Mentoring with Åqvist
Liljas Plast Group has been working with mentoring in the factory for a few years now. Mentoring creates a knowledge bridge between the younger and older employees in the factory. The employees have varying work experience, but they can all still benefit from the mentor's knowledge bank in different ways.
Stefan Åqvist is an electrician by training, but has spent most of his professional life working as a technician, salesman and service manager at Engel injection moulding machines. Earlier in his professional life, Stefan held instructive training courses at various industries that then worked with machines from Engel. This is how Stefan Åqvist became a mentor at Liljas Plast Group. Stefan says that there is not much difference between providing training for new customers and working as a mentor. Except that through mentoring he passes on his own experiences instead of actual theory. The professional experience and knowledge can differ in the groups and therefore Stefan believes that each employee gets more out if they meet one-on-one and solve problems together.
Alfons has been working as a machine operator at Liljas Plast since autumn 2020. He thinks that Stefan's advice and help is more effective than the classic training courses as they test themselves together and work out a solution to the problems that may arise. Alfons describes that some of the problems that can arise with the machines can often have more reasons than what is mentioned in theory and therefore be better solved through experience of handling them.
“It's not that Stefan just pushes the button, he talks you through it while guiding you to do it. Says Alfons.”
Stefan has noticed that younger employees are more willing to ask questions if the groups are smaller or if the training takes place individually. He describes that the exchange is greater with more open communication. He also says that he is probably more generous in his knowledge exchanges now than when he was a professional because now that he is retired he does not need to maintain any status or the like. Therefore, he believes that he can share his knowledge more unpretentiously now than he possibly did before retirement.
Johan says he is still learning new things at work with the help of Stefan and others. Even though he has worked as an actuator at Liljas Plast for a total of seven years. Johan emphasises the importance of never seeing yourself as fully trained and he thinks Stefan is a good asset to the younger people in the workplace.
“It's great of Lilias Plast to take part in Stefan who is so knowledgeable.”
Johan thinks that more factories should work in the same way and claims that there is still a lot to learn. Mentoring has contributed to a better business climate and Stefan mentions the importance of feeling needed after retirement. He says it doesn't get much better than being retired, but still being needed and contributing. A win-win situation for the retiree, the company and society at large.
