Managing localisation at Interhome

Vasso: Thank you for joining Sandberg and the Localisation Stories initiative, Evženie. It’s great to have you for this interview. You are the Localisation Manager at Interhome, and with that I’ll start our discussion and ask you how you got into the industry. If you can share one striking story from your early days, what would that be?

Evženie: My journey into the localisation industry actually began at Interhome in 2015, almost 10 years ago. Interhome is a company that is really multicultural and multilingual. I started working in the German customer service team, but there were many other teams – the English, the Spanish, the Italian – always depending on the language of the customers.

From the beginning, I was surrounded by so many languages every day. I was immersed into this international atmosphere, and I really loved it because you went for a stroll, for coffee, and you met with this person and that person, you talked about where they’re from, the cultures, and everything. So, I thought that was really interesting, and I was really immersed into this international atmosphere from the start.

Then I went away for a couple of years and I got some project coordination experience. That was outside of Interhome, and then I returned with a fresh perspective, so I was able to combine those skills – the knowledge of the colleagues and the international surroundings in my company with the coordination skills. I returned with new viewpoints, and even though it was the same company, it was a different angle, and I was really happy to be able to start something new in an area that I already knew.

Vasso: That is really interesting. And the fact that you had these different customer support teams depending on the language of your customers and the market that you were operating in made me think: did these teams interact with one another in the past, that is, did the German support team interact with the Italian support team and so on?

Evženie: We had to actually. There were many interactions. For example, at the weekends we were usually joined as one team – all the teams together – because not that many people work on weekends, but we still have the 24/7 hour support. At the weekends it was truly like a buzzing space full of all the languages; I could, for example, be speaking with a German customer in Italy and I was asking an Italian colleague to help me with the property key holder to try to figure the issue out. So, there was a lot of cooperation.

And on the other hand, when in Italy they had a German customer, they asked me to engage with them, and the same for Russian because I speak Russian too. It was like an interesting intermingling of all the languages and cultures.

Vasso: Exciting. So you were also taking up the role of a facilitator, if I may say.

Evženie: All of us there – all the teams.

Vasso: Customer support can be really challenging, but also really rewarding, when you are finally able to help the customers and figure it out. I think it provides a lot of rewarding feelings.

Evženie: It does.

Vasso: How did you make the shift from customer support to project coordination?

Evženie: When I started with the translation coordination, I was quite anxious about because at the time I was also caring for my firstborn. She was one year old at the time when I was offered to come back to the company. Being a new mom is already very challenging. But that was only the first challenge.

Vasso: I know it is. I can confirm that (haha).

Evženie: And then I had to take on another new professional role, those things combined at the same time, it felt exciting, but also really daunting. I was like, “How am I going to do this?” and I knew that my baby obviously would always come first. So, I had to give 100% to the baby because it’s top priority, obviously, but I’m also a perfectionist when it comes to my work, to my job and I didn’t want to give less than 100% there either. So, I was like, 100% here and 100% there, that doesn’t add up.

Vasso: It’s a matter of life and death (haha); it’s not like they can survive without us.

Evženie: Exactly, you just have to keep them alive; that’s the top priority, of course. But I didn’t want to give less than 100% at work either, so it doesn’t add up, there are only 24 hours a day for everything and some sleep as well. I was a bit scared about that too, wondering how it is going to work. But I was determined to not give anything less than I could, so that the people at work wouldn’t notice, if it was possible at all, that I had some limitations in that matter.

But I have to say that my onboarding went exceptionally well because all of my team, my team workers, my colleagues, ensured a smooth onboarding and helped me when I had to be absent for some time. They helped me set all my priorities, and I had all the support and flexibility I needed, and I transitioned into the new role successfully. Now it’s been three years, so I know more or less what to expect, how to do everything. The summer is a challenge because both kids are at home, but the team has been really supportive. And I am really happy about that. And honestly, I wish that more companies would take on this approach and help working mothers transform or rejoin or reintegrate into the companies, because we can do everything, we just need a little bit of help sometimes.

Vasso: That is true what you’re saying, and I have been there as well. So now I have to ask: what support was that? Because that’s a matter that’s really close to my heart as well, and I do see a lot of companies pushing for stricter working hours and they are asking people to come back to the offices while it’s 100% certain that they can perform and do their job working from home or working from anywhere. So what programme or support did Interhome or your team provide to you back then to make you feel confident that you can make it? And I do agree with you that it takes a village to raise a child. So whatever support a new mother can get, it’s really, really valuable. And also not only to feel confident, but also not to burn out eventually, because trying to be responsible and professional and motherly in your different roles and meet them, it’s hard. So how did they enable that for you?

Evženie: Maybe I’ll start by saying that I’m based in the Czech Republic where we have three years of maternity leave, and you can work while you’re on maternity leave, but it is expected here that you stay home for three years with a child. Which means less stress for the work because the employer is obligated to keep your job position for you for the three years. But also, the more time you are away from work, the less money you have.

But I had started actually working in this position already while still on leave, and they knew of course that I still had time to stay at home. They greatly facilitated my return and also we had a very friendly relationship from my previous tenure. This meant that I could talk about anything with them and tell them if I needed a flexible schedule. I ensured that all my work was completed, but I needed the flexibility to be able to do it at midnight or very early in the morning, and they supported that. So that was the first point.

Then anytime that I had to be absent for a longer time, like right now with my second baby, they were always helpful by finding someone who would take over the role for me for this particular amount of time. So these are the two biggest points of support I think I got – the friendly atmosphere, that you can talk about anything, and then that you can be supported for a limited amount of time.

Vasso: And I would say the trust – that’s another recurring issue that we see. And I’ve been talking much about how companies need to be the first ones to show trust to their teams and their employees, and in 99% of cases, employees would revert that trust back in double sometimes.

Evženie: That is true. That has a lot to do with what I said – with me staying home and doing it at flexible hours – because lots of times you will hear managers and companies go like “No, but you need to be online during this time. You have to clock in, clock out. And you can work from home only this and that day.” But at Interhome they put this trust in me from the beginning. They in fact had more trust in me than I did in myself, because I was like, “How am I going to balance everything?” and they were like, “You can do this. We know how you work. We know how responsible you are. We know you can do this. And if you need anything, just talk to us.” that just took a lot of weight off me.

Vasso: That is a great experience for you to have, and I’m happy that there are companies like that around. Hopefully publishing this piece will also help more companies see how much they’re losing if they’re not trusting their employees.

Evženie: And if I can share a final thought on this, I believe that if an employee is disengaged, they won’t work no matter where they are, at home or in the office, or whether they have kids or not. At the end of the day, it’s always about, as you said, the trust and making sure that the employee likes what they do.

Vasso: Exactly. Totally agree with you. And that’s a topic I can go on forever about, but I will just go back to what we’re here for. starting out in the localisation department of Interhome. It’s already three years right?

Evženie: Yes, three years. Now in August, it will be exactly three years.

Vasso: How has the localisation programme at Interhome changed since three years ago when you joined? If you compare the programme three years ago with the programme that you are currently running at Interhome for localisation, how is it different?

Evženie: I had to build the whole process, everything about how localisation works. When I started, I had some real basics to build on, but I had to create everything myself, because the person that had been doing this quit before I started. So there was a transition period where another colleague took over, and the colleague that had been responsible before focused on the most important things that need to be done. But the person who took it on had other responsibilities as well, so they were handling localisation mainly as an add-on.

And that’s why they really wanted me to start the earliest possible. So, when I took on the role, I only could refer to the interim person, so it felt more like the telephone game or Chinese whispers (haha). In Czech this game is called “silent post”. So I took, of course, the programmes that we work with but the process I had to set up from the beginning. And my focus was initially to establish a clear and fast communication system that makes everything as organised and efficient as possible, and automate as much as possible.

I had to combine internal with the external language experts, to cover all the languages and maintain or rebuild high quality levels. So, a big part was to qualify and onboard good external collaborators. That was the case actually with Norwegian and Swedish. This was a challenge right at the beginning and it was a long run to implement that, but we made it.

And then my other focus area is to use smart tools alongside skilled people to work faster without losing the personal touch and keep the human element in it. So, I think now the process is much smoother and better suited for our ever-growing, as it always is, multicultural environment.

Vasso: It does sound like it was a challenging time for you to go through this setup. How long did it take you before you could say that now there is at least a more standardised approach to how you do things?

Evženie: I think until I got out of the most raw material and raw processes, it was a couple of months. And then I’m still trying to develop the processes, to mature them, to make something even better – it’s never perfect, but I’m always trying to make it better than it is. But for the first part, it surely took months. I started in August, and this is the high season for us, but then when the high season ends, the real work starts for me because we’re starting with all the texts for the next season and other activities, for the mountain or the winter, for Christmas etc. So it was challenging because we got more content.

The first couple of months until, let’s say, October, I felt I was under water. And then I managed to get my head above the water, and instead of just surviving and pushing the deadlines so that I could do it in time, I started to think, “This we can do better. This can be optimised as well.” And I started to take control of the situation. I love being in control, and I hate it when I just run after all the deadlines and all the colleagues and just patch holes. So this is when I started to feel really like I could own it.

Vasso: And that was fast enough, I would say – two months taking up something completely new and something you haven’t done before and setting it up to a more standardised process while at the same time you were also managing daily localisation requests, right? So you were also doing that.

Evženie: Yes, of course.

Vasso: Great job, if you ask me. So if you had to use three adjectives or three words to describe the localisation programmeme at Interhome now, what would these be?

Evženie: The adjectives would be dynamic, collaborative and stimulating. I was thinking a lot about the last word, but I think that’s a nice one. I can elaborate more on each one if you want.

Vasso: Yes, I’m interested in the last one especially, but I definitely want to hear how you would define the other two also.

Evženie: Should I start with stimulating? Yes, I’ll start with stimulating. So, while the tasks are many times really demanding, especially when there are a lot of them coming together, because we have requests for many languages, and many different departments that need translated content, it can be really demanding. So I could use ‘demanding’ as one of these adjectives, but I didn’t want it to have negative connotation and I always try to find a positive side in everything.

The positive aspect of this is that you’re juggling multiple tasks, you’re not bored, and your brain is constantly alert. You’re creating the synapses, the connections. This was highly positive especially for me because I had already spent the entire year just changing nappies and talking “ba ba da da,” it was really nice to start something that really challenged my brain. So that’s when I thought, it was actually really stimulating for me.

Vasso: That is actually a great connection that you just made and how a lot of things can be simply a matter of perspective, right? Because I also felt the same way when I wasn’t working after I had my little one for a few months. Then when I returned back to the office, I pretty much found everything interesting. As you said, extremely stimulating, but I hadn’t thought of that before. But I was just so drawn into the work that the hours just went by and I didn’t realise. So thank you for also making me realise that as well, because I can understand how it feels.

Evženie: You’re not the only one. I think we both know what this means, to have two jobs, basically. Each stimulating in a different way.

Vasso: Yes, exactly. But it’s great to also put a word to describe that because I hadn’t thought of it like that before. Thank you for offering that perspective.

Evženie: You’re welcome. And then we can move on to the other two. So that was dynamic and collaborative. I think it’s quite obvious and I’ve mentioned that before, we have a constant flow of varied projects with different deadlines, different languages, different project managers. So it’s really dynamic, and one has to have a really dynamic approach to stay on top of all of that. And collaborative, also obviously working with many colleagues across departments, across countries to deliver the final project.

Vasso: Great. It sounds like you have done a great job setting up the programme and you are still on top of it and seeing how it can be optimised. And new challenges now have emerged, probably more global requests and AI in the picture and a lot of discussion around that. So I want to ask you: how does a day in your work life look like? I won’t go into the child part, as I know how that is, but let’s say it was one whole day in an office setting. How do you start your day? What do you do?

Evženie: I understand your question but let me include the children part because a day of my work looks a little different from a typical nine-to-five, that most people will think of when you say office life.

Vasso: Definitely. Go ahead.

Evženie: Sure, as I already said, I work from home most of the time, 99% of the time, and I’m managing not one but two munchkins, because since I started I had another baby. And I usually have to get the work done during the windows when my children are asleep or with another family member. That is most of the time my partner, of course, but he also has to work.

The first round of work involves usually anything that comes in the evening before and it gets handled in the morning. It might include new projects from project managers, the new tasks that they’re sending to me to be translated, or completed translations for the ongoing projects. These tasks are sent either by the night owls or by the early birds because they tend to tie up everything in the evening. I will circle back to this actually when we come to the evening.

So, in the morning I go through the emails that are sent from people that work really late or really early. Then I fit a couple more hours of focused work during the nap times, that is before and after lunch. And these are my core working hours, let’s say, and I tend to have video meetings just like this with colleagues or with anyone that I need to engage with. Or I also engage in instant messaging and emails in real time via chat or email. And this real-time interaction is really crucial for the projects because especially when we have something that is urgent and it can’t wait until the next day, this is the time window I have to use to do this work to keep the projects moving, because I receive the answer right away and I can move the project up to the point where it can wait until the next day or when it’s on the other side of the table.

Then the last bulk of my work takes place in the late afternoon when my partner gets home, or when he feeds the children, or after the children have gone to sleep, depending on how the day goes. And this is when I tie up any loose ends and I try to leave my desk as clear as possible for the following morning. As I said, this is the circle of life. And so I try to really leave everything clear, clear my head as well, and then rise and shine early in the morning the next day to go into it again.

But of course, this is just a typical example. My daily routine has to be really flexible and it depends on the current work demand and the number of urgent cases, the composition of projects, but also on the situation at home – how everything with the kids is or whether there’s a doctor’s appointment and so on. I’m really grateful for the freedom, for the work from home setup, because it allows me to manage my work schedule the way I need given the circumstances, at work and at home the given moment, and this way I can combine the family and the job most of the time really well.

Vasso: This resonates much and it brings back so many memories for me as well. And I know how valuable this is to be able to have this setup.

Evženie: I think it’s really important that this gets talked about more because it’s mostly women that are affected when it comes to family and work. It’s mostly women that have to combine both. By talking we just normalise this and maybe there can be a shift to improve conditions for women.

Vasso: Exactly. And also show companies that it is important – and company owners and employers and managers – that it is important to show more trust and have more empathy for such scenarios.

We touched upon how you want to improve, you’re constantly in a dynamic state with the programme and trying to also use smart tools. AI and LLMs are big discussion points nowadays, especially in the localisation industry. I had an interesting discussion the other day with another localisation manager who said that in the US, people and companies think that the language problem has been solved. And this is not the case. She’s seeing a gap between how people who don’t have any experience or close relationship to language, with the advent of ChatGPT and similar LLMs, suddenly think that language is a problem solved in every circumstance, for everyone, for all languages, whereas people like us who are working with languages every day and in multicultural, multilingual settings, we have objections to that. And we still see how this is useful, potentially LLM contribution and how we can work with that, but definitely the language problem has not been solved. What’s your take on that?

Evženie: I studied linguistics. I actually have a major in English and in German here at Charles University. And ever since I started my studies, everyone was saying, “What you’re studying doesn’t make any sense because already with Google Translation, we won’t need people like you. Machine translation will evolve and nobody will need translators or people working in these types of industry anymore.”

And it’s been 10 years actually. And look, we’re still needed.

Vasso: We’ve proven them wrong.

Evženie: We have proven that wrong and we’re still continuing to do that. And of course, machine translation and the large language models, everything has been evolving. It’s normal in a developed society that everything evolves and keeps progressing, and I think it’s a great thing. And actually the use of the AI and the LLMs for translation purposes for our firm is definitely an asset. A company like ours, multicultural as we are, there are many application scenarios for us, but they are finite. You already said that you cannot just take it and just use it without any further elaboration.

There still needs to be a human, at least at the end of the process, to proofread, to guide the tone, the tone of voice, the wording. For example, in our case, according to the company’s needs, there are still errors even with the machines. If you use ChatGPT, you can even prompt it remember a guideline forever, but it’s unpredictable what it will actually do. We still have a long way to go.

Maybe someday we will really be replaced. But then I would take it just as an evolution, just as any other case, as for example, the people that used to connect the telephone calls with the first lines when you would called an organization.

Vasso: The phone operators.

Evženie: With the onset of automatic dialing, they lost their jobs, and of course people protested, but there was an evolution. You can’t just keep the people doing the job that doesn’t make any sense for them to do. It’s better to use their strengths for something else, for them to evolve as well.

Just to conclude, I’m not really afraid that everyone in the industry will lose their jobs. I just think that with the onset and with the AI that gets progressively better and better, we need to see how we can use it to our benefit, how we can make it do the tedious job, and how we can use our forces to do something else. And if it’s something creative, then it’s better. Because I really like the AI doing the tedious tasks, but the creative ones I am not such a fan of.

When it comes to AI performing the translation task and a professional to reviewing the output, I think it’s great. In our case, when we use AI to translate content, and then we feed it the reviewed output, it’s a training cycle, and we are working on improving that output. This makes it progressively easier for a human to review and finalise the texts, thus freeing up more time to do other tasks, as I said. And in my opinion, this is where the true purpose of these technologies lies; to assist humans, make their work easier and free up more time for other tasks.

Vasso: Great points, Evženie. How do you use LLMs internally? I mean, have you integrated them to a specific platform that you use? Do you use them separately? Have you evaluated different LLMs and then concluded using just one? Or are you using different LLMs for different purposes, perhaps?

Evženie: We mostly use AI to initially translate content which then becomes the basis for our colleagues to edit it and make it more Interhome-like.

Vasso: But you have also set up prompting and specific prompting for specific tasks, that doesn’t sound amateurish. I think you’re doing more than many teams and many companies are doing.

Evženie: Maybe, probably. We’re actually in the middle of centralising everything, or we’re trying to look into how we can make it better. But for now, it’s basically more along the lines of we need this language and then the team takes care of this language. There are different approaches, but the designated teams are not 100% dedicated to the translations, so it’s a side job.

The goal for the upcoming season would be definitely to centralise it more and as such support these colleagues better. But for now, every team has their own set process on how they handle language requests, and then they send it to me as a translations coordinator, and I send it to the project manager.

Vasso: I see. I think we can wrap this up here but there is one thing that I want to ask you, and maybe it is something that we have already touched upon, but since you did study linguistics and then you have worked with language in one capacity and then in another capacity, you have engaged with a lot of people who are working with language and in the localisation industry. What is it that you really, really love about it?

Evženie: I like this question. I like when it’s more about the feelings and less about the procedures and the tasks. Τhank you for that. What I really love about the localisation industry is the people. You’re right about the fact that we’ve already mentioned it but I’ll keep mentioning how I love working and interacting with people. So in my case, with colleagues from different places where we’re all coming together to create a final product that is same but different, localised for the different markets and target audiences.

And you learn a lot in the process about the languages, about the various customs, pieces of culture, everything that makes up the whole concept of localisation, because it’s not just language and words that need to be transformed to another language. The industry is dynamic. It’s ever-changing. It always offers new opportunities to learn, to grow, to improve. It’s also this evolution that keeps me on my toes. And as you mentioned already, it’s really rewarding and exciting when you see the final product. So these would be the two parts of what I love.

Vasso: Great points. I feel the same way too. That’s probably why an AI could never replace that. We always like working with people, engaging with people. It’s not the same engaging with an avatar or an agent. I think it’s one aspect of our industry that is really, really powerful and it’s a pattern that keeps coming up in discussions, how the people are the heart of our industry.

Evženie: That is true.

Vasso: If you had a mentee at this point, someone who was in the industry or was interested in the industry and reached out to you for advice, what is one piece of advice that you really would make a point of giving to them? What do you say is the most important thing that they should keep in mind?

Evženie: I will share one piece of advice which might be a bit controversial, but for me it’s a vital part. That piece of advice would be to have fun with it. And I literally mean it. This job can be really stimulating (haha) so it’s important that we stay positive. It can also be so rewarding when you approach it with your heart. When you really pour your heart into it and you have fun with it. Of course you have to stay alert. You have to keep in mind all the small details you need to watch out for. Having fun does not mean taking it light-heartedly by no means. You just have to have the right mindset so that you go with it and everything else just comes along. It can be learned, but having fun and being positive about it is something that I think cannot be learned. You just have to feel it.

Vasso: That’s a great piece of advice. That’s a great piece of advice indeed. And I think my final question here is, do you have a big or bold goal? It can be either personal or professional, family, whatever. For the next two or three years, do you have something where you really have set your mind to achieve?

Evženie: Many come to mind, but there is one, I don’t know if it’s big or bold, but I would really like to establish a truly centralised and streamlined working process to make sure that our work is really effective, that we have time to dedicate to anything else that we need to, again working on improving the output and making the process more effective. It might involve the support of AI, or the invaluable assistance from our partners such as yourself, who have already proven to be reliable even when we have the most last-minute projects. So my goal would be to make collaboration smoother and the outcomes even stronger, and this is the progress I would like to achieve in the next years.

Vasso: It does sound like big and bold, especially with everything that’s changing, so I wish you the best of luck with that.

Evženie: Thank you. And maybe the most important part I forgot to mention is to keep it human in the process. There’s a really fine line when you’re balancing content localisation on a professional level but also, especially for B2C content, aiming to instigate that particular feeling, and this is really culturally loaded.

Vasso: That’s true. Especially in the B2C business, this is one more challenge, to achieve this level in localisation that would trigger this effect. B2C is very, very different compared to B2B for some content types. Well, thank you very much for this very interesting discussion. I heard a lot and you gave me a lot to think about as well. And your two little munchkins and your partner, they have a lot of things to be proud of for their mom and partner.

Evženie: Thank you very much for this opportunity as well. I enjoyed it a lot.