Humans of Orkla - Agneta P?ander

Today we are meeting Agneta P?ander, who is Sustainability Director at Orkla Foods Sweden. Agneta has been passionate about all things sustainable and has been working at Orkla for almost 9 years. Her role has shifted in response to COVID 19 yet her focus remains very much about health, wellness and safety of our employees.

What is your role at Orkla?

Pre-COVID 19 days, my position was Sustainability Director at Orkla Foods Sweden based in Malmo but currently I am working as Contingency Leader Corona. My role at present, as part of a team of 10 cross functional experts, consists of the following:

• Working towards safeguarding the health and safety of our employees,
• Making the right decisions to ensure supply, production and delivery continues in order to provide for our customers and consumers
• Contribute to reducing the rate of the spread of infection in the surrounding community

How are you adapting to the new ways of working? And how has it made you think differently about your role and how you work?

Perhaps the biggest change is working from home. It’s interesting to see how quickly you adapt when you have no other option but to change. This is something that we need to take with us post-Corona and that when we want change, we need to first make up our minds about what kind of change we want, make the decision to go for it and then implement the change together. When you work this way, the change is lasting and coordinated.

On a personal level, the focus of my work has changed dramatically since March. Beforehand, I was leading sustainability efforts based on a clear vision, strategy, goals and KPIs and then suddenly life got flipped upside down and I was leading our Corona contingency work with a blank canvas and no real playbook. It would have been easy to get overwhelmed in such a situation but having a great team and strong support from the management team makes the difference so I feel lucky to have both!

What do you miss most about working in the office?

We have an activity based office at Orkla Foods Sweden which is energising and great for increasing interaction and spontaneous meetings between colleagues. I miss that spontaneity which often spawned new ideas and thinking. I also miss the broad spectra of my colleagues and how we would interact both socially and professionally.

One thing I don’t miss is travelling. There is definite a value in meeting people face to face but I definitely think, as a company, that we could easily cut 75% of our normal business travel and use Microsoft Teams instead. This experience has increased our digital competence and our understanding of what how to run an effective meeting via Teams. This could actually become a great CO2 goal for us as a company to reduce our carbon footprint.

In what ways do you think this will permanently change the way we work and think about work? And in relation to sustainability, how will this area be influenced or changed by these events?

Our business travel and meeting culture will definitely change based on our learnings from this period such as the type of meeting we choose, meeting length and who actually needs to join particular meetings.

On a higher level, Corona has put the spotlight onto everybody’s improvement potential regarding crisis preparedness. We need to start actively discussing risk management, supply chain and sourcing strategies to ensure we are prepared for whatever could happen in the future.

From a customer and consumer perspective, our buying behaviors will also change. At the moment, we are working on scenario planning in order to understand how this crisis will effect consumers purchasing behavior, our company culture, and cooperation with customers in the future post-Corona.

Why do you like best about working at Orkla?

At Orkla, where sustainability is an integrated part of the business, it gives me the ability to drive change and really make a difference. In addition, the fact that I get to do that together with my great colleagues and also with the industry - makes the job that much more rewarding!

I really love the great teamwork and being able to help Orkla out during such a difficult time. I also really believe in what we do and the way we are supporting the employees and our customers/consumers. 

For more info on Orkla, go to orkla.com , follow us at Orkla Group on Linkedin and at Orkla Global Careers on Instagram.