Understanding starts with breakfast

Text and photo Amelie Bergman

Equal opportunities and equality are grand concepts that can easily drift off into the ether. At Proton Lighting, these concepts have been brought down to earth and put into practice. A good breakfast or a brisk walk may provide fresh perspectives on the job.

Every day at 10 am, everyone at Proton Engineering in Värnamo downs tools and puts on their coats. It is time for a brisk ten-minute walk around the factory and, come rain or shine, regardless of the season and despite being voluntary, almost everybody joins in.

“For many years, we had exercise drills, but this is better. As I said, it’s not compulsory but, in my experience, most people look forward to their little morning walk. We have also noticed major changes in both physical and mental health,” says Agan Sela, health, safety and quality manager at Proton Lighting.

During 2021, a pilot project was conducted at Proton Lighting to map areas employees considered important to wellbeing and job satisfaction.

“Among other things, we held an exercise in which they were asked to write down what they considered important on post-it notes. This grew into a considerable pile that we then sorted to ascertain the most important issues: opportunities for development, a reasonable wage, security, a sense of community, respect, good health with less stress, and shared coffee breaks,” says Agan.

For Proton Group HR manager Mari Lundqvist, it goes without saying:

“The most important thing isn’t drawing up nice-looking documents and plans.

Success in providing equal opportunities is based on talking about the issues within the organisation. It should feel natural.”

The lessons of the pilot project, together with annual employee surveys, have provided the foundation for Proton’s new group-wide Equal Opportunities Policy.

“During 2023, all managers and staff in our various business areas will receive training on our Code of Conduct and equal opportunities work. Everyone should feel secure in the knowledge of how to proceed should they feel that their dignity has been violated, and of how our whistle-blower policy works, says Lundqvist, who underlines that it is not the policy in itself that gets the job done. This is something employees must do together, and the work is never done.

“In the Proton Group, we therefore undertake many activities that touch on various social issues and that can contribute to reflection. Thoughts and ideas that can then become second nature.”

The post-it note pilot project was the starting point for a successful project called the Year of Health. While this was fundamentally a health project, in hindsight it clearly had significant social impact. The morning walk is one of the activities included the project that have now been made permanent. Another is the monthly communal breakfast.

According to Anh Le, a member of the production support team, this has been very rewarding, and not only for health:

“Nobody talks about work, we joke a lot. You get to know and understand one another better, which also makes it much easier to treat one another with respect and patience on the shopfloor. You know that a colleague needs a little time with the language and that you might need to explain something one more time.

She believes that language is an important element of equal opportunities work.

“Vietnamese, Bosnian, Thai... we have many different mother tongues here at Proton Lighting, and knowledge of Swedish varies depending on how long you’ve been working. That’s why we always try to speak Swedish, both while working and on breaks. It’s important to use the same language, so we don’t misunderstand each other.

For Anh, equal treatment is the same thing as job satisfaction.

“Everyone respecting and speaking to one another. For me personally, it’s also important to have the opportunity to develop and learn more.”

Right now, she is looking forward to a training course on quality.

Agan Sela explains that skills development takes place on several levels: internally, on subjects such as quality and electrical safety, and, for those who are interested, externally in collaboration with, among others, Campus Värnamo.

“Another important element of skills development, participation and health is job rotation. We have established rotation as a standing concept. It’s not just a matter of reducing musculoskeletal injuries, but also of broadening one’s knowledge, about both your and your colleagues’ jobs. And its great for the culture.”