Believing in Listening and Just Doing It
Usually when people are asked to introduce themselves, they start talking about their career. I like to start by saying that I am happily married and a proud father of three wonderful daughters. For me, family always comes first.
Shared Values Do Count
I have worked 17 years at Ensto in Estonia. At university I studied economics and after graduation started my career at Glamox. After a couple of years, I moved to Ensto in 2004. My reason for staying here for such a long time is that the company and I share the same values: in this family company, people are important and that can be seen in the everyday business activities. Another thing that I love about Ensto is the constant change – something is happening and changing all the time which gives us a possibility to learn and grow. I enjoy changes and challenges and want to learn new things, so this is a perfect match.
Managing Production, Leading People
My longest experience at Ensto is from purchasing, and I spent a year in the logistics department before starting as the Production Manager of Keila factory eight months ago. The new post is clearly a totally new thing to me, and the past months have been very interesting for me. When working in the production the most important thing is to be prepared for all possible changes. Here, only one thing is for sure and that is the constant change. I see that my main role is to take care of our biggest asset: the 185 people of the production department.
One Mouth and Two Ears
Calmness is a good trait in my current position. I like to talk with people, but I have noticed that there is a reason why we have only one mouth and two ears. Listening is super important. Especially now that I am fresh in this job, I need to listen to the experienced production people as from them I can learn. There are a lot of smart people in the company, who I value and respect. I am systematically dedicating part of my time to meeting people, listening to them, and discussing with them. I hope that my colleagues see me as fair, open-minded and an easy-to-talk-to person who does not sit in the ivory tower but walks among the people.
Let’s Just Do It
In my mind there is no such thing as perfect timing – if you start waiting for that you get nothing done. My motto could be – let’s just do it – and enjoy the process while doing. And this goes to the whole life, not only work life. Right Now is the best time. I see that the best solutions can be found together and by discussing. All opinions are valuable when searching for a decision to be made. For me it is important to make things as clear and easy as possible and for example by rephrasing a more understandable explanation can be found. Usually, it is not easy to find a simple result but by open discussion it is possible.
Proud of My Team
The pandemic time has been challenging for all of us and I am grateful for the endurance of our people during this exceptional period. Everyone has worked diligently and several extra miles to get us back on track. In production we are everyday solving customer problems and doing our best to support them. For me personally it is important that the customers are close to us – we keep clear in mind they are our employer. This is pure cooperation and that is how it should be. We keep on working hard to get our delivery accuracy back to the desired level and keep it there. Fortunately, we will soon be there, as everyone is pushing hard for that. I am proud of my team. We are also hiring new people which means a lot of onboarding is happening and at the same time we work to keep the valuable Ensto spirit up. My target is the constant development as part of which we have introduced a new salary system. Prioritizing is definitely needed so that I can find time for everything – but as stated: I like challenges.
Kaido Pae
The writer of the blog, Kaido Pae, works as the Production Manager of Ensto’s Keila factory in Estonia.