Fluid-Bag has a low staff turnover thanks to investments in the employees
What makes an employee want to stick to his or her employer? This is a question that HR Manager Pamela Kjellman at Fluid-Bag has thought about a lot.
“I am convinced that the key in HR work is to build long-lasting relations that are based on mutual trust and respect”, she says.
Fluid-Bag has apparently done something right in this regard, since the company has an exceptionally low staff turnover. The employees stay with the company for an average of 13.5 years.
“I am especially proud of that number considering that this is a line of business prone to fluctuations on the market with its ups and downs”, Kjellman says.
Like for many other Finnish companies, finding new employees is at times challenging for Fluid-Bag due to the labor shortage in the country. This is naturally one reason that Fluid-Bag wants to invest a lot in its existing staff.
“We want our employees to thrive and try to build a sense of belonging, and make sure that they have good career opportunities. We also want to give our employees a lot of freedom and keep them informed about what is going on in the company.”
In practice, this means monthly meetings with the whole Finnish personnel of about 50 persons, where the staff gets the latest updates on the company’s finances and outlooks.
“People need to feel that they are updated and they also need to feel that they can influence things. We have very low hierarchies, and if somebody wants to speak to the management, the door is always open.”
The freedom for Fluid-Bags employees is evident, for example, in very flexible working hours.
“Even the staff that works in production has somewhat flexible hours. If they need to run personal errands during the workday, it is mostly doable.”
Although Fluid-Bag has done a lot of things right already, Pamela Kjellman knows that there are a lot of things still to be done.
“One area in which we want to invest is employer branding. We need to enhance our visibility in the local community in order to stay attractive for new talents.”
