The work trip started yesterday with a meeting in Tampere and this morning we had a wonderful opportunity in the small parliament of the parliament building when Noora Fagerström invited us to hear about entrepreneurship. Noora told about the current government program and in general we talked about entrepreneurship, what should be taken into account, what kind of values entrepreneurs should have and other wonderful things that we entrepreneurs should be aware of and take into account in our daily activities.
Hunaja Hetki is a strongly growing company and there have been more setbacks than you dare say out loud. However, adversity has always been overcome. Belief in what you do, customer feedback, other entrepreneurs around you and quality products are things that are great to work for. Above all, however, the fact that we do this together as friends, business colleagues, female entrepreneurs gives us the will and strength to keep going! The current situation is something that is on the surface and we at Hunaja Hetke would very much like that the issues of employees and entrepreneurs could be moved forward together and we would get a solution to things without a strike. We entrepreneurs are going through very difficult times. First came the corona, the war, then the electricity crisis and many, many other things that affect our operations. Not to mention the personal adversities that have been enough along the way.
Entrepreneurship is hard work, but being an employee is also hard work, because we too have been employees before becoming entrepreneurs. Part of the reason why we have become entrepreneurs has been the poor conditions of the employees. It would be so wonderful if we could find a balance for these in Finland. How could we move things forward together so that it is not on the other side, but on the contrary. Without entrepreneurs there are no jobs and without jobs there are no entrepreneurs.
Hunaja Hetki is at the point where we have hired help for seasonal work and the goal is to continue to employ workers during the season, but also to hire a full-time employee for our team. Hiring an employee is a big step and requires a lot of work. It's great that with your own entrepreneurship you can do work and also hire labor and thus create more jobs in Finland. However, it is not an easy step, because you never know what will happen and what kind of day tomorrow will be.
So what concerns do we have? For example, our fair season starts at the same time as this strike. The work of weeks, if not months, has been done for a long time. The working time can no longer be changed or canceled, because it is work done, but the trade fair may or may not be canceled, but will the customers be able to attend. We ourselves have paid for the fair place, made the products, advertised and so on. Now we are talking about one trade fair, but what if there are several events and everyone is fighting for people's purchasing power and when purchasing power weakens, as I mentioned before, e.g. because of the corona virus, the war and the rise in the price of electricity. Companies have already gone bankrupt and will continue to do so, but how could we handle the matter so that bankruptcies and similar challenges could be minimized and would not cause more harm to the situations ourselves. Our own luck at this point is that our products are not easily perishable and the sales period is much longer, but what about the companies whose products are perishable?
We don't have the answers ourselves and how everything should be handled. It is difficult to choose sides in different situations, which is good and which is bad. However, we will monitor the situation, if it doesn't appear in our sale otherwise. The invoices won't stop coming, even if the sales don't come.
We wish everyone a happy spring and a better tomorrow!
Jemina and Elisa
