Client: Mölnlycke
Training program: Emotional skills and emotional agency training for the entire Mölnlycke Finland management and supervisors (Emergy® LEADER), Keynote speeches and events for the whole staff (Emergy® KEYNOTE)
Objective: To raise awareness of emotional skills among management and staff.
Tools were quickly adopted by the work community
“Wellbeing has long been part of our strategy, and the huge importance of psychological safety and emotional climate for wellbeing is obvious to us.
When the training sessions with Emergy started, the atmosphere was positive from the beginning and the terms and tools quickly became part of everyday life. It was not long before you could hear colleagues talking naturally about deep relaxation, emotion detection or awakening curiosity,” says Hanna-Leena Hone, HR Director at Mölnlycke.
In addition to practical tools, the training sessions have delved deeper into the needs that drive people and influence their emotions.
Active, genuine feedback
At Mölnlycke, feedback practices have been developed since the training sessions, with the aim of creating a more active feedback culture.
“Good work goes on all the time around us, but it’s easy for successes to go unsaid. Personally, I realised how giving feedback in everyday life helps each of us to feel valued. When we see things being done well, it’s important to word and target the feedback correctly.” Timo Saahko, CEO of Mölnlycke, explains.
“It was also a good observation that we humans often have a tendency to seize on critical issues, even if they play a small role in the overall picture. Sometimes it’s good to stop and notice the positives and occasionally ‘bathe’ at the positivity.” Hone adds.
Developing together in a safe atmosphere
The importance of psychological safety, a feeling of being valued and being heard is seen throughout the Mölnlycke’s strategy.
“It is important to us that emotions and the energy that comes with them in the workplace support participation and co-development. Over the past two years, we have already collected 4,000 ideas from the factory’s employees in the ‘Tune your work’ initiative, of which around 65% have been implemented. This only works when people have the courage to be themselves and are not afraid of being knocked down,” says Saahko.
Better sales encounters with emotional skills
A healthy workforce with strong emotional skills improves the atmosphere and the bottom line in the factory. The same applies to sales, says Mölnlycke general manager Marko Halonen.
“When people interact with each other, the same laws apply. The principles that work in your own workplace are also valuable when you are visiting customers. A person who is able to consider the needs of others, including on an emotional level, is a better partner for the customer.”
Halonen says that the importance of listening is now better understood in Mölnlycke’s sales work. What is important is that both parties get a good feeling from the encounter, in addition to the facts. This is also reflected in the results of the sales work itself.
“For a strict sales manager, I would say from my own experience that this is a great and important tool that can also improve the company’s performance.” Halonen says.
A deeper understanding of your own operations
“During the training sessions, I had positive experiences of seeing that many of the things that are valuable for wellbeing are already present in my own management and in the whole organisation. However, a deeper understanding of why things have fallen into place has been valuable and will help us to make the right choices more systematically in the future.” Halonen concludes.
A message to others: emotions belong in every workplace!
“The most efficient factory in the world does not run on machines, but on people. That’s why emotions belong in the factory environment as well as in all other workplaces.
This has been the best journey we have embarked on and there is no looking back.
Emotional skills and the conscious management of a good culture will remain a strong presence for us in the future. Developing emotional leadership is long-term work,” says CEO Timo Saahko.
Ulla-Stina Henttonen.
Photo by Pihla Liukkonen
