Академический Документы
Профессиональный Документы
Культура Документы
TITLE PAGE
Programme APD
01689 892638
Daytime Tel Contact No: Work:
This is my original work and it was produced to meet the needs of the CIPD
Professional Development Scheme at BPP HR. The word count, excluding
Contents Page, Referencing and Appendices, etc is _______
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
1. INTRODUCTION
5. CONCLUSIONS
6. RECOMMENDATIONS
7. BIBLIOGRAPHY
8. APPENDICES
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The purpose of this research report is to review future leadership demands and
identify the criteria effecting job selection to secure Stora Enso’s position as an
attractive employer for leaders. This Future Leadership report was carried out by
interviewing Human Resource and Management professionals, reviewing various
periodicals, books and Research Reports. The second stage of the report was
completed by sending surveys to university students in China, Finland, Germany
and the USA. The objective of the student survey was to identify the most
important criteria when selecting a job when leaving University. The same survey
was sent to current leaders in the forest and non-forest industry organisations. The
baseline requirement was that these professionals have 5 years or more working
experience, their feedback was evaluated as one sample and per country.
The demands on leaders has been directly affected by globalisation, the drive for
financial results remains the same but the style needed to achieve the results has
had to adapt to the new demands being made by employees and continuous
change in the business environment. Trust / knowledge between different cultures
is increasing due to continued exposure and globalisation, mixed teams are
becoming more prevalent and effective as they became common and achieve
success. Due to the change in culture, few people have the ingrained employer
loyalty that was prevalent decades ago, this will continue to evolve and future
leaders / companies will have to evolve with it.
There will be tough competition for talented leaders in the future. Therefore Stora
Enso should pay more attention to finding Universities to co-operate with and
recruit students during their studies. This is now more important than ever because
the image of the forest industry is declining, at least in Europe and North America.
After arousing students’ interest the company should offer an excellent working
environment (number one criteria in the survey) and this is where superior leaders
are needed. Today’s leaders cannot be involved with all the details in a business
environment which is moving faster and faster, nor do they have time to micro
manage lower levels of the organisation. Therefore common rules (mission, vision,
values) are fundamental and team members have to be able to take the lead.
Management from the background works when you have recruited the right type of
people. Young talents also appreciate independence at work especially in Finland.
According to the student survey the 3rd most important issue was competitive
salary. In fact this was the most important matter to American students and
professionals but there were more variation within Finnish, Chinese and German
responses. Good possibilities for career advancement were in the Top 4 within all
four nations and 2nd in the combined results. Chinese students appear to be more
ambitious than Americans and Europeans. Professionals appreciated competitive
salary more than students. It was number one in their ranking. Excellent working
environment and good potential for career advancement were important for
professionals as well. Unfortunately I could not draw conclusions between non
forest professionals and other professionals due to too low response from non-
forest professionals.
According to the student research there was a large variation between the
willingness to become leaders: 42 % of Finns, 39 % of Chinese, 17 % of German
and only 13 % of Americans indicated manager as a career path.
1. INTRODUCTION
Stora Enso is a global paper, packaging and forest products company producing
newsprint and book paper, magazine paper, fine paper, consumer board, industrial
packaging and wood products. The Group has 85 production facilities in more
than 35 countries worldwide, and is a publicly traded company listed in Helsinki
and Stockholm. Our customers include publishers, printing houses and paper
merchants, as well as the packaging, joinery and construction industries.
Stora Enso’s annual production capacity is 12.7 million tonnes of paper and board,
1.5 billion square metres of corrugated packaging and 6.9 million cubic metres of
sawn wood products, including 3.2 million cubic metres of value-added products.
Our sales in 2008 were EUR 11.0 billion, with an operating profit of EUR 388.4
million.
Stora Enso's Leadership Behaviour model identifies the current and future
leadership characteristics, skills and behaviours needed within the organisation.
The model is aimed to help us in:
Therefore, I decided to research what are the future leadership demands and how
Stora Enso can secure its position to remain and attractive employer for leaders.
Key factor affecting the leadership demands in forest industry is higher average
age of employees than in many other industries There will be three generations in
work life within 10 years and transfer of tacit knowledge is essential. Experienced
and younger employees have different expectations for leaders. Experienced
employees respect leaders who have experience and know how as well as good
leadership skills. It will be challenging to get young potential leaders to commit.
Selling and buying dialog between employer and employee is emphasized.
What then are the main demands for leaders? People challenge. Executives are
smart, highly experienced individuals, under increasing pressure to constantly
manage change across multicultural teams in a dynamic international market /8/.
Good communication and project management skills are an asset. Leaders need
to be flexible, open to change, have patience and interest in building relationships,
consistent attitudes and correct responses to failures and set-backs. Emotional
intelligence is also important. According to Finnish Management and Organizations
professor Heilmann, in the future, leaders need to spend more time with external
partners like community communication, media and other stakeholders.
She also states that the main drivers for demands on leadership are well organized
environment designed to support good performance like clear targets, tools and
time management. You must be able to distinguish essential and unessential
duties. There is no instruction manual available for every single problem and you
need to be aware of company’s mission, vision and values to be able to act
according to company rules. Especially values are becoming more and more
important in business life. They are playing an important role in displaying a
company’s philosophy. So it helps to employ people that fit to the company’s way
of doing business. Considered from employers` view, as well as from employees`
view they assist people in identifying themselves with their employer and act
according to particular rules. Professor Sandstrom warns that favouritism of
similarity is risky. Recruiting must be done based on competence ignoring e.g.
gender, race etc. Act local – think global attitude is favourable. Leadership /
Management should live according to existing needs, e.g. change and crisis
management.
We have also found out in this project work that mixed international teams are
effective and give better output than one nation teams. It is difficult to prove this
statement right or wrong but if a given project task is the only common
denominator for the group then you will have more focus on the given task and
spend less time for small talk and other unessential issues. Of course
competencies of team members are more important than mixture of different
nationalities. Different time zones, long distances and misunderstanding of foreign
language hinder effective use of mixed national teams. Mixed national teams
appear to set higher leadership standards due to different cultural backgrounds of
team members and achieving the goal is a common target.
Professor Heilmann was asked to evaluate how well “Mapping of LEA Behaviours
with Stora Enso’s Leadership Behaviours Model” correspond with future leadership
demands. She thinks it is well formulated and the right characters are emphasized
like strategic thinking, communication skills and feedback giving.
Nokia’s recruiting policy of future talent is not limited to education but also having
the right attitude and being open minded. Nokia Finland’s HR director Outi
Taivainen points out that technical education is still important but we are looking
for the right type of people who are not prejudiced, can tolerate uncertainty, are
good at networking and are innovative thinkers’ /9/. Large companies like Nokia
are putting more focus on training leaders after recruiting the right type of person.
Dr. Judith Bardwick PhD, Professor of Clinical Psychiatry, University of San Diego
stated that “People join organizations and leave their Managers; immediate
Managers carry the most weight and have the greatest effect in retention.” Dr
Bardwick stated that in order to retain Leaders, they must be hired first, that
selection of the type of Leader desired would play a more important roll than any
type of retention incentive. In short you have to have the right people on the bus. /
4, 11/
Clearly career growth is important, stress levels may be seen as subjective, but
was ranked by Employee’s as the number 1 reason for leaving a company. This
could be considered to support the conclusion that employees hire into
organizations but leave their Managers as stress is generally seen as flowing down
the ranks. Since stress is not mentioned by employers, it would be interesting to
identify a method to gauge a leader’s ability to handle stress, i.e. personality tests,
mentoring, monitoring etc. as well as too identify what levels of stress a person can
tolerate without affecting their performance negatively.
3.0 RESEARCH METHODS & METHODOLOGY
For the student surveys I asked HR colleagues in other countries to contact and
distribute the survey to students from different universities within their respective
countries (Germany: Dortmund/electrical engineering, Dresden/paper making,
Hamburg/wood sciences, Iserlohn/mechanical engineering; USA: Michigan
Technological University, an Engineering / Forestry school, and the University of
Minnesota, a Business school; Finland: Lappeenranta University of
Technology/Faculty of Technology, Faculty of Technology Management, School of
Business and University of Helsinki/faculty of forestry; paper making engineering in
China: South China University of Technology (Guangzhou), Shanxi University of
Science & Technology (Shanxi) and Nanjing Forestry University (Jiangsu). In total
145 student answers were received (Germany 50, USA 16, Finland 56 and China
41).
The questionnaire was sent to professionals in Germany, USA and Finland, again
utilising my colleagues in global HR. Furthermore, I queried responses from the
most recent Stora Enso Management Programme (SEMP) participants. SEMP is
an exclusive in-house general management training programme for Stora Enso´s
emergent Managers. From professionals 123 responses were received (Germany
30, USA 21, Finland 51 and SEMP 21 responses).
Students were asked to give 1-10 points to every criterion, professionals however
were asked to name only the 10 most important criteria. Therefore, results
between students and professionals are not directly comparable.
4.1 Survey findings of students (China, Finland, Germany & United States)
4.1.1 China
China has a massive pool of low-cost, hardworking labourers and a rapidly
expanding number of well-educated engineers. According to Jack Welch it is their
work ethic which may be their single principal strength.
The variation in Chinese students’ answers were much smaller than e.g. variation
in American students’ answers. 39 % of Chinese students wanted to become
managers. I did not obtain feedback from Chinese professionals therefore I can not
conclude how Chinese Managers would respond.
4.1.2 Finland
According to this survey the five most important matters for Finnish students were:
1. Excellent working environment and good colleagues (9.18)
2. Good possibilities for career advancement (8.74)
3. Flexibility to organise working hours (8.47)
4. Competitive salary (8.39)
5. Independence (7.71)
This outcome was predictable because the public system for day care and
pensions are well developed in Finland. Furthermore, pensions are also distant
matters for young people, sport activity facilities are not company-related and
systems for share options are not that wide-spread in Finland.
4.1.3 Germany
The survey is based on 50 answers from different German university students. As
one can see from the survey, graduates and students are mainly not interested in
monetary benefits (e.g. high salaries, company share programs).
According to this survey the five most important matters for German students were:
1. Excellent working environment and good colleagues (9.29)
2. Protected workplace (8.31)
3. Flexibility to organize working hours (8.29)
4. Good possibilities for career advancement (8.08)
5. On-the-job-training (7.63)
The conclusion from the statistical evaluation of the survey shows that social
aspects mean more to them. In particular they are looking for an excellent working
environment, good colleagues and a protected workplace. Furthermore they want
to stay flexible when it comes to working hours, good possibilities for their career
development and on-the-job training.
Monetary interests such as pension insurance (7.41), competitive salary (7.27) and
share options (4.54) seem to attach less weight to their decision whether to work
for Company A or Company B.
Clear Company structure and Health insurance are also cited as important criteria
when selecting an Employer.
Five Least Important:
1. Pension Insurance (3.25)
2. Sport Activities (3.31)
3. International working environment and Extra holidays (3.50)
4. Business Day care (3.63)
5. Supplemental Pension (4.81)
There were no big surprises among the top five criteria, but internationality – both
"opportunities for working abroad" and "International working environment" were
scored low. This is somewhat alarming for Stora Enso representing international
business and in a situation where new emerging markets are emphasized to
improve competitiveness.
4.2 Survey findings of professionals (Finland, Germany, USA & SEMP 24
Managers)
4.2.1 Finland
According to this survey the five most important matters for Finnish professionals
were:
1. Excellent working environment (7.27)
2. Competitive salary (6.55)
3. Good possibilities for career advancement (6.47)
4. International working environment (4.43)
5. Independence (3.88)
Four of the five most important categories were the same for Finnish students and
professionals. Excellent working environment was the most important matter for
both professionals and students. The biggest difference in ranking was that
professionals valued competitive salary more than students. Professionals also
valued international working environment higher and students preferred the
possibility for flexible working hours.
Like Finnish students, day care, sport activities and pension issues were not
important for Finnish professionals because they are not employer related issues
in Finnish society. Length of holidays are also at a good European level, so there
is not that much need for them and also not time to spend them in current hectic
working life. Low appreciation of trainee programmes was an unexpected
outcome.
4.2.2 Germany
According to this survey the five most important matters for German professionals
were:
1. Excellent working environment, good colleagues (7.00)
2. Competitive salary (6.10)
3. On the job training (4.30)
4. Protected workplace (4.07)
5. Clear task description (3.70)
Like the students, they are also interested in social matters, with one exception.
We think that in the future the compatibility of job and private life is becoming more
and more important.
It is quite interesting, though we are talking about globalization and the need for
international educated persons, the aspect of internationality in a company seems
to be less attractive for professionals (international working environment 2.10,
opportunities for working abroad 0.83) as well as students (6.39, 5.76).
It is surprising that Company Image and Structure scored low, although it does
support the findings of Employee’s having less loyalty toward the employer.
Like most of the other professional respondents SEMP managers ranked excellent
working environment, career advancement and competitive salary among top five
criteria. International working environment – like Stora Enso – was valued more
than among other professional groups. This would suggest that Stora Enso is
currently hiring the “right” type of people.
Four of the five least valued criteria were social ones among SEMP Managers.
Those criteria were commonly ranked low also by many other respondent groups.
Location of workplace was valued low, which is good for Stora Enso point of view,
because there is a need to circulate managers/leaders in various positions. It
should also be pointed out that the SEMP class is 99% European
4.3 Analysis
5.0 CONCLUSIONS - HOW CAN STORA ENSO SECURE ITS POSITION AS
AN ATTRACTIVE EMPLOYER FOR LEADERS?
People have different values. In a Finnish study /15/ students were categorized in
four different groups based on their attitudes. Career oriented (31 %) are looking
for success, manager task and international experiences. Work oriented (13 %)
take their job seriously but they are not ambitious enough to become leaders.
“Stress evasive” (22 %) work mainly for money and work is not playing a big role in
their life. Ethical people (33 %) want to do work which has social meaning. It is
important to find the right type of people for leadership positions. On the top of
accurate recruiting employers must be skilful enough to maintain the motivation of
talented leaders. Work / life balance is becoming more important for career
oriented people – maybe not yet in China but elsewhere. It is said that society is
transferring from innovation driven to wealth driven /16/. Employers must offer
flexibility to leaders to get them working even smarter. However there is a risk that
freedom turns to dead weight if leaders can not perform time management, set the
right targets and motivate their subordinates to achieve those targets.
Our research has shown that compensation is still very important, what Stora Enso
needs to build upon since the forest industry is not regarded as exciting is the
opportunities it does offer, possibility of working abroad, career advancement due
to its shear size and diversity, also clarity in company structure - purity of vision
from the top is vital, challenging opportunities as well as worthwhile rewards or
bonuses that are followed though upon.
According to our study, company image was not among Top 5 criteria when
selecting a new job. Significance of company image was scored even lower for
professionals than it was for students. However there has been lots of discussion
about how to improve Stora Enso’s image to get young talent to find their way to
the forest industry. Stora Enso can not afford to ignore image building and it should
also put more efforts into finding Universities to co-operate with to recruit young
talent during their studies. It is not good enough to just “be” a good place to work;
this must be publicized outside the company, this will help in recruiting
experienced workers who can get up to speed much faster and with less training
than fresh graduates. Both current (professionals) and future (students) leaders
valued mainly same selection criteria. Four of five top criteria were the same:
competitive salary, excellent working environment, good possibilities for career
advancement, flexibility to organize working hours. Additionally professionals
chose company’s financial performance and students on the- job-training among
top five criteria.
Employees remain with companies that offer challenges, rewards, and security.
The forest industry is currently a very challenging environment to operate in
successfully, the leaders and leadership styles required today are different than
those that were required in the past. Employee expectations are dependant on
where they are in their professional career, hopefully the information presented in
this report will allow Stora Enso to further develop the retention program which will
motivate current employees and draw future leaders to it.
6.0 RECOMMENDATIONS
7.0 BIBLIOGRAPHY
Interviews
APPENDIX – A
Name
Title
Time
Place
8. Project team works are shorter nowadays. People don't get to know each others
so well. Culture-conscious is more important than earlier?
9. Others comments:
APPENDIX - B
PROFESSIONAL SURVEY
From the following list please choose and score the top ten most important to you
ranking them as 1 being the lowest and 10 the highest.
____ Independence
____ Other:
What kind of career path have you mainly planned? (Circle answer)
1. Manager
2. Specialist
3. Developer inside the company (e.g. strategy work)
4. Other:_______________________
5. I don’t know
1. Female
2. Male
Nationality:
Yes
No
APPENDIX - C
STUDENT SURVEY
Give points 1-10 for following issues how important you consider them when
selecting your employer after university studies.
Points: (1=lowest importance, 10= highest importance)
____ Independence
____ Other:
What kind of career path have you mainly planned? (Circle answer)
1. Manager
2. Specialist
3. Developer inside the company (e.g. strategy work)
4. Other:_______________________
5. I don’t know
1. Female
2. Male
Nationality:
Yes
No