Today we took a 25 minute tram ride to the Volvo Headquarters from our hotel. We spent the morning at Volvo Group Headquarters, and in the afternoon, we took a tour of the Volvo Museum. I learned that Volvo Group and Volvo are no longer affiliated, after separating in 2010. Volvo became a Chinese owned Company and Volvo Group stayed in Sweden. Volvo Group manufactures trucks, buses, and marine equipment. Volvo just manufactures cars.
Our morning was spent at Volvo Group Headquarters, listening to employees mainly from the HR department. The first two women who presented for us, Anna Glembring, and Linda Niklasson were from the division of the HR Center for Expertise. They both specialized in Talent and Leadership Development from an HR perspective. They are responsible for ensuring the delivery systems are effective, and the products are focused around serving the customers. They do so by creating a culture that embodies the entire organization and work off of their HR Services Delivery Model.
The next two women who came to present to the group, Magdalena and Angelica, were both from the Recruitment department. They spoke on career development, different career paths, and the recruitment process for all new employees. Their focus is on leadership, leading others to be good leaders, empowering others, collaboration, and communication to ensure the right people are hired to match the culture, mission, vision, and values at Volvo Group.
The next woman who came to speak with us was from Volvo Group University. The university is a place for adult learning and on the job training, for both white and blue collar employees. Employees who work at the university are responsible for talent management and different divisions that make up the academy based on what type of training people need. There were many different academy’s within the university that were all meant to improve organizational knowledge for all employees. Some of the trainings are mandatory, while some are only voluntary.
The last woman that came to speak to us, Ulrika Jacobsson, is the Director for Talent Management. She is responsible for maintaining a positive culture within Volvo Group that aligns with the mission, vision, and values. She was explaining that the most challenging part about her job was that because Volvo Group is such a large company, learning how to deal with different personalities, and different perspectives can be difficult, but it also makes her job unique, and part of why she loves working at Volvo Group.
Following the the presentations we had in the morning the group walked over to Camp X, which is their newly designed innovation center to have lunch. After lunch we took a bus over to the Volvo Museum, which was mainly about the history of Volvo. The tour was set up from the oldest to newest cars and trucks that have been manufactured at Volvo.
After our day learning about Volvo we headed back to the hotel and will soon head out for some dinner. Tomorrow we head to the Archipelago of Gothenburg and then in the evening we are heading east to the city of Jokoping!
Emma and Morgan, did you hear any similarities or differences between Volvo’s approach and some of the topics we discussed in HPA 430 at companies like Mayo, Johns Hopkins, or Baptist Health ?