“The course has
revolutionised the
way we work!”
Internal traffic rules contributing to a better working environment
Cecilia Engelbrektsson is HR Manager at Skill, and has worked at the company for 11 years. She has previously worked as a district manager in the food industry and has been a training manager. Cecilia is responsible for the company’s HR function and works both with strategic HR issues as well as providing support to the managers in personnel-related matters. Skill currently has operations in Linköping (head office), Norrköping, Motala, Mjölby, Stockholm, Gothenburg, Malmö and Karlskrona.
Cecilia was looking for a course that focused on sustainability at work, how to work smarter and reducing stress. She spotted Effektiv Nu while she was searching, and went in and read the website.
“It felt as though it was exactly what I was looking for!
“We started with the management team, along with a few selected employees, getting to try out the Personal Efficiency course in March 2018. We wanted to have a mixed group of individuals with various roles, including staff from our smaller offices. It was important for us to have breadth, as many different perspectives as possible. During the course, we came to the conclusion that we wanted to develop our Internal Traffic Rules, a common approach to each other and to the technology, before training the rest of the organisation. The Internal Traffic Rules workshop was led by Effektiv Nu during May.
“Everyone working internally at Skill received training in Personal Efficiency during August/September. Around 75 individuals were trained over the course of five sessions, and we also had a catch-up round for those who had missed the training.”
What challenges were you facing before you attended the course?
“We have grown a great deal over the past year, and from 50 to 80 employees in two years. It is very pleasing that our customers have been so satisfied with what we are doing that we have needed to hire more staff to meet the demand. The downside is that there can be growing pains within the organisation when things move so fast. It is difficult to keep up with both the onboarding of new staff as well as production/delivery. In addition to topping up with additional resources, we have needed to think about how we can also make better use of the resources we have. Above all, it is a matter of sustainability, of achieving balance and of actually being able to leave the job behind when we leave the office. Many roles in our organisation are fairly broad, involving contact with customers, candidates and consultants. As a result, we can easily feel as though we always need to be contactable and that we are governed by events.”
What did you think of the course?
“It was a fantastic setup! Both factually and theoretically, but also in the way it was communicated – the way it was packaged to get the message across. It didn’t only set out what we should be doing, but also why we should be doing it. In other words, devoting our time to the things that create the most value, as well as making us feel that we are really free when we leave the office at the end of the day. And how we should do it – we also got to practise the how through practical, hands-on exercises.
“Getting help with all the practical elements on site was valuable, as was the fact that we had time to work with these between the training sessions. To actually start the change together with you, with brilliant help and support!
“Both the course leaders were highly skilled in this area and were responsive to our needs. They were able to keep the group together and guide it by means of straightforward, clear communication. The fact that both Manne and Emma were able to relate to the way things are for us, as they have experience from our type of business, also helped to generate a high level of confidence.”
What effects have you seen?
“The course has revolutionised the way we work! It’s frightening that we have been working in a completely different way, which we realise in retrospect has not been sustainable.
“The biggest gain is that employees get a sense of control. We highlight this as something we consider to be important. We provide tools and working methods for a smarter and more sustainable way of working for our employees.”
How are you moving forward after the course?
“We have defined a number of things we want to develop further. One group will be driving this work forward. Our internal managers will monitor their employees in the state-of-play meetings we hold every two weeks. In this way, we ensure that we are keeping to the new working method and minimising the risk of falling back into the old ways of working. The same group will continue to work on our traffic rules. New systems are on the way, and the traffic rules will have to reflect the new reality, which means that they need to be constantly evolving.”
When Cecilia is asked if she would recommend Effektiv Nu to other companies and organisations, she replies:
“Absolutely, yes! Because I think this is the type of change that can make a huge difference, both for the individual and for the organisation, and because you are fantastic at what you do ‘based on a work-life balance’. This leads to real change!”