Safety and innovation go hand in hand 

After nine years at Axelent, Emma can scarcely believe that so many years have already passed since she joined the company. She started out in the customer services department, which at the time was known as “Team Black” and now called “Global Sales”. This department has grown, both in terms of the number of employees as well as its areas of responsibility.  

“I really enjoy my job, and that’s why I’ve stayed.”  

Emma works with everything from the placement of orders and coordinating logistics to monitoring deliveries, handling complaints, designing projects in our SnapperWorks drawing program for quotes, and much more besides. In her day-to-day work, in addition to collaborating extensively with her colleagues in the department, she has a great deal of contact with subsidiaries and agents globally. Her work also involves daily contact with carriers, which has shaped a long lasting and important collaboration. 

“Far and away the most enjoyable thing about the job is being faced with a problem and then finding a solution to that problem. We also have a great team here, who have fun together and are able to put forward their opinions. No two days are the same, and for me it is precisely the varied nature of the work that gives me such job satisfaction.” 

As has already become clear, Emma is really happy at Axelent and says that the feeling of community with her colleagues is key. The flat organisational structure makes Axelent unique, in her opinion. There is no hierarchy and everyone is treated equally. There is an openness at the company, where you feel you can also speak up when something is wrong. She considers that this openness also helps make it easy to have contact and collaborate with people in other departments. Despite the fact that Axelent has grown a great deal over these nine years, Emma nevertheless still feels a sense of family.

Safety is central to much of what we encounter in our day-to-day lives 

An ordinary day for Emma, just as for so many others, begins with waking up her children and making breakfast. Her children head off to school and Emma drives to work. When the weather permits, she may even cycle the 20 km or so to her workplace. 

“I’m going to be taking part in the Vätternrundan cycling event, so I need to train for it,” says Emma happily. 

After work, she likes cooking, which has become a great passion of hers in recent times. Then there is obviously homework with the children and other normal day-to-day activities, before relaxing and looking towards the next day.  

Safety permeates the days at Axelent, but also our everyday lives, Emma explains. From having fire alarms or burglar alarms in our homes, to wearing a cycle helmet, gritting the road when the surface is slippery or receiving a text from school if a child should have failed to turn up. Travelling to work in a safe and secure car, to being able to relax, secure in the knowledge that the coffee maker at home will turn itself off if you forgot to do this in the morning rush.  

“For me, safety and security as a whole are largely related to the fact that we live in a society that is governed by the rule of law. There is a sense that we have laws and regulations that are there to protect us. I also associate it with having family and friends that form a secure network.” 

Safety and innovation go hand in hand

In Emma’s opinion, the fact that safety is so central to everything we face in our day-to-day lives has a great bearing on the way Axelent works to develop its products.
“Axelent is a responsive organisation that listens to its customers’ requests and doesn’t complicate matters. Because our customers are using the products in their everyday lives, they have the clearest idea of what works well and what could be even better, including from a safety perspective. Learning what’s fashionable and what the customer needs means that the product can be constantly developed and reinforced.”

In Emma’s opinion, this responsiveness can also be felt internally. If someone comes up with a proposal to change something, regardless of whether this relates to something as simple as changing a coffee variety to redesigning an entire department, their suggestion will get a fair hearing. The knowledge that new ideas are welcomed also helps the company to become innovative, because people then have the courage to put forward proposals for improvements in every respect.
“If we feel there are opportunities to develop and that we will genuinely be heard when we come up with ideas or development proposals, this also results in all of us becoming more positive and inspired, and it is this that drives innovation, in my opinion.”

Emma describes the people who work at Axelent as being like-minded and with a desire to move in the same direction, and who don’t want to complicate things unnecessarily.

Not just selling a product – a safe workplace should be a matter of course

Emma considers it is incredibly important to be able to stand by and ‘feel’ for the products being sold by the company where you work. It wouldn’t be credible for customer otherwise, and they would notice it straight away, she believes.
“Being able to feel safe and secure at work should be considered equally important as a safe home or having a safe commute to work,” Emma says.

As a result, she feels that she can genuinely stand by Axelent’s claim of being “All about safety” and that the company helps to create safer working environments all around the world.