Chloe Athanasopoulou from Signal Maritime [Client Interview]

Lee Chapman, Head of Customer Success, speaks with Chloe Athanasopoulou, PA to the Executive Committee, on staff leave management and usage of HR software.

1. Please tell us about who you are, your business, product/service?

We are a small and upcoming Greek shipping company, that believes in innovation and doing business with a twist. We operate 6 ships moving commodities around the globe.

2. How many employees do you have?

We currently are 21 employees.

3. What do your employees mean for you and your organization?

They are the vital core of the company that gives it its twist and edge. Each person’s knowledge and background plays a small part in the overall success of Signal Maritime.

4. Do you think employee vacation (or any free time outside work) is good for them? How?

A happy employee is a productive employee, so enjoying personal time is important for all employees to make them want to return and work hard for the company’s goals.

5. Is it important that they can have free time at work to rest, think, socialise?

We are firm believers that employees must be able to let-off steam even in the work environment, that is why here at Signal we offer ping-pong, darts and a pool table for everybody to use in the day and make the blood pump more ideas out!

6. What your employees think of you? Honestly 🙂

I hope they like us! We offer a cool and modern office space, with all the amenities you can ask for and a laid back environment that helps everyone feel at home.

7. How do you manage your staff leave and vacations?

Since in Greece the bulk of vacation is taken in the summer months June-August, we cooperate with all the teams to make sure all employees take their vacation as they wish, always taking into consideration the company’s needs to be staffed at all time. Furthermore we try to accommodate any long-weekends someone might want and the holiday seasons of Christmas and Easter.

8. For how long you’ve been using cloud-based solutions?

Since June 2015.

9. What was the previous HR management solution?

We kept an Excel sheet.

10.If not successful, how so? If successful, why move to CakeHR?

The bigger the company got the harder to control such a large worksheet.

11.Would you recommend CakeHR to other SME businesses?

Yes I would.

12. Ok, and for the last point, our favourite 3 questions from Marcel Proust: (be yourself)

– Your favourite virtue?

Patience.

– Your idea of happiness?

Love.

– Your idea of misery?

Loneliness.

Excellent! Thank you for your time and we love having you with us. blah blah blah 🙂

Lee.