About me
I have been working at Holmen for 16 years already! In this time, I have thoroughly enjoyed my journey and the many challenges that we have all faced and embraced during that period. My homelife consists of my wife Cathy (who is half Swedish!) and two daughters - Amelia aged 15 and Betsy aged 9. In my spare time I enjoy playing golf which fortunately allows me to spend even more time amongst the trees searching for my ball due to my wayward shots! 😊
Picture: Just a picture of me!
Customer Care, London
Our UK Team currently consists of 9 people, previously most of our team have been based in Central London which for me is just over an hour from home. Needless to say, 2020 has been slightly different and as a team we have fully evolved and succeeded in the art of remote working!
My main customer base are book publishers and I’m very proud of how as a team we have built and continue to build such great partnerships with them. Historically as a market we were heavily dependent on newsprint/daily press customers but our journey has meant that today our customer portfolio is extensive including magazine publishers, book publishers, gift wrap companies and daily presses to name just a few! As we continue to create new products, our portfolio of customers will continue to grow and evolve further and I am excited to be part of the journey.
Picture: Holmen UK Office 2020!
A day at work
A normal working day today is slightly different now as is the same for many of us. The day starts with a check of emails and task bar to prioritise the workload. Naturally, the planned to-do list can go out of the window in the first minute if we need to react to an urgent issue! After prioritising the daily tasks, I tend to have a digital ‘check in’ with my colleagues. This takes the place of our usual five-minute coffee break around the kettle when we were in the office.
Communicating and understanding our customers is imperative to our success and I try to ensure and make time to have a general discussion with at least one a day. My customer portfolio consists of book publishers, so the conversation is often about new books, reprint activity, stocks and general news.
During the morning as a team, we will process the deliveries from our UK warehouse for the next day and issue invoices for the stock that has been delivered the previous day. Afternoons kick off with an office daily briefing involving all the UK team and departments, it’s great to hear what everyone is up to and it’s also a perfect time to review how we are all doing. After the meeting we tend to work individually on our accounts by reviewing deliveries v stocks, placing new orders, and reacting to emails that have come in through the day.
Picture: Digital Fika UK style
Why Holmen
I have been with Holmen for over 16years now and during this time we have undertaken many twists and turns with our products, customers, and systems but one thing that always stands out for me is the people and the togetherness we have between head office in Norrköping, Sweden, mills, and sales offices around Europe.
I have been lucky enough over the years to take over 100 customer representatives on trips to our forests and mills and the feedback I always get back is how the passion and commitment exhumes from everyone that those people meet during the trips. For me that is something that we should all be proud of. Another thing that makes Holmen UK such a great place to work is the fact that we never stand still- as an office - we like to mini celebrate our successes but understand that we need to be even more focused in order to retain the new business and ensure the Holmen customer service is market leading.
Picture: from a mill trip last year pre Covid
Thank you for reading
So now we reach the end of my blog and hope it has been of some interest to you. I’d just to thank my Holmen UK colleagues and in particular the Customer Service team, we have all worked together for a good few years now and I think we should all be proud of our achievements. Now onto the next chapter of success……….