March the 24th, 2022 - The Croatian BaDaBum digital platform is making life that bit easier not only for children but also for their parents when it comes to the development of speech and language skills.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, the BaDaBum digital platform, the first such Croatian platform that interactively and effectively helps children develop speech and language skills, has been enriched with new content to help preschoolers prepare for their enrollment in primary school.

The BaDaBum digital platform has been supplemented with new levels on as many as five different games, and two more games will soon receive their upgrades. In addition to the existing ones, parents of preschool age children can also find eight new exercise sheets through which their children can improve everything from graphomotor skills to attention, memory and visual perception.

Back at the end of February, testing for enrollment in the first grades of primary school began, in which the child's psychophysical, graphomotor and intellectual skills are assessed and a decision is made on the child's readiness for enrollment in the first grade. Kindergartens conduct unofficial assessments with preschoolers between the months of January and March, but each school re-tests all of its potential freshmen before enrolling them. In order for the enrollment process to go smoothly, it is important to start preparing in time and help your child get better acquainted with the learning process through a fun and positive experience.

“Exercises and games on the BaDaBum digital platform cover the development of all skills that children need to master before starting school, and it includes: pre-mathematical and graphomotor skills, language comprehension skills and phonological awareness - the analysis and synthesis of words and voices, syllables, recognition and formation rhymes, vocabulary development, visual perception, attention, concentration, memory and so on,'' explained Martina Starcevic Perica, one of the speech therapists on the BaDaBum digital platform.

It's worth mentioning that BaDaBum is primarily intended for preschool children 4-7 years old, their parents and speech therapists, and behind the project are experts from the ABC speech therapy and rehabilitation centre, the 404 agency and Shape studio.

For more, check out Made in Croatia.

November the 6th, 2021 - The Croatian MealPass app has done exceptionally well here on the domestic market, and with a spring put in their step, they're now eyeing expansion across Croatia's immediate region.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Ivan Tominac writes, Sasa Jurkovic has spent a very long time indeed working in human resources, and that pushed him to decide to try to offer the market some new benefits, which will further strengthen the relationship between employers and their employees.

Guided by this way of thinking, this year, he launched the Croatian MealPass app - an application that saves money that employees have to typically hand over for meals and lunches, all while not having to use it during their working hours only.

The idea has been evolving for more than one year, and significant amounts have been invested in the form of their own funds. They involved a whole team of experts in the application's realisation, so that the final idea would be ideal for the market and its current needs.

This story is about the benefits that have become the ''modus operandi'' of every employee-oriented employer, and the Croatian MealPass app is a new value precisely in the domain of benefits as one of the important parameters of attracting and retaining talent.

“In order to further motivate and attract new employees, employers began to introduce various benefits that moved away from purely financial benefits. Some of these benefits cost nothing, and some did, but the value significantly outweighed the price of each benefit. It started from offering things like drinks and fruit in the office, to flexible working hours, and today you have hundreds of different options out there on the market. The only question is which of the benefits are more valuable to any of the employees. In any case, the benefits have become an indispensable part of the package for motivating and attracting new employees. Combined with a pleasant working atmosphere and optimal income, the benefits greatly affect the desirability of any given employer,'' stated the president of the HR Centre and entrepreneur Sasa Jurkovic.

As Jurkovic added, employers often tend to think that the same benefit is good for all of their employees and that it will make them happy and motivate them. Unfortunately, this is not the case, so smart organisations adjust the benefits they offer to their employees, that is, they try to get an idea of the wishes of all of their employees in as much as possible. What works best depends on the sociodemographic characteristics of individual organisations.

Companies with younger employees will offer more benefits based on education, sport and recreation, as well as private life, while those with older employees will put emphasis on health insurance, pension savings, etc. However, Jurkovic noted that nutrition is the benefit that suits absolutely everyone.

The Croatian MealPass app is an idea that has existed in other parts of the world for years and is somewhat of a standard in employee benefits, but here in Croatia it is a complete novelty.

Enabling tax-free receipts for food, the ability to work from home and the growing need of people for social contact and moving out of the office, but also from home — were among the main inputs from the market that led to the development of this idea.

Furthermore, many families tend not to cook at home on weekends and the need of employers to provide employees with a benefit that doesn't discriminate against anyone, while also being something everyone wants.

The Croatian MealPass app provides its customers with more affordable food in any restaurant or restaurant within the MealPass network with a 15 percent discount. The user pays for the food they've purchased using the MealPass application, the funds spent are then replenished in the user's MealPass account using a credit or debit card or via net banking.

For the use of the MealPass programme, an annual membership fee of 150 kuna plus VAT needs to be paid. Given that this amount is paid on an annual basis, the Croatian MealPass app is acceptable to the vast majority of users, and represents an extremely favourable benefit to employers if they pay a membership fee for their employees.

“Now imagine going to a family lunch. You'll likely not manage to get much for under 400 kuna in most Croatian restaurants. With MealPass, your lunch will cost 340 kuna. Better yet, imagine a birthday celebration. You'd likely not go below a thousand kuna there. With MealPass, you'll pay 850 kuna. The savings on a monthly and annual level are huge,'' pointed out Jurkovic.

As he explained, they also have big plans that they plan to implement in the next three years. “MealPass has big plans and we expect more than 100,000 app users in the next three years. Given the interest of employers and their employees, I believe that we'll succeed in reaching this goal much earlier. Given the wide network of contacts we have, we've already started talks about expanding into the immediate region,'' concluded Sasa Jurkovic from the Croatian MealPass app.

For more, check out Made in Croatia.

September the 15th, 2021 - The new Croatian Staff.hr ''worker booking'' platform has been created by footballers, and it's the first such booking site to exist in Croatia.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Marija Crnjak writes, meet the brand new Croatian Staff.hr service for workers and employers launched at the beginning of the summer by a pair of amateur football players, economist Toni Adzic and psychologist Ivan Abramovic.

Their goal is to speed up and simplify the processes on the labour market as much as possible, and Adzic got the idea in London, where he lived before the coronavirus pandemic struck.

“It was there where I came across this system of ''booking'' workers through a platform on which labour is hired across various industries as needed, and it works very simply and quickly. As we also have a serious problem of finding labour in Croatia, and so far there's been no such service, we decided to develop our own platform. We started working at the time of the pandemic and it was challenging, but we managed to get the Croatian staff.hr platform up and running this June,'' Toni Adzic explained.

Although they are also registered as a platform for job advertisements, unlike other employment agencies and portals, a database of clients as well as workers who are interested in the job is created, and clients then go there to "hire" them. The system is similar to how delivery services work, except that it is not the products that are delivered but the workforce, and it primarily regards operatives.

"Everyone who wants to work applies to us, passes certain security checks with us, leaves their data on their previous experiences, and stays in our database of workers, then they go off to work wherever they want, depending on the needs of clients. We aren't their employers, they're a partner of the company and the workers can choose for themselves, and we take a certain fixed fee for advertising from the clients and that's how we earn. Everything is very transparent and pre-arranged, so that both employers and workers know what awaits them,'' said Adzic.

He pointed out that it is very important for them as intermediaries on the Croatian Staff.hr team that both clients and workers are satisfied, and that unpleasant experiences can occur on the labour market, so they have introduced a system of reviews, the evaluation of both workers and clients.

Since June, when the Croatian Staff.hr platform started, their base of workers has been constantly increasing. The interest is currently greatest among students, but there are other age groups in a variety of industries, from catering to events, promotion and sales. As the platform was launched only in June, this year there was no opportunity to significantly penetrate the labour market in terms of tourism, which is certainly expected in 2022.

There will certainly be work to be done, as the shortage of workers in tourism will be one of the sector’s biggest challenges for next season. This year, the sector has entered the season with at least 5,000 workers less than needed and ads for maids and waiters are still circulating today.

It is precisely the acceleration and simplification of the employment process not only of foreigners, but also of the domestic workforce that is what the Croatian Tourism Association is most loudly calling for. In addition, in their proposals for measures that will soon be sent to the Government for consideration, HUT is asking for tax relief for the employment of students, a large pool of potential workforce in the summer season, which is currently not well motivated due to tax levies.

That would be a small expense for the state compared to the income that can be generated if that group is motivated to work, they stated from HUT.

For more, make sure to check out Made in Croatia.