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The Multicultural Workplace: Botania

Botania star­ted as the botan­ical garden of the University of Eastern Finland in 1985. Later, when the uni­ver­sity chose to close it down, it was adop­ted by Botanian ystävät Ry, before its cur­rent sole owner Kari Kola pur­chased it in 2018. Kola rebranded Botania as an event garden. On top of the serene in- and out­door gar­dens that together con­tain nearly 3000 spe­cies of plants and a host of exotic but­ter­flies, Botania hosts live music per­form­ances, light art events and more. 

A small tour and a short pho­toshoot later, I sat down with Tuomo Lehikoinen. Originally, Lehikoinen was hired as a res­taur­ant man­ager, but he also man­ages most cli­ents, handles some of the company’s recruit­ment and helps coordin­ate inter­na­tional events held at Botania, among other day-to-day affairs. 

Botania could eas­ily be con­sidered one of the corner­stones of Joensuu’s cul­tural life. Located just a stone’s throw away from the uni­ver­sity cam­pus, Botania is a pop­u­lar meet­ing spot. Pandemic not­with­stand­ing, Botania has hos­ted many inter­na­tional per­formers. The most recent event to-be was Irish Fling, which unfor­tu­nately had to be can­celled due to the present cir­cum­stances. Nevertheless, the annual Visual Fest will still be held this November, and in the mean­time Botania chugs along as usual – all this with a remark­ably small team, no less. 

“We have a pretty small team that’s close-knit. It’s very nice to work here, and we aspire to ensure that the per­son­nel work to their fullest. A small group can’t tol­er­ate a lot of res­ist­ance. The going must be good, and we strive to make sure that every­one feels good at work.”

Tuomo Lehikoinen, Botania

What Botania lacks in size, it makes up for with cul­tural diversity. Both Botania and its owner Kari Kola – who is a world-renowned light artist – enjoy wide­spread inter­na­tional recog­ni­tion. Not only that, but Botania also employs mul­tiple dif­fer­ent nation­al­it­ies.

“Our work­ing lan­guage here is English. Right now, we have one employee from the Czech Republic. We’ve had employ­ees from Russia, and our last gardener was from England. It’s a pretty inter­na­tional team for one so small.”

The size of the team has other advant­ages as well. There is no need for a strong hier­archy in a small organ­iz­a­tion, and the employ­ees have clear job descrip­tions. According to Lehikoinen, the going has been easy, people are not afraid to be open and Botania’s inter­na­tional employ­ees have integ­rated without dilem­mas. 

Even with the pan­demic, Botania received plenty of for­eign vis­it­ors from Europe over the course of the sum­mer, and once the travel restric­tions on the Eastern bor­der are lif­ted, he expects there to be plenty of Russian vis­it­ors again. The goal of the com­pany is to gain more vis­it­ors and inter­na­tional recog­ni­tion, and so new inter­na­tional hires are likely on the hori­zon.

As for why Lehikoinen thinks busi­nesses should hire more inter­na­tional tal­ent, he offers the tried and true explan­a­tion. The nat­ive pop­u­la­tion is get­ting older. He does not stop there, how­ever. Multiculturalism enriches the busi­ness, and is simply a major prac­tical help in com­mu­nic­a­tion as well as mar­ket­ing.

“People from dif­fer­ent back­grounds are a bless­ing, whether they come from Finland or else­where. Multiculturalism is wealth in every­day life too.” When asked, inter­na­tional hires have led to new busi­ness con­tacts, Lehikoinen estim­ates that they have. “Surely, yes. That way, for example, we can do mar­ket­ing in lan­guages other than just Finnish or English.”

Kola him­self, pre­vi­ously busy with other oblig­a­tions, chimes in with com­ments of his own. International tal­ents bring with them new points of view. In a way, mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism can act like a mir­ror.

“Sometimes you don’t see the forest for the trees. We have a lot of good things, and you don’t necessar­ily always notice that.”

Text: Lauri Vuori