There is, however, an important distinction between being thrown in and learning on the job. After all, most of us learn best by doing. With Sandbergā€™s structured guidelines and buddy system, we make it through our first newbie weeks stronger, wiser, infinitely more caffeinated Ā­and, most importantly, ready to take responsibility for the important work we do.

Hitting the ground runningĢż?

At Sandberg, we believe that by training and supporting our new starters, weā€™re setting them up to be the best they can be ā€“ for us and for our clients. A full week (!) is set aside for induction and training. New starters are introduced to the translation industry as a whole and Sandbergā€™s position in it, as well as our vision and company values.ĢżTheyā€™re acquainted with their role and their team, their accounts and their clients. ±õ³Łā€™s a chance to get familiar with the computer-aided translation (CAT) tools they might be working with, explore the oddly named internal systems (Wookie?) and, not least, have a crack at learning their new colleaguesā€™ names from the get-go.Ģż

Ivan Gechev, a Project Manager at our Varna office in Bulgaria, was a complete newcomer to project management and the translation industry when he started at Sandberg in 2019. The induction week helped him wrap his head around not only his own role, but also where he fitted within the structure of his team and where his team fitted withinĢżtheĢżcompany.Ģż

He says: ā€œI remember being amazed by just how detailed and hands-on the training sessions were. For example, the session with Anu [our Managing Director] was key to introducing me to the informal and personal nature of our company culture.ā€ An introduction to project management with team leader Mihaela Ikonomova prepared him for what his actual working day would look like. ā€œEvery single training session,ā€ he says, ā€œprovided valuable information, whether on ISO standards, a variety of CAT tools or, for example, the intricacies of translator selection.ā€

Your buddyā€™s got your backĢż?

After the induction week, training continues in-team. ā€œBuddiesā€ and experienced colleagues are on hand to offer advice and guidance, and crucially, feedback. WhenĢżyouā€™re ready to deal with most aspects of your role independently, it can be nice to take a moment to bask in the sweet glory of mastering something new.Ģż

Yet in a fast-moving industry, the ability to be flexible and adapt quickly is key. Thatā€™s why we continue to train our employees and encourage them to learn more about special areas they might be particularly interested in, whether it be learning about search engine optimisation (SEO), improving their Icelandic or diving into one of the guidelines, for example on translation quality, fromĢż, a language data network.

The name of the gameĢż?

Another term for this is Continuing Professional Development (CPD). Required by translation service standards that Sandberg complies with such as ISO 17100, CPDĢżboils down to life-long learning. Maintaining or acquiring knowledge and skills, and developing personal qualities that aid your work, means that youā€™re engaging in CPD. What sets it apart from more formalised training is that itā€™s self-driven and systematically documented.

Acquiring and documenting our skills through CPD is good for several reasons. Not only is it an opportunity for our employees to keep learning and be challenged, they also become more agile and can help with other types of work not directly linked to their own role when there is a business need. But ultimately, we believe that well-trained and confident professionals are best equipped to provide the localisation solutions our clients are looking for.

Learning never stopsĢżĢż

Many a Sandberg heart has skipped a beat upon first receiving their Learning Units (LUs), the core of Sandbergā€™s training structure and basis for CPD.Ģż±õ³Łā€™s a bit of a wedge, to say the least. If you thought that promotion might be more easily within reach by schmoozing down the pub with your manager, you might want to think again. Our company culture reflects our Nordic values: consultative management, a focus on teamwork, transparency and equal opportunities. This means sharing knowledge, giving feedback, embracing technology and training continuously.

The LUs cover several topics such as project management, linguistic competencies, client/supplier relationships and teamwork. These topics are divided into sub-sections detailing various skills. Completing a skill is done by documenting, either through team leader observations, case studies or written summaries, how you have come to learn the skill and how you have applied it in your daily work.

Laura Karkimo, who just started her seventh year in the company, has been using the LUs to document her professional development while working towards becoming a Senior Finnish Account Linguist. Had the LUs been a physical document, hers would probably be pretty tattered by now. ā€œHaving trained and been a ā€˜buddyā€™ to several team members over the years,ā€ Laura says, ā€œI can see how the learning units give structure to training. Theyā€™re vetted, formalised and objective, ensuring consistent and fair learning opportunities across the company.ā€

However, even after so many years, Laura finds that thereā€™s no shortage of new things to learn or, indeed, relearn. She says: ā€œContinuously updated LUs, for example information on feature announcements in CAT tools, help to ensure that I do my work in a way that is the most optimal now, not in the way that was the most optimal, say, four years ago.ā€

Training ā€“ what (or who) is it good for?Ģż?

The short answer: absolutely everyone. Setting our starters up with an induction week and buddy system isnā€™t just out of theĢżgoodnessĢżof our hearts. Neither is our focus on CPD, or why we encourage our employees to keep working on their LUs. Quality translations are at the forefront of everything we do at Sandberg.Ģż

We believe that trained professionals are better at understanding what clients want and setting out with a clear idea of how to achieve that. They will, for example, know what and why reference materials are necessary and how to make the best use of them. They can effectively apply and navigate tools that aid our translations, such as glossaries, translation memories (TMs) and, if the client wants, machine translation (MT).Ģż

Investing in our employees is a way of investing in our clients ā€“ only the best results will keep our clients coming back to us.

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Recently we caught up with three of our interns and asked them about what they expected from their internships, what theyā€™ve learnt, what their challenges have been and what theyā€™re proud of achieving in their three months with Sandberg.

Jere is a student of English translation at the and interned as a Finnish Account Linguist. ā€œWhen I began my internship at Sandberg in June, the world was, as it still is, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the remote nature of this internship, I was very excited for my first professional LSP experience.ā€

ā€œAlthough this wasnā€™t my first internship, this was my first internship in a setting focused on language services, so I set some goals for myself: learning to use new tools (and getting better at using some I already knew), becoming a better translator and generally learning what itā€™s like to work in a professional setting.ā€

ā€œDespite the unusual conditions, I feel like Iā€™ll end this internship having reached all my goals and then some. Iā€™ve got to use multiple tools and become quite comfortable with them. This could have been difficult to do remotely with no one physically present to show you how everythingā€™s done, but Iā€™ve been happy to see that even ā€˜sillyā€™ questions have been met with supportive guidance all the way to the point where things are clear.ā€

ā€œThis patience is definitely important and encourages you to keep asking those questions that might seem silly: for someone starting their internship (or anything new really) in a new setting, things could easily seem a bit scary or overwhelming without this kind of supportive environment.ā€

This kind of constructive feedback boosts your confidence and encourages you to embrace learning new things.

ā€œConstructive feedback from more experienced translators has been invaluable, even more so in cases where the subject matter might be familiar but the client has their own unique style that requires you to adapt, for example.ā€

ā€œThis kind of constructive feedback also boosts your confidence and encourages you to embrace learning new things: when youā€™re confident, the bar to try and learn new things is much lower than if youā€™re afraid of failing.ā€

ā€œIā€™ve worked with many different people and every interaction has been pleasant and everyone has offered help when I needed it, for which Iā€™m grateful.ā€

Lotta is a masterā€™s student in translation at in Sweden and interned as a Swedish Account Linguist. ā€œMy goals for the internship were to learn as much as possible about what itā€™s like to work as a translator, about translating and about how to handle getting stuck on segments, retrieving information and working to tight deadlines.ā€

ā€œI feel like Iā€™ve learnt to translate much faster and how to find translations of tricky words. Both of those things will be useful to me in the future and Iā€™m very grateful! Iā€™ve translated very different texts and Iā€™ve learnt project management. I feel like Iā€™ve really developed my skills.ā€

±õ³Łā€™s easy to doubt yourself and your capability, but if youā€™re persistent you will prevail sooner than you think.

But what about the challenges? ā€œProject management for sure! It was difficult in the beginning, but it got easier and easier and now it is not difficult any more. There was a lot to learn in the beginning about translating as well, but it all sticks eventually and you shouldnā€™t worry too much.ā€

ā€œ±õ³Łā€™s easy to doubt yourself and your capability, but if youā€™re persistent you will prevail sooner than you think. As I mentioned before, I do feel like my translation skills have improved significantly, which I am certain will help me during my last year at university. ±õ³Łā€™s been a challenge but also a blast!ā€

Jesper has a degree in Spanish, another in video game translation and localisation, and has just finished a third in Swedish. Heā€™s based remotely in Manchester and interned as a Swedish Translator. ā€œWhen I started this internship, my main goal was to learn as much as possible and really get a sense of how it is to work as an in-house translator, and as a translator in general. I had previously done some freelance work, however I never received any feedback and felt a bit stuck. At Sandberg, not only did I receive constructive feedback on a lot of my jobs, but I also felt like a valued member of the team.ā€

ā€œThe Swedish translator team were extremely helpful and always willing to help me and provide me with great feedback and useful tips. With regards to the ISO quality standards, they now finally make sense to me and I understand how they are implemented in an agency and in a translatorā€™s daily work. Finally, with regards to the tools, I have learnt how to work with five different tools.ā€

ā€œIā€™m very happy about the achievements mentioned above, and equally happy about the relationships I have been able to make here at Sandberg. Even though everything was remote, I still managed to make some friends. I have thoroughly enjoyed my daily contact with the Swedish translator team, the project managers and of course, my team manager.ā€

ā€œPrior to starting the internship, I was a bit nervous whether I would be able to measure up to what was expected of me. I was questioning whether my language skills were up to par and whether I would be creative enough for the marketing jobs. Iā€™ve found that these insecurities were just that, insecurities.ā€

I appreciated especially being treated as a valued member of the team, and not necessarily as an intern.

ā€œWith regards to being creative, itā€™s true that I have at times felt a bit scared to alter a text too much. This is as well something that my peers have pointed out. I believe this to be my biggest challenge moving forward, to trust myself enough to focus on translating meaning and not merely words, and thus creating the best translation possible. With all the help I have received from the rest of the team I am sure that this will come with time, and of course with effort from my side.ā€

ā€œIā€™ve also learnt that investing some extra time in doing the proper research and reading through the references does make a great difference. This is especially important for a generalist, with so many different clients that all require different solutions and wordings (a lot of them being merely preferential, as Iā€™ve learnt).ā€

ā€œOverall, Iā€™m very happy with my experience here at Sandberg. Iā€™ve learnt a lot and my time here has passed incredibly quickly. I appreciated especially being treated as a valued member of the team, and not necessarily as an intern. It was clear that not only was I here for my own learning, but also in order to have a positive impact on the company. This, for me, makes all the difference and encourages you to work harder and feel a lot more motivated.ā€

Why not start your career at one of the worldā€™s top specialist translation companies, getting guidance, support and training along the way? To find out more about what we do and the employment opportunities we currently have available, take a look at our jobs and vacancies pages.

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Our celebration plans are being updated in view of recent global events, but one way in which we plan to mark this significant milestone is ready to see the light of day: our new brand. For decades weā€™ve been known as STP, but from now on, you can call us Sandberg. Weā€™ve designed a bright new logo to go with our new name, and you can read the story behind it below.

Honouring our heritage, projecting our future aspirations

The language services market is evolving at a rapid pace, with consolidations, acquisitions and ever-closer integration and collaboration between language service providers (LSPs and content creators). Weā€™re evolving our services to offer even more value to our clients beyond translation. To reflect this, we felt it was right to update our name to one that is flexible and distinctive.

Our Nordic roots are important to us. Our founder is a Dane and even today many members of our management and production staff are Nordic. This has been essential to the formation of our company culture, where we value directness, openness and honesty. Sandberg is a classic Scandinavian surname, translating roughly as ā€œsand mountainā€ (many Scandinavian surnames have geographical references).

The name has a number of key advantages:

• ±õ³Łā€™s distinctive and stands out in the LSP market
• ±õ³Łā€™s clear and easy to pronounce in many languages
• It adapts as our service offering evolves

We also loved it because it avoids some of the familiar naming tropes in our industry (such as trans- and lingua-) and (perhaps most importantly) itā€™s not an acronym!

A modern responsive logo

Our new logo incorporates our new name whilst maintaining our familiar trademark blue. This darker shade is accompanied by a brighter shade of blue that pops in digital applications such as social media and our website. Blue represents a common element that ties all the Nordic nations together: the sea. ?

The two dots are imbued with subtle imagery. The hollow dot references the letter Ć„ used in Danish, Norwegian and Swedish, and is a nod to our Nordic heritage and core translation offering. Together the dots can also be taken to represent a diaeresis (commonly known as an umlaut), which appears in various languages in the letters Ƥ, ƶ and Ć¼.

The dot device is offset by a friendly lowercase wordmark. We chose to split our name in two and stack the parts on top of each other next to the dots to create a counterbalance. The ascenders of the ā€˜dā€™ and ā€˜bā€™ have been cut at the same angle to add energy and interest.

As with almost any identity these days, ours will primarily be encountered in a digital context, which was a guiding light during the design process. This can create constraints in terms of available width and height, hence the need for the logo to be ā€˜responsiveā€™. With this in mind, weā€™ve created a version for use in contexts with little vertical space, as well as one without the wordmark for use as our social media avatar and favicon. It also exists in a number of colour applications, offering much greater flexibility than our previous logo.

The entire design process was handled in-house by our Communications department as part of a broader update to our branding that has been gradually rolling out over the past year.

A statement of intent

Musing on the new identity, Sandbergā€™s Managing Director, Anu Carnegie-Brown says: ā€œFor our clients, this means a more recognisable, distinctive presence in a crowded marketplace. It is also a sign of our ambition to expand our service portfolio to our LSP clients by offering them much more than just translation.ā€

On a practical note, our website and email domains will remain stptrans.com for the time being. The new brand does not affect our legal name, sa¹ś¼Ź“«Ć½., meaning invoicing and payment arrangements will not change either. You might continue to see STP on some communications in the near future as we complete the process of updating all our materials.

ā€œWeā€™ve got some exciting plans in store for 2020 to mark the milestone of our 25^th anniversary. Our new identity represents the first stage of those plans and sets the tone for the way weā€™ll communicate with our client and supplier partners from now on,ā€ Anu concludes.

For enquiries relating to Sandbergā€™s new identity, please contact Max Naylor, our Content and Communications Officer, via communications@stptrans.com.

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We have implemented an internal coronavirus policy to minimise the risk of passing the disease on from colleague to colleague. In line with the steps taken by many other companies, we have restricted business travel to and from affected regions. Weā€™re also taking steps to prevent employees showing symptoms from working in our offices.

For many years, weā€™ve been a pioneering company when it comes to flexible and remote working. A full 55% of our workforce across the UK, Denmark, Sweden and Finland already work remotely on a permanent basis. Many employees based in our UK and Sweden offices regularly work from home one or more days a week. We are also reviewing how we can facilitate working from home where possible for employees who are currently office based.

The fact that over half of our workforce in four key countries already works from home means that we are well positioned to maintain the continuity of our business during an event such as the spread of COVID-19. Physical contact between employees is minimised, and remote workers are less likely to contract the virus as they are not required to use public transport on a daily basis or sit in close proximity to colleagues.

Weā€™re committed to not making any of our employees suffer financially if theyā€™re suddenly landed with unplanned childcare issues and canā€™t work as normal. Starting today, weā€™re talking to each parent on our payroll to see how their working hours will be impacted if and when their childā€™s school is closed. Weā€™ll agree flexible hours and accept exceptional working hours earlier and later in the day to maintain our service levels.

As for some of our clients remote working will be a new and unfamiliar challenge, we thought this would be a good opportunity to share some tips for adjusting to life working from home.

1. Keep the communication going

At Sandberg, we use a few different tools to keep business communication and office camaraderie going no matter where our employees are based. In addition to annual team get-togethers in person and daily communication via email, we use Microsoft Teams for instant messaging. We encourage employees to use it for informal chats as well as business-related ones ā€“ this is vital for building relationships between colleagues, but also staying on top of each otherā€™s wellbeing.

One of the commonest complaints from remote workers is the sense of isolation. Sometimes you just need to vent about a stressful day ā€“ in an office youā€™d normally just turn to your nearest colleague ā€“ so itā€™s important to be able to do this even when youā€™re not physically sitting side by side.

We also use Yammer, a Facebook-like social platform, to encourage the kind of conversations that would normally emerge around the watercooler or whilst making a cup of tea. People can post links to articles they found interesting, make social plans or just swap GIFs. This type of platform isnā€™t too disruptive ā€“ you can pop in and out as and when you have time ā€“ and it creates the sense of an ongoing series of conversations that are open to everyone.

2. Set workā€“life boundaries

Something thatā€™s easy to sleepwalk into when working remotely is the blurring of lines between your work life and home life. Although the allure of working on a laptop in bed in your pyjamas might sound appealing at first, this can lead to increased stress and discomfort as it disrupts sleep hygiene and can lead to ergonomic problems.

Working at the same desk or in the same room every day at the same time creates a sense of rhythm and routine, and creates a mental association with work and that area of your home. Some of our employees incorporate a daily walk into their routine, either in the morning so it feels like theyā€™re walking to ā€˜the officeā€™, or during their lunch break. This creates a physical and mental separation between the ā€˜workā€™ and ā€˜homeā€™ parts of your day.

Physical movement is also important. The benefits to your body of getting up from your desk regularly are widely recognised, but it can also have a positive mental impact. Stepping away from the desk to do stretches or gaze out the window provides a small moment of respite and refreshment and can help reduce stress peaks. Another good tip is to eat lunch away from your working area in order to give yourself a proper break.

3. Enjoy your new-found freedom

Despite its pitfalls, remote work has lots of perks. The time saved from not having to commute for an hour or two to and from an office every day allows you to spend more time having a leisurely lunch, cooking an ambitious dinner or getting your washing done so thereā€™s one less thing to do on your day off.

Not having to share your space with colleagues also liberates you to work in the way that suits you best ā€“ whether thatā€™s in your favourite onesie, whilst drumming along to Finnish death metal or sat on a cushion on the floor (the latter not recommended, of course, for ergonomic reasons). This is something many of our employees treasure and is a perk that might be tough to give up upon returning to the office.

Translators are often said to be a species unto their own ā€“ their job requires intense focus and concentration. It can be hard to guarantee the conditions that facilitate this in a noisy office environment, especially if that space is shared with non-translator colleagues. Working from home can mean fewer distractions and a more tranquil working environment, which is why many of our linguists prefer this working arrangement.

At the moment, health and wellbeing are at the top of everyoneā€™s minds. Weā€™re keeping a close eye on the rapidly evolving COVID-19 situation and will ramp up our business continuity efforts as needed.

We believe weā€™re well placed to tackle the challenges that lie ahead and we encourage all our clients, employees and suppliers to follow government health guidance in their region to help minimise the spread of this disease and safeguard their own health.

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This August saw the celebration of the third year of our presence in Varna, Bulgaria. Back in 2016, we started the process of setting up an office in a city and a country that was previously unknown to us. As talent in our industry is sometimes hard to find, we knew we had to look beyond our traditional home markets of the UK and the Nordic countries to continue our growth.

Varna became an obvious choice after our initial visit. This Black Sea resort is popular with tourists in the summer, but dies down somewhat in the winter. ±õ³Łā€™s brimming with a local, young and motivated workforce, but itā€™s not so large as to feel impersonal. It struck a good balance for us as a company.

Weā€™d heard success stories from another UK-based language service provider whoā€™d set up shop in Varna, and this partnership was crucial in the early days. STPā€™s Managing Director, Anu Carnegie Brown, says: ā€œWe saw that theyā€™d built a successful branch there, and they certainly seemed to have great team spirit and staff morale. In fact they helped us immensely to get started.ā€

Our expansion into Bulgaria represented a turning point in STPā€™s history. Until then, weā€™d only ever had a physical presence in the UK or the Nordic countries. As our no-nonsense culture is a crucial part of our DNA, we were worried about how that would come over in a new country. What we found was that our Bulgarian colleagues shared our open, purposeful communication style, which has long been a defining feature of STP and a key to its success.

Anu concludes, ā€œWhat a journey itā€™s been: a steep learning curve with exponential team growth, plenty of trial and error from the management team and heroic personal contributions from our Bulgarian colleagues who joined us at the start. I remember going to Varna in March 2016 to interview the first PM applicants, and I see what a long way weā€™ve come already. We have a thriving PM team as well as HR, admin and tech staff in Varna. These are motivated, smart people, who get the STP ethos, our work ethic and our Nordic casual dress code.ā€

Employee office exchange

With just under half of our employees working remotely and the rest spread across our offices in the UK, Sweden and Bulgaria, we think itā€™s vital to try and find ways for our employees to form relationships with each other and gain an understanding of their colleaguesā€™ work ā€“ no matter where theyā€™re based.

One of the ways we try and foster internal connections is to offer our staff the chance to go and work in our Varna office for a week at a time. With the bulk of our project managers based in this location, many of our translators and UK-based employees will never have met their Bulgarian colleagues in person.

Turning what can be impersonal digital relationships into friendly, personal ones through face-to-face meetings improves colleaguesā€™ mutual respect, understanding of their roles and responsibilities, and means we get to know each other better as people, rather than just workmates.

Anna Lenartowska is one of our remote project managers, based in Devon. She recently went to work in Bulgaria for a week, and greatly enjoyed the experience: ā€œSpending a week in the Varna office was a lot of fun. Working remotely full time, itā€™s very easy to get stuck in a bubble of your own small team and certain way of doing stuff.ā€

Anna got to know her fellow project managers in person and learned new ways of working too: ā€œSpending time with other teams not only allowed me to finally put faces to the names, but also pick up some new tips and tricks.ā€

Another plus was the chance to share her knowledge and experience. Anna continues, ā€œI also spent some time shadowing junior PMs, offering advice on things that may be obvious to more experienced PMs but not necessarily to newbies, such as translator selection, CAT tool troubleshooting, etc.ā€

Of course, a trip to the resort town of Varna wasnā€™t all about the work ā€“ there were some secondary benefits for the soul to boot: ā€œIt was also really nice to enjoy some proper summer weather for a bit!ā€ Anna concludes.

The post Company news: September 2019 appeared first on sa¹ś¼Ź“«Ć½.

Which languages do you speak, Alex?
Bulgarian, English, Russian and Ukrainian, and a bit of French, I guess, though maybe not enough that counts! I was born in Ukraine, and Iā€™m Russian by nationality.

Where did you grow up?
In , itā€™s a city on the Black Sea. Similar to Varna, but bigger. Iā€™ve lived in Bulgaria on and off, I left and then I came back, so altogether Iā€™d say six years.

What did you want to be when you were growing up?
Well, I didnā€™t exactly have a dream job, but I always knew I was going to be connected to languages in some way. I wanted to be a translator at one point, an interpreter, but then suddenly I changed my mind. But hey, Iā€™m still working in the translation industry. I didnā€™t have an exact job in mind, I guess.

So youā€™d call yourself a bit of a language nerd?
Yeah, maybe. Iā€™m a grammar Nazi for sure, but Iā€™m [mostly] interested in cultures.

What was your first job?
My very first one was here in Bulgaria, in Varna. I was a hostess in a hotel in Golden Sands. It was a five-star hotel, and I was a hostess for four months. It was hard because we would work twelve hours straight ā€“ two daysā€™ work, two daysā€™ rest. It was tough, so obviously I made up my mind not to work in the hospitality industry.

How did you go from hospitality to working in the translation industry?
±õ³Łā€™s been quite a ride! I always wanted to do something with languages. I didnā€™t exactly want to be a translator into Russian, maybe once a long time ago, but now not really. I just wanted to try something different. Before Sandberg, I was working at an IT company doing customer support, but thatā€™s totally different from what I do now.

What does a normal day look like for a project manager at Sandberg?
Coffee. I need my coffee and then I can start the day!

We receive projects from the client that we need to set up in our system, prepare in the CAT tool (Trados Studio or memoQ, for example), optimise as best possible for the linguist, and we send out purchase orders, keep in constant contact with the client and linguist, answer queries from all possible sides. And in the meantime, we also handle old projects from previous days.

We also have meetings with other teams, vendor management and client services. Thereā€™s also approving projects for invoicing, so a lot of stuff!

Whatā€™s the most important quality for a good project manager?
There are a lot of things a good project manager should have. Attention to detail is important. Patience.

Finding the time for everything is also super important; time tracking. Sometimes the whole process can swamp you, but you need to keep an eye on things because you have several projects ongoing at the same time and you canā€™t be engulfed by one.

Multitasking is another very important thing! ±õ³Łā€™s hard to pick just one.

What is your favourite part of your role?
Getting my coffee! Delivering the projects, on time with great quality, without any issues. Thatā€™s the best, best thing.

Any advice for new people starting out in the industry?
My advice would be not to panic and not to get stressed by all the stuff, because itā€™s a lot. Iā€™ve been panicking myself, but you just need to get past it and youā€™ll be alright after some time!

Machine translation ā€“ friend or foe?
From the training Iā€™ve had, I understand that if the MT is good, then itā€™s good for the linguist. It can increase productivity and then itā€™s a friend. When proper MT is used for the proper job, then itā€™s definitely a friend.

If you could do any other job for a week, what would it be?
Testing beaches in different countries. Iā€™d get cocktails and read a book. I like to chill!

If you could wake up and be fluent in a new language, what would it be?
French. Iā€™ve always wanted to speak French. Iā€™ve been studying French all my life and Iā€™m still not fluent!

Whatā€™s your favourite word?
Bulgarian is a foreign language to me. I really like the word Š³ŃƒŃˆŠŗŠ°Š¼Ģż(²µ³ÜÅ”°ģ²¹³¾), ā€œto hugā€. Slavs tend to make words smaller and cuter, especially in Russian. Š“ŃƒŃˆŠø (²µ³ÜÅ”¾±)Ģżis a short version of this word and I really like it, I use it a lot at home!

My mother tongue, so to speak, is Russian. Ukrainian is a bit harder for me even though I was born there. But theyā€™re so different. People say Bulgarian is like Russian, but thatā€™s not true. I mean the Slavic languages are all similar, but still different.

People born in Odessa like me speak Russian mainly. But now with the political situation itā€™s a bit more complicated, I suppose.

Whatā€™s something about you that surprises people?
When I was smaller, I moved to the United Arab Emirates. I canā€™t speak Arabic though, I can only write my name.

People at work know me as a positive person, but once I showed up really tired and moody and everyone was asking if I was sick!

Describe yourself in three words.
Positive, international, sociable. I like to be around people. If I was working from home Iā€™d go crazy!

Do you have any hidden talents?
I can do origami, but only flowers, so Iā€™m not sure thatā€™s a talent! I can rollerblade pretty well and iceskate. I broke my hand when I was little, but that didnā€™t stop me. When my cast was removed, the first thing I did was go back and rollerblade.

±õ³Łā€™s fikaĢżtime. Tea or coffee?
Coffee, with milk and sugar.

Whatā€™s your idea of a perfect day?
To go to the beach and have drinks and see friends and listen to good music. ±õ³Łā€™s summer, thatā€™s all I can think about right now. I like winter too though, I prefer the cold to the heat. In winter we often go to the beach as well, just with coffee.

How do you unwind at the end of a long day?
I like to watch TV shows just to chill. I recently started watching Stranger Things. ±õ³Łā€™s good, really interesting. Before that I watched Game of Thrones. I was really disappointed by the last series! I recommend trying the books, I loved the books.

Where is your favourite place to be?
Where my close people are, my best friends and my husband. People are important to me.

Your dream travel destination?
Iā€™m going to Rome in October ā€“ Iā€™m really looking forward to that. Iā€™ve never been to Italy!

Describe Sandberg in three words.
Welcoming, challenging, fun.

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This spring, STP welcomed a group of interns from the in Norway. The interns were based in the head office in Whiteley. During the internship period, they got a chance to learn how to use CAT tools in practice and to become acquainted with the process of translation as a professional activity.

Nathalia Bru, who was one of the interns this spring, felt her time in Whiteley was fruitful: ā€œI found the internship to be a really good experience and am very happy that I got the chance to come and work with all the great people here at STP. Iā€™ve learned the importance of deadlines and how it is to work a full day. Iā€™ve also taken all of the feedback in and it will definitely come in handy in the future.ā€

STPā€™s cooperation with the University of Agder is a longstanding one. Learning and Development Manager Raisa McNab is proud that STP is part of the universityā€™s BA in Translation studentsā€™ journeys towards a career in language services: ā€œEach semester, we welcome one to four interns from Agder who come to STP for a period of three to four months during their year abroad. They are exposed to the day-to-day life of a busy translation company, and at the end of their internship have a very concrete, realistic view of what life is like as a professional linguist.ā€

STPā€™s Managing Director Anu Carnegie-Brown views internships as beneficial for all parties: ā€œA typical translation graduate coming out of university has to work hard on two fronts of their professional capability: the quality of their output and the speed of it. There is a cost to this learning curve, both to the individual and to the company who first employs them in-house. Good-quality internships reduce the time and cost of the learning curve, and bring ROI to the university, enterprise and graduate.ā€

Variety is the spice of life: HR matters in an international LSP

The translation industry exists because people need to and want to communicate across language barriers. This means that many translation companies are not only full of multilingual people, but that they often include employees from different language backgrounds and cultures.

At STP, we mostly focus on translation into the Nordic languages and English, but our staff is more diverse than that might suggest. In fact, STPā€™s staff includes people with 15 different nationalities, living in a number of different countries. In addition, we have five offices in three countries (the UK, Bulgaria and Sweden).

HR Advisor Melissa Elsey enjoys the variety that having staff in many locations brings. She points out that the harmonised legislation in the different countries makes things easier: ā€œEmployment laws in each of the countries that STP operates in vary based on the country jurisdictions, but some laws are the same as the UK because Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Bulgaria are all currently in the EU.ā€

While legislation does not vary wildly between various EU countries, there are local differences that need to be taken into account. Melissa mentions that the HR team recently compiled a Danish and Finnish Staff Handbook: ā€œTo do this, we engaged a Danish and Finnish employment law specialist to advise on the employment laws in both countries. We have a localised Staff Handbook for each country that STP operates in and employment law contacts in each country whom we can contact for advice.ā€

ā€œWe research various sources online to check the law and any changes to the law in each country. Luckily, we can find some of the employment laws online in English, but if not, we get the information we need translated.ā€

Within the legal framework, a company must have strong internal principles to operate well across countries. Melissa finds this a simplifying factor: ā€œI think that because STP reflects the Nordic style of employment and values throughout the whole company, it makes it easier to implement STPā€™s company policies in each country. ±õ³Łā€™s great having a workforce in different locations in Europe, whether office or remote based.ā€

The post Company news: June 2019 appeared first on sa¹ś¼Ź“«Ć½.

Which languages do you speak, Danielle?
English and Swedish, but I understand Norwegian and Danish as well, and a bit of French, too. I also did Latin at school and at university, but Iā€™ve forgotten most of that! I did study Polish for a couple of years, but havenā€™t really kept it up.

What did you want to be when you were growing up?
I didnā€™t have a career in mind when I was little, but I wanted to do something with languages. No one in my family had gone to university, so there wasnā€™t a huge variety of careers in my background. I just knew I didnā€™t really want to be a builder, a plasterer or a farm labourer!

How did you end up working in the translation industry?
For reasons I canā€™t remember, I decided to study Swedish at university. I wanted to use my degree in a relevant field. I did try teaching, but I came to realise that translation was the perfect career for me.

What does a normal day look like for a lead translator at Sandberg?
In general, roughly the same as for the other translators. Since Iā€™m a lead translator, it is more likely that project managers send queries from freelancers and clients for me to look at. Iā€™m responsible for updating our English language style guideĢżand our internal client-specific style guides. I also stay in touch with the other lead translators and our line manager.

Iā€™m the terminologist for the Nordic-English team, so I spend time checking existing term bases and adding new terms to them.

What differences are there between working at the office and working from home?
±õ³Łā€™s quieter ā€“ and as tidy as I like it! If thereā€™s any washing up in the sink, I know itā€™s mine! I canā€™t just walk over to someone and ask them a question any more, but I can easily contact anyone I need to online. You get used to that.

I do miss the lunch time chats about films and books. Now we have the Leeds office, though, which has offset that a bit. I can meet up with them to do that outside work!

Whatā€™s the most important quality for a good translator?
Conscientiousness. You have to be prepared to check and double check things. Especially now in the age of machine translation post-editing. You need to be conscious of all the different reference materials for a job and make sure the machine translation engine hasnā€™t missed anything. On top of that, you need to take into account the fact that the source text might have some mistakes in it as well!

How do you look after your target language skills?
I read a lot, older and newer books. Language does change! I try to be mindful of the fact that other people use language in a different way than I do. I live in my native country, so itā€™s less of an issue for me.

How about your source language skills?
I guess itā€™s similar to how I look after my English skills. I listen to Swedish radio programmes, for example , which is a programme all about language. It airs on but you can download it online as well. And I watch a lot of Swedish and Danish programmes in particular and chat to Swedish friends in Swedish.

±õ³Łā€™s actually quite hard to find a way to subscribe to magazines or to order books from the Nordic countries to be shipped to the UK. I swap books with a Swedish colleague and Iā€™ll pick up some new ones when I go to Copenhagen later in the year. I do get the magazine published by the . That helps with bokmĆ„l and nynorsk as well, though mostly we translate from bokmĆ„l.

Now would be such a good time to learn a foreign language, since you have all of these resources available to you online! When I was studying Swedish at university, you were reliant on what you had access to through your department.

What is your favourite part of your role?
Probably the terminology work I do. Iā€™m just a bit obsessed with it! I find that quite satisfying.

Machine translation ā€“ friend or foe?
Somewhere in between! When itā€™s bad, itā€™s very bad. When itā€™s good, it can be a little bit confusing. It can speed up your work, but you have to be careful.

What do you specialise in?
I do like doing medical work and building up the glossaries for that to make sure I get the benefit from them. I enjoy working on texts on environmental subjects, renewable energy and so on. As a lead translator, you need to be able to go through everyoneā€™s work in every domain, of course!

What motivates you in your work?
If possible, trying to make the translation read better than the source text. I canā€™t always do that, but thatā€™s the ideal.

If you could do any other job for a week, what would it be?
±õ³Łā€™s not really a job that exists, but Iā€™d like to go around correcting mistakes in English! Iā€™d just like to wave a magic wand and make all the spelling mistakes and errors right. Thatā€™s more a vocation than a job!

If you could wake up and be fluent in a new language, what would it be?
Probably Finnish ā€“ just because it is so difficult. I took some courses in Finnish linguistics and literature and the fundamentals of Finnish language while I was an exchange student in Sweden, but I never learned to speak it.

Do you have any language-related pet peeves?
So many! Theyā€™re usually grammar-based. I confess I am a bit of a grammar snob. I think maybe people saying things being Scandinavian when they really should say Nordic! The Scandinavian peninsula doesnā€™t cover Finland or Iceland.

Apart from that, apostrophes are the most obvious one in English. I think the rules are rather easy, so it annoys me that people still get it wrong. I can only hope that the English language skills taught in school are better now than they were when I was at school. Latin classes helped me with grammar more than the English classes ā€“ shout-out to Miss Mills!

Whatā€™s your favourite word?
I generally like place names; my current favourite is in Leeds because it comes from Old Norse. It basically means ā€˜site of a churchā€™, which means that is a bit tautological as a name!

Whatā€™s the one thing about you that surprises people?
I donā€™t drink tea. Just because Iā€™m English and thatā€™s the one thing everyone assumes about English people!

Otherwise, Iā€™m pretty much what you see is what you get, to be honest. People might be surprised to learn that apart from sci-fi and gardening, I also enjoy motor racing ā€“ Formula One.

I also walk around picking up litter and bringing it home, kind of like without the jogging part. I want to set up a new group for litter picking in my neighbourhood.

How do you unwind at the end of a long day?
Reading and when itā€™s a bit warmer I might go out for a walk or go to the pictures. I like my sci-fi!

Describe Sandberg in three words.
Expanding, inclusive, committed.

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Market research is usually understood to mean customer intelligence ā€” that is, the collection and analysis of customer data. However, in broader terms, market research comprises gathering, analysing and interpreting information about a market, product or service for sale in that market, a group of competitors, or an industry as a whole. The results, summarised in a report, help executives make informed decisions about where their business chooses to focus its efforts and resources. This is the value of market research.

When I started in the translation industry in the 90s, there were no market research companies that focused exclusively on the language services market. Today there are three, each offering analysis on the localisation news, trends, drivers and funding. These independent research firms, , and , publish content that is freely available to the public, as well as reports that are only accessible to their partners and clients.

Not unlike Fortune Global 500, Forbes 500 and FT 1000, all three organisations issue an annual ranking list of the worldā€™s largest language service providers. The purpose of these indices is to monitor the performance of the top companies as a collective group and individually, thus gauging the growth and trends of a whole sector, or the entire industry.

The 2019 ranking lists for the worldā€™s largest language service providers

The 2019 annual reports on the global language services market

How do these two annual market reports serve their intended target audience? They are written for the benefit of the buyers of global content management services, the private equity firms looking for investment potential, the translators working in the LSPsā€™ supply chains and the LSPs themselves, allowing them to keep an eye on the competition.

1. Market research helps evaluate success against benchmarks

Nimdzi believes that ā€œmany of the challenges we face in the language services industry are due to unequal access to the high-quality informationā€. In their view, ā€œlanguage service providers, translators, enterprise buyers, and investors often donā€™t see eye to eye because they are each operating with different levels of informationā€.ĢżMaking benchmark information affordable and accessible to all parties increases informed decision-making and helps the stakeholders manage unrealistic expectations at talks across all levels of business.

This yearā€™s figures demonstrate that estimating the global market size is a complex exercise. Research methodologies behind the three reports vary: one organisation may have started by analysing the national markets and building the figures up from there, another may have begun with the client spend in the most established industry verticals. It should also be noted that the volumes outsourced to commercial language service providers versus the volumes translated through other means must fluctuate annually, making the addressable market size only a portion of the whole.

2.ĢżMarket research helps identify opportunities in the marketplace

How big is the market? How big is the addressable opportunity? How can you partake of this addressable opportunity? You want to focus on the market that is best for you, and this is not necessarily the largest one, or the one with the highest growth, but the one that best matches your company profile.

Slator states it as their mission to ā€œmake business sense out of our rapidly changing, highly fragmented sector where companies merge, acquire competitors, and develop new technologiesā€ ā€“ almost monthly. This is a valuable service at a time when just keeping track of the industry news can feel like a full-time job.

3. Market research helps establish trends

When market research is done periodically, it provides data that helps to establish trends ā€“ and industry trends of course go straight into the Opportunities and Threats section of every executiveā€™s SWOT analysis. A trend is usually an assumed development in the future that will have a long-term and lasting effect on our business. At the end of May 2019, CSA Research predicted that, fuelled by AI and machine learning, ā€œcontent will continue to morph as it becomes more conversation-centric to support more and more speech-enabled products and servicesā€.ĢżIn other words, there is money to be made from the multilingual audio content game.

The human brain likes simple straight lines. We draw parallels between expertise, greatness and the numbers in a ranking table, thinking that a top position on a revenue-based list equals business acumen and should thus set the benchmarks. However, the business world, let alone the physical one, is far from this linear. In the shifting and changing language services industry, success is bound to have many faces.

Truth be told, the winners donā€™t always get to tell the story. Look at what happened to the Vikings. Their history was written, not by themselves, but by the Christians they raided, pillaged and conquered. Not the best policy if you want a stellar reputation. ±õ³Łā€™s not the most effective way of communicating astonishing accomplishments either. After all, who remembers the Vikings for their complex rune script, unparalleled naval engineering or a surprising degree of equality between men and women?

Industry-wide market reports serve a great purpose. But the story based on the experiences of the Top 100 companies is not the whole story. Neither is the story told by the market research experts. Donā€™t leave it to someone else to tell your story. Make sure you get to tell it ā€“ and sell it ā€“ yourself.

The post Directorā€™s Cut, take 18: See who made it (to the Worldā€™s Largest LSPs Index 2019) appeared first on sa¹ś¼Ź“«Ć½.

This time, I sat down to chat with Junie Haller, who is part of the Danish translator team at STP. Junie started as a junior translator in our Whiteley office three years ago and received . After 2.5 years, she and her boyfriend (an STP colleague) relocated to southern Sweden to be closer to his family and to Junieā€™s native Denmark.

Which languages do you speak, Junie?

I speak Danish, obviously, and English and German. I havenā€™t used German actively for a while, but I have lived in Germany on a few occasions and I translate from German as well.

Now that Iā€™m living in SkĆ„ne, where the local dialect is a bit closer to Danish than standard Swedish, I try to make communication with Swedish-speakers easier by replacing Danish words with Swedish ones. I would like to learn Swedish, it would make everything easier. Especially when I call people on the phone, because as things stand I need to switch to English, which does feel silly.

What did you want to be when you were growing up?

I wanted to be a ton of things! I remember wanting to be a marine biologist, then I found out how scientifically minded you needed to be. Then I wanted to be a movie director, then an architect, and, later, an Egyptologist. Iā€™d always been good at languages, they came naturally to me. When I was about 15, I became really interested in German.

What was your first job?

For a few months, I was a waitress and a kitchen worker at a cafƩ in my home town. It was, at the time, the only cafƩ in town. We served simple food: sandwiches and nachos. We had all sorts of people coming in: regulars, families with kids, teenagers. It was the only place to go in town.

It was quite a small town?

Yeah, definitely.

Quite a few people at STP are from smaller places.

Yes, Iā€™ve noticed that, too! I had a theory about that: if you grew up feeling like you had to go somewhere to study or to work, youā€™re more prone to travelling more later on as well.

How did you end up working in the translation industry?

My degree was in German language, literature and culture. So it wasnā€™t strictly translation, though that was always part of it. After I had I finished my degree, I was looking for work and came across an ad from STP. I thought that was something I could see myself doing, Iā€™d been interested in translation as a career before. I was happy to discover I really enjoyed the work!

What differences are there between working at the office and working from home?

The main difference is of course that when you work from home you donā€™t have direct contact with your colleagues. But I do like peace and quiet, and I certainly donā€™t miss the commute! I can sleep for an hour longer now, since I commuted to Whiteley from Portsmouth.

Iā€™m still in just as much contact with my team even now as we have our team chat. And of course my boyfriend also works for STP, so I have at least one colleague here ā€“ and cats, too!

Whatā€™s the most important quality for a good translator?

I think one of the most important things is something that one of my university professors told me: to be able to translate well, you need to have a good grasp of your own language, the language you translate into. Someone asked him how you do that ā€“ he just shrugged.

I think you have to be immersed in your source and target languages. I suppose thatā€™s the difference between a machine and a good human translator. The text should read as if it hasnā€™t been translated. You get that from really engaging with the language youā€™re translating into and keeping up with how it changes.

Any advice for new people starting out in the industry?

Donā€™t despair! At the beginning itā€™s tough when thereā€™s so much to learn: tools, workflows and so on. But just persevere and be open to learning new things. Donā€™t give up!

Machine translation ā€“ friend or foe?

Definitely a friend. Iā€™ve never actually worked without it! ±õ³Łā€™s been a natural part of the way I work from the very beginning. The engines are getting better now and I feel like Iā€™m getting better at post-editing machine-translated output as well.

The more youā€™re able to embrace machine translation as a tool and make it work for you, the better. You shouldnā€™t get too relaxed, though! You have to avoid falling in the trap of under-editing the output.

If you could do any other job for a week, what would it be?

I think I would be a gardener, actually. Now that itā€™s spring and things are becoming greener, I think Iā€™d enjoy a week of getting my hands dirty. Itā€™d be nice to have a non-sedentary job in the fresh air for a week!

If you could wake up and be fluent in a new language, which one would it be?

Thatā€™s a tough one because I immediately think of Swedish! But I think I should go for something harder to learn.

In school, I did Russian for a bit but I wasnā€™t able to continue as there werenā€™t enough people to go on with the classes. Iā€™d love to be able to revisit that! But if I could speak Swedish fluently, that would be very helpful in my day-to-day life.

Whatā€™s your favourite word?

One of my favourite Danish words is ā€œkrasbĆørstigā€. ±õ³Łā€™s an older word that means something along the lines of ā€œfierceā€, ā€œviciousā€ or ā€œcrustyā€. I think people use it far too little!

Do you have any hidden talents?

When I was a kid, I used to do gymnastics. I was quite good at it, too! I wasnā€™t as physically active as a teenager, but I could still do a cartwheel, much to the surprise to my PE teacher at the time.

±õ³Łā€™s time. Tea or coffee?

Iā€™m definitely a tea drinker. I mostly drink green tea without milk, but Iā€™d put milk or a milk substitute into strong black tea. But Iā€™m really sensitive to caffeine, so I donā€™t drink much coffee or black tea, and only in the morning.

Who do you most admire, and why?

My mum. Sheā€™s just mentally and emotionally incredibly strong. She is the mother hen taking care of all of us. She has this incredible inner strength!

How do you unwind at the end of a long day?

I really like to go for walks. I often go for a walk after dinner. It sort of switches my brain off. ±õ³Łā€™s exercise, but not high intensity. You just put one foot in front of the other, and you get away from screens. And gin and tonic on Fridays!

Where is your favourite place to be?

Probably my parentsā€™ summer house by the beach in Denmark. Iā€™ve always loved going there: you get away from everything: thereā€™s no stress, no screens. I have a lot of good memories from that area from when I was a kid. I always look forward to going there and I never really want to leave.

Describe STP in three words

Welcoming, competent, chill.

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