In 2022, Betfair Romania Development has become the largest technology and shared services hub of its parent company, Flutter Entertainment plc. Over 1000 people are powering the world’s leading brands in sports betting and gaming, such as PokerStars, Betfair or FanDuel, from Cluj-Napoca.
The company recently shared their plans of reaching an ambitious milestone of 1500 employees by 2023, so we went on a mission to understand how the uncertainty of the global context and the constantly evolving working models tight in with the company’s accelerated growth plans.
Ioana Popa, General Manager Betfair Romania Development, owns the challenging role of navigating the company through change, while maintaining its position as one of the top employers in Romania.
Q: Ioana, for the past 2 years, tech companies have been setting the standard of what a flexible working model it’s all about. What does the future of work mean for Betfair Romania Development?
A: First, I think we can all agree the future of work has been one of the most important, yet most debated topics over the past two years. Switching to mandatory remote work from remote work as an option proved to actually be a giant leap for most IT&C companies. Facing change at an unprecedented pace became a game of active listening, that for many resurfaced fears, ultimately leading to uncomfortable conversations.
Looking back at our approach for the past two years, I dare to say that at Betfair Romania Development we played an ace up on our sleeve. Our pre-pandemic flexible working model and a ‘People first’ approach allowed us to tap into critical workforce insights and successfully translate them into decisions and changes aimed to bring purpose, comfort, and support to our employees.
We’ve learnt in no time that to navigate through the uncertainty people need anchors of stability in their lives and, equally, need to be trusted and supported with the decisions they need to make in order to keep their work, health, and personal life in balance. Backed by the two-way dialogue we maintained constantly open, we soon realized that for us, despite the news and trends, the future of work was nothing like an ‘our way or the highway’ type of model. It was about offering our employees the security of the workplace and entrusting them with a powerful tool: choice.
Q: How did the ways of working change at Betfair Romania Development once the pandemic-induced restrictions have been lifted?
A: We currently operate under a model that is considerate with all types of roles we have represented under the Betfair Romania Development hat and that allows people to choose what best suits their working style and needs: fully remote, hybrid or using the office on a daily basis. To top that, we implemented a program named ‘Take 20’ that allows everybody to work from other countries for a maximum of 20 days per year. ‘Take 20’ gained a lot of momentum, especially after restrictions were lifted across Europe, as it allowed our colleagues to travel, explore and work at the same time from their favorite places.
The most recent PwC study* on global workforce placed seeking meaning at work among the factors most appreciated in a top employer nowadays. I strongly believe that a clear purpose, accompanied by trust, frames the creative space from where innovation is born. As an employer who relies on over 1000 professionals to deliver excellence to our 18 million customers worldwide, a key focus on these past 2 years was to ensure we have enabled the platforms, tools, and behaviors to nurture a continuous learning environment.
That’s why, beside our usual career growth trainings and learning platforms, we are currently offering 1000 EUR to every employee as a ‘Self-Development Fund’ they can use to invest in their own growth, personally and professionally. We have colleagues unlocking their potential by using the Self-Development Fund, whether they attend masterclasses or dedicated events on top of our learning curriculum.
To conclude, we are currently in a phase where we are not only offering people options, but encourage them to decide for themselves, train our people managers to guide their teams in this sense and judging from the last survey we ran across the business, we are confident that we took the right path.
The future of work should not be something we expect to happen at one point in time, but something that we, with the decisions made spanning these past two years, have created for the present moment.
Q: You recently announced that you want to reach a milestone of 1500 employees by the end of 2023. Which are the reasons behind such an ambitious plan?
A: We have a track record of delivering excellence in software development and supporting our parent company, Flutter Entertainment plc on major project streams such as Gaming, Customer Management, Infrastructure, Security, Data, Trading, Marketing and many more.
For the past 15 years, Betfair Romania Development has evolved in sync with the business it is part of, and thanks to our teams of experts, we were entrusted and supported by our parent company to develop multiple centers of excellence, driven by the opportunity of shaping an entire industry directly from Cluj.
In 2019, following the acquisition of The Stars Group, Paddy Power Betfair (PPB) — the group we were part of at the time — became Flutter Entertainment Plc, a holding company with a unique portfolio of global brands in sports betting and gaming. We sum up a total of 17.000 employees around the world, working every day on bringing entertainment to life for millions of customers in a safe, responsible, and sustainable way.
Therefore, for the past two years, not only were we dealing with the uncertainty induced by the pandemic, but we were also going through this extremely complex merger, all while working from home. I am extremely proud of all the hard work everybody has put into securing us a place from where we can safely say today that we did it together and we are ready to evolve our story into the next chapter.
Becoming Flutter Entertainment’s largest technology and shared services hub after the merger has opened new windows of opportunities for our current employees and the talent market in Cluj-Napoca. Flutter operates an unbeatable portfolio of proprietary brands, and a great number of brands-related projects are handled or involve our teams in Cluj. We have recently started looking for tech talent to work on our PokerStars projects, a Flutter brand that wasn’t represented in our office until recently. Other brands that operate in very distinctive markets such as FanDuel in the US or Sportsbet in Australia have also planned investments to grow their teams at Betfair Romania Development. From software development to head office functions, we always have a range of fully flexible opportunities open, and to support the growth of these teams, we are ambitious enough to aim for welcoming 500 more colleagues at Betfair Romania Development by the end of 2023.
Q: Betfair Romania Development has a reputation of being a very active company when it comes to supporting the local community. How was the CSR agenda impacted by the current global context?
A: We have a core philosophy when it comes to our CSR agenda and that is unwavering despite the context: supporting organizations to make a difference and encouraging individuals to get more involved within the local community.
Many companies operate a CSR agenda having one charity of the year they support, but the way we do things at Betfair Romania Development is by asking our colleagues to submit causes they believe in (be it smaller projects), which the company then proceeds to support. We stand for what our people believe in and that’s what’s giving us the flexibility to calibrate our agenda according to what matters for them.
This year, we allocated efforts to support projects based on 3 main pillars: Sports & Nature, Arts & Education, Health & Community. We collaborate with many local and regional NGOs and with the help of our CSR Committee, most of the times we reach out and ask directly the NGOs representatives how we can best help: with funds, with goods, or with volunteers.
In parallel with the projects we supported in Cluj, since February we initiated a project called ‘Kindness goes beyond borders’, focused on offering support to Ukrainian refugees. It’s amazing to see the many acts of goodwill continuing to reach those who need them most right now. We are also extremely proud of our volunteering colleagues who are offering the gift of their time and care, whom we fully support with extra days off.
Lastly, we have also announced we welcome English-speaking Ukrainian refugees who hold a residence permit in Romania to apply for our open roles. Those who join us will be part of our teams for the duration of the permit, up to 12 months, with the possibility of renewing the contract for another 6 or 12 months.
While we welcome all charity proposals with an open heart, we always make sure we keep connected to trusted NGOs, making sure we help in an empathetic, yet smart manner. That didn’t change with the global context at all, but reinforced once again the principles and values we are driven by.
We hope you enjoyed this interview as well, because we really believe we found out some valuable insights about the company and their future plans and we can’t wait to have them at Techsylvania on June 28 and 29! Hope we’ll see you there!
