Tomáš Stříbný spends his days at work fulfilling customer’s needs, creating reports, handling recruitment and dealing with administration in various capacities.
His job as Senior HR Administrator, HR SSC in Brno, Czech Republic keeps him very busy and what he enjoys most about his job are the challenges, the opportunities for training and self-development, as well as workplace fun and team building activities.
After graduating with a Masters in German Language & Literature and Scandinavian Studies he joined our team as a part-time HR Administrator for Scandinavia in February 2015. These stats reflect just how essential Tomáš is to the team:
But there's far more to this Masaryk University graduate than his work at PPG amazingly, Tomáš is just as busy in his personal life and is involved in a breathtaking amount of activities! Born in Opava, Silesia and raised in Hněvošice, a village on Polish border in Hlučín district, Tomáš learned about the history of the region from a young age.
This is where his love for genealogy and the study of one's roots was born. German, as a field of study was a logical step for Tomáš and it opened up a number of other opportunities. In 2009 he became involved in a newly established student German theatre group, DoppelL.
With this group we’re involved in both classic and modern plays which we perform every year at Drehbühne (Rotating stage) festival in Brno. Student theatre groups from many other countries come here to perform in German for the public. We also play every summer for the public in Austria in connection to Czech-Austrian cultural cooperation.
Tomáš also studied Swedish as part of his degree and in the autumn semester of 2008 he joined a group who gathered to sing well-known Lucia songs for Swedish companies (e.g. IKEA) in Brno. He then joined the choir SIST – Swedish in songs, the idea of which was to organise concerts for young and elderly people.
In five years we’ve visited over 15 old people’s homes and three kindergartens, the Swedish ambassador in Prague has invited us many times to sing at Swedish festivals!
In 2011 Tomáš was involved in yet another theatre group – SveTr (Swedish Theatre) where a professional actress lead the group to participate on the Swedish Young Theatre Festival Länk!
As the only non-Swedish theatre group with no previous experience they took part in the festival twice, playing in Sundsvall and Stockholm.
When we were in Sweden we also played for the Czech minority in Uppsala and for some locals in other smaller towns. They were very surprised to see a classical play performed by Czechs in Swedish! We’ve also performed for Czech audience with our own Czech translations and most recently we performed a very current play about prejudices against immigrants, the discussion about actual political situation with different people was a great experience!
From 2011-2014 Tomáš was involved in a community radio program called Hejsan Svejsan for Radio R where Scandinavian culture and countries were discussed every two weeks.
Becoming more curious about the Scandinavian countries Tomáš decided to take the opportunity study the field of Scandinavian studies.
The highest motivation was our great mentor Alarka Kempe, the Swedish teacher, she fell in love with the Czech Republic and because of her, her students fell in love with Sweden! Basically I like to learn new things about the countries in the world and share them with other people.
Before joining PPG Tomáš was a language teacher and he still teaches some courses in German and Swedish. He's also started teaching catch-up classes in the voluntary organisation IQRS (Roma service) for disadvantaged Roma children. Tomáš' most recent project is the music band Zabásnění (In poems).
Playing clarinet in a brass orchestra at middle school and his university orchestra, Tomáš performs Czech and German poems with a friend and even played a concert in January. Finally Tomáš gives his advice on creating a lifestyle as eclectic as his own:
Volunteer for jobs, sports or cultural activities you enjoy outside of your job. If you can do something special, just talk about it! That way you can inspire other people to get involved, just as I have been inspired over the years.
Do you have an interesting hobby or talent you’d like to share with the PPG community? Or perhaps an interest that’s close to your heart? We’d love to hear about it! Please Email us and PPG’s community engagement team will follow up with next steps.