieces together and find common way of doing things. Nevertheless, Esa feels that his colleagues are a great bunch of people of different ages and nationalities.
“It is nice to work with people from different backgrounds and who have different ways of doing things. You learn a lot from them.”
According to Esa, the colleagues in Financial Service Center and around the company are nice and easy to approach. You can always ask questions if you have problems and it is nice just to have chat with them. Superiors are great although establishing new shared Financial Services Center has required quite a lot of work from them. Superiors always think of employees’ best. Sense of community can be felt in the workplace and Esa hopes this continues. In the future, it would be great to get even more interaction with all Financial Services Center’s stakeholders.
“We all make Uponor together.”
Esa feels that Uponor as an employer is a good one. It is a traditional company where ways of working can be deeply rooted and certain things can feel a bit old-fashioned, but there is a lot of pride in what we do and employees are well looked after. It is quite unique how Uponor has been able develop itself as a company during the years and has now a broad offering.
When Esa is not working, he enjoys wiring down by doing long walks in the forest. He has two dog friends who he takes out with his family. Another great way for him to get mind off from work is football. He is a big fan of English football and especially Liverpool FC. He has been supporting the club since 1981 and has even been to Liverpool to watch their games a couple of times. Those are trips to remember.
#myuponor #uponorians #weatuponor