The value of values

Kesla’s Human Resources Manager Maria Mustajärvi returns to internal communications and its key tasks: taking the organisation’s vision, mission idea and values into everyday life and communicating information related to work tasks. In 2019, one of Kesla’s most important internal communication themes was value communication.

Responsible, innovative, quick and reliable performer – these are Kesla’s values. In his book Väärää yrittämistä (“Wrong Entrepreneurship”), Kim Väisänen, Blancco founder, non-fiction writer and startup investor, says that ‘value’ is a difficult word for Finns. “The situation becomes easier when you replace the word ‘value’ with something easier to understand, ‘behaviour’. Values determine how a company or individual ultimately behaves – especially when things are difficult and you’re going against the wind.” Väisänen seeks to concretise value thinking with his metaphor. Kesla also wants to make values into a natural part of everyday life.

According to Human Resources Manager Maria Mustajärvi, the goal is for everyone at Kesla to know and understand the importance of values. Lectures and endless PowerPoint presentations do not help, doing things and thinking about them do. “We have made people process the meaning of values for themselves. We have held workshops and discussions and carried out a wide range of activities and monthly value themes. People have been encouraged to communicate with each other about values. Discussions have also taken place.”

The binding of values into everyday work at Kesla started with supervisors, shop stewards and occupational safety representatives. Occupational health care is also involved. According to Mustajärvi, a few superiors admitted to hesitation before the operation started. “After the value workshops had been held, even the hesitators found the experience a pleasant surprise. This confirms the idea that values become concrete in everyday life through your own thinking, not when they are handed to you from the outside.”

Calibration

Values are the reference framework for everyday decision-making. It is important that the same values and operating methods guide Kesla team members, regardless of their task or the location of the factory.

The challenge is that Kesla operates in three locations. But so do many other companies. Local tensions are forgotten when the same values and operating methods guide us all. In order to build a common culture, we also need a certain type of calibration of supervisory skills, harmonisation of operating methods,

- says Mustajärvi, reminding that the main task of a human resources manager is to support managers in their work.

Clear direction

Maria Mustajärvi joined Kesla at the beginning of 2018 to carry out a human resources management development project. With the project, the master of Administrative Sciences planned to obtain a doctoral dissertation in law. Kesla finally claimed the hard-working woman’s entire attention, and the doctoral dissertation was left to wait for its turn.

“I’ve always wanted to improve myself, to study new things. I also bring that will and spirit to Kesla. Traditional engineering thinking is still shifting from machines to people, but it is on the right track. Machines and equipment are needed, but without skilled people, they don’t achieve anything.” The “right direction” mentioned by Mustajärvi means, among other things, that she encourages the 26 managers of Kesla to consider and plan the competence needs and training of the employees of their organisation.

The strategy process initiated by CEO Simo Saastamoinen was completed in 2019. Strategic development themes relate to capital-efficient delivery capability, product portfolio management, service business and strengthening market presence. Courage and perseverance in reinvention have been highlighted as the development theme for the organisational culture. “The strategy process itself has been at least as important as the outcome. This process has also been reflected in our personnel surveys. The feeling is that we are in controls, the direction is clear and our next steps are plotted.”

Maria Mustajärvi joined another employer in March 2021.

Values are the reference framework for everyday decision-making. It is important that the same values and operating methods guide all Kesla team members, regardless of their task or the location of the factory.

Kesla’s values have been widely communicated to the staff. A photo of one of the supervisors’ value workshops in 2019.