Forex Club: From a Successful Russian Business Culture to a Global One

Moscow (ots/PRNewswire) -

- FOREX CLUB demonstrates leadership for other 
Russian-founded organisations
          with global commercial interests and a large and 
geographically dispersed workforce
        - Global business growth supported by changes to internal 
communications and
          practice to attract and retain the best of international 
talent and a multi-cultural,
          multinational workforce

Speaking at the 13th Russia and CIS HR Directors Summit held in
Moscow on 4-5 October, Olesya Oblasova, HR Director of FOREX CLUB, a
leading online broker[1], gave a presentation on how its group of
companies has transformed itself from being a Russian brand and
culture to one with a greater international business environment,
staff and practice.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20120517/533090 )

While FOREX CLUB proudly embraces its Russian heritage, a decision
was made in Q4 2010 at the corporate level in support of the group of
companies' strong global business goals. One key requirement to do
this was to foster an international work environment, staffing,
culture and communications practice. As a result, from January 2011
on, the HR Department in its core role to oversee all staff and
recruitment processes, spearheaded the initiative to encourage and
grow a global, multi-cultural, multi-language work environment. The
key process involved an ongoing, concerted effort proactively to
communicate messages across the business to all staff, both from a
top-down and bottom-up series of communication channels.

About the Summit: The Russia and the CIS HR Directors Summit is a
major annual meeting for exchange of experience, discussion of new
strategies and global trends, case studies presentations, review of
topical studies, live discussions and roundtables. Olesya Oblasova's
speech was well-received by the audience of approximately 500 HR
professionals from a wide range of industry sectors. FOREX CLUB is
one of a number of Russian-based and respected brands that has
demonstrated leadership for other Russian-founded organisations with
global commercial interests and a large and geographically dispersed
workforce.

With clients spanning 120 countries, FOREX CLUB Group of Companies
has over 650 employees in 60 offices across several countries,
including throughout the Russia Federation and CIS, as well as in
USA, Malaysia, Brazil and China. Yet at the beginning of 2011, 99% of
staff were either Russian or CIS nationalities. Since then, there has
been an increase by approximately 10% in the employment of
non-Russian staff, most notably at the management level (i.e.,
management of both staff and global departments).

Process and approach: In order to compete more effectively on a
global scale and to attract staffing talent on a worldwide basis, the
company decided to influence a positive change within its corporate
culture by implementing a series of international best practice
communication standards, which included:

1. Making English the official second language of its group of
companies

Formal communication channels were published in two languages -
English and Russian. To help managers who spoke only Russian, the
company employed a translator and signed contracts with several
translation agencies. The HR Department also heavily invested in all
staff, irrespective of location, having access to online and/or
face-to-face language training (Russian and English). The English
version of the website portal was updated and synchronised with the
Russian version with regard to news and documents published from
January 2011. It became routine and compulsory from that date for all
communications to published always in bilingual versions and on both
the Russian and English versions of its global intranet sites. Online
and face-to-face meetings were also conducted in two languages.

2. Introducing a new structure for internal communications based
on the "diffusion of innovations" marketing model

FOREX CLUB introduced a segmented approach to communicating ideas
and information throughout its business operations, based on the
'Diffusion of Innovations' model[2] created by Everett Rogers. It is
a 'top down/bottom up' communications practice. 'Top-down'
initiatives include: Monthly team briefings using a core brief
template to supplement the monthly online conferences by the CEO;
performance appraisals; open door policy throughout each
office/branch; and a meeting with the CEO for all new employees. To
ensure effective feedback on staff's well-being, a number of
'bottom-up' communications initiatives were introduced, including:
Monthly team briefings; and satisfaction surveys. Annual employee
satisfaction surveys were also set up to allow regular feedback to
all staff and to assess employee engagement levels.

Commenting on the implementation of these procedures, Olesya
Oblasova said: "We are proud to have established significant and
positive change in our group of companies by helping to build a truly
global and unified brand from which everyone benefits. But it would
be complacent of us to think that this is a one-time effort. Ongoing
benefits are contingent upon continuous investment in - and attention
to - communications and staff engagement, so our communications and
culture are areas that we are committed to improving continuously."

About FOREX CLUB Group of Companies

Established in 1997, FOREX CLUB (the company) is the brand name
for a group of companies that provides clients from over 120
countries with platforms and services for trading forex, CFDs and
other online trading and educational products. We offer every client
effective tools in training, analytics and education, as well as
personal support where they want it. FOREX CLUB has over 650
employees worldwide. In 2011, over 45,000 traders chose to learn
forex trading with us. FOREX CLUB was one of the industry's first to
offer zero spread trading and commission refunds on all unprofitable
trades.

We are committed to the developed standards set forth by
government regulators and one of our company's priorities is to
conduct business in strict compliance with current regulatory
requirements of the markets within which we operate. Our Russian
broker, LLC FOREX CLUB, is a founding member of CRFIN
[http://www.crfin.ru ], the Russian self-regulatory organisation.

The structure of FOREX CLUB Group of Companies includes a range of
brokers and training centres, including FOREX CLUB INTERNATIONAL
LIMITED, and the International Academy of Investments and Trading
[http://www.traderacademy.ru ] (license #025928). For information on
our business, please click here [http://www.forexclub.biz ].

1. FOREX CLUB was rated one of the top ten global brokers by
retail forex volume in Forex Magnates' Q4 2011 and Q1 2012 Industry
Reports.

2. This highly successful model was created by Everett Rogers
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everett_Rogers ] (1931-2004), an
academic whose published work made him one of the world's leading
authorities on communications theory and practice, and education.

Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20120517/533090

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