- Slovenian paper mill Vipap Videm Krško appointed Vesna Kemper HR Director. Among other, she will be in charge of the personnel part of the restructuring in the enterprise with almost 400 employees.
- The company owned by the Czech group RIDG Holding wants to increase the flexibility and substitutability of current employees in order to effectively modernize production and stabilize. A target is also its higher attractiveness for qualified job seekers.
- In addition to restructuring tasks, also the impact of the coronavirus pandemic remains in focus of the new HR Director. In recent weeks it caused outages in the supply of raw materials, a partial interruption of production and the forced leaving of a third of employees at home.
Slovenian paper mill Vipap Videm Krško has started restructuring under the new Czech owner RIDG Holding. The newly appointed HR Director Vesna Kemper will be in charge of the process, which aims to modernize production and stabilize the company in the field of human resources.
The manager, who previously worked for the Slovenian toll operator DARS, aims to increase the flexibility and substitutability of almost 400 current employees, set up a new career path system and ensure that paper mill has enough motivated and qualified employees in the future.
“Especially in the production part we need to increase the qualifications of our employees so that they can perform a wider range of jobs and tasks than before and also can better substitute each other,” describes Kemper, who joined Vipap Videm Krško on March 1st.
In addition, according to her, there is a need to start working systematically on reputation of the paper mill as an attractive employer.
“The town of Krško is relatively far from the capital Ljubljana, so it is more difficult to get new qualified workers in the surroundings. That is why we must also address the candidates from a greater distance and show them why it is worth commuting to work,” says Kemper. As an example of another strong Slovenian employer, whose reputation helps to attract quality employees, even though it is located far from Ljubljana, mentions the pharmaceutical company Krka.
However, Kemper has had to put tasks in the field of personnel restructuring on the other track in recent weeks. Due to the pandemic of a new type of coronavirus, the company is facing outages in the supply of paper for recycling, which has resulted in a partial interruption of production.
“Therefore, about a third of the employees had to stay at home temporarily, waiting for the operation to resume, to get back as soon as possible. As in the Czech Republic, also the Slovenian government has taken measures such as covering salary of these workers up to 80%. Also will cover significant part of contributions for all who continue to work,” she describes.
Following the effects of the coronavirus pandemic, the restructuring of Vipap Videm Krško will continue with an evaluation of business and production processes and then with their reorganization.
Later company plans to increase the flexibility among employees by preparing new job descriptions. It also intends to support the upskilling of workers and their long-term professional development. In addition, it plans to adjust the career path system so that employees can grow not only on the basis of education, but also on the basis of skills and competence.
According to Kemper, at this time it is still too early to talk about how many employees the company will have after the completion of the restructuring, which should last at least a few months. The goal is to retain as many current employees as possible.
