YOU GOT TO LOVE PEOPLE TO WORK WITH MACHINES
Benny Sundvall joined GN Tobacco, one of the world's largest snus factories located in Enköping, Sweden, eight years ago. As so many others, he started as an operator running machines that package the produced snus and other tobacco products like chewing tobacco. Benny likes living in Enköping, where the snus factory is the second largest private employer. And it gives him plenty of time to do what he likes the most, hitting the gym.
At GN Tobacco Sweden AB in Enköping, over 300 people work 24 hours a day, five days per week, manufacturing over 80 varieties of smokeless tobacco products. This is where Enköping-born assistant shift manager Benny Sundvall has found a perfect work/life balance.
"I know that for people who have never worked in an environment like this, it might seem boring to service a machine all day in a noisy factory environment doing packaging and labeling. But it is so much more to it than that. The most important thing working in a snus fabrik full of advanced machinery and robots are the people running them," says Benny Sundvall.
Knowing people is key for a healthy work environment
When Benny joined, he quickly realized how strong the bonds between the members of a shift become. That it is the team and the teammates that becomes the job rather than the machines used to produce and package the products. And as you join the company and a team, you quickly become part of the "family".
"In my current job, the shift leader and I work together to plan the factory shifts. Usually, we have a small overhead to cover for someone falling ill or having to handle some personal crisis. But in a tobacco production environment where we must keep the machines running 24 hours/day, and just cannot be one person short."
When I ask if Benny know all his shift members by name, he says it goes way beyond that.
"I need to know every person on the shift, their family situations, their likes and dislikes and as we go along, we usually build very close relationships. And in our case, the shift consists of around 45 people out of the almost 300 people working here at the factory. And of course; after eight years, I know many more of our people than just the ones on my own shift."
Maximizing work/life balance at GN Tobacco
Working in shifts is no problem for Benny who is a self-confessed training freak on his free time. He hits the gym six days/week and combines this with a strict diet to maximize the effects of the training. So, working and living in Enköping gives him plenty of time to focus on his training.
"I like working in this way, I like the environment, the culture and the colleagues. For me, being born and raised in Enköping, having the opportunity to have a job like mine is great. I know that Enköping might not be the most exciting metropole, but Stockholm is less than 45 minutes away, and Västerås and Uppsala nearby if you feel like a night out. So currently I have no plans to move out of Enköping."
When I ask Benny about his future career plans, he says that he is happy with his current position but of course, being the assistant shift manager is the step before becoming the shift manager so, as he says, "it is probably just a question of when the next position becomes available."
By Robert