Junttan

Junttan, a Kuopio-based company specializing in the design, manufacturing and marketing of hydraulic piling equipment, has in recent years expanded its international operations by establishing new subsidiaries in the United States, Australia, the Netherlands and Sweden. The company’s work environment and working methods were updated to meet the needs of a modern global organization.
This year, the family-owned company — now proudly 44 years old — realized that its traditional ways of operating were no longer sufficient in an increasingly international business landscape.

The company employs 232 professionals, 98 of whom work in production. In such a widely dispersed organization, communication and working practices faced clear challenges, including outdated communication processes and tools, a lack of unified ways of working, and — especially apparent during the Covid era — insufficient support for remote work. In addition, device-dependent access to files via network drives and VPN connections no longer served the needs of a global operating environment. With our support, the company took action and launched a Modern Workplace project.

The first essential prerequisite for the solution was understanding that this was a broader cultural transformation, supported — not driven — by technical tools. Narrowing the communication gap between different units cannot be achieved simply by introducing a new tool; it requires a willingness to change, built through personal positive experiences. The company had long faced communication challenges between production and office teams, and the newly established subsidiaries around the world created completely new communication needs.

“Our starting point for change was good, as our staff had already been expecting this kind of development for some time,” says Leena Karhu, Junttan’s Chief Digital Officer.

“Previously, important information in production was shared mainly through supervisors or posted on notice boards. Now, for the first time in the company’s history, we have an intranet in use, and company-wide communication — switched to English and facilitated through Teams — flows efficiently in both directions. However, our change process is still only in its early stages.”

Spring 2020 – a season of change

Junttan has ambitious visions for what digitalisation can achieve. The Modern Workplace project, and the collaboration between Sulava and Junttan, began with creating a digitalisation roadmap and migrating internal knowledge work to the Office 365 environment and the cloud. The VPN-based network drive solution that had been in use for more than 10 years was retired.

“Already during the roadmap phase, we identified many working methods and tools that needed modernisation. At that stage, we designed the entire information architecture — defining where different types of information should live and what roles the teams and tools, such as the intranet and Teams, have in the overall solution,” Karhu explains.

One of the project’s key elements was creating a shared playbook. The document defined the common tools and ways of working in the new modern working environment. Through Teams, the foundation was laid for broad internal collaboration so that all conversations take place in one shared space. Teams has also enabled more effective mobile and remote work, and document findability and accessibility are now on a completely new level compared to the past.

During the spring, Junttan also built and launched the company’s first intranet in its history: J hub.

”Training staff in the new ways of working and tools was originally planned as in person sessions, but the Covid 19 pandemic changed those plans. Fortunately, the initial trainings were carried out before the state of emergency began,” Karhu says.

Training has since been delivered through department specific sparring sessions and video tips. In the autumn, hands on support for production employees has also played a major role as product files were moved from network drives to the cloud after the summer holidays.

Strong commitment

In major transformation projects, leadership and staff commitment to shared goals is always crucial — and at Junttan, this worked exceptionally well. The company’s management team were the first to start using Teams and to get accustomed to a new communication culture. The staff had already been waiting for this change, so there was broad motivation across the organisation to move things forward.

Expanding collaboration beyond team boundaries and enabling remote work more effectively were changes that were welcomed enthusiastically. Remote work had previously been rare in the company, and the real test came with the remote work recommendations during the Covid 19 pandemic — which clearly accelerated the transformation.

“When we also wanted to strengthen the role of English as our company’s official language, everything seemed to come together well,” Karhu explains, adding:
“For many, learning new communication methods and tools got a fresh boost when they were suddenly required to work from home.”

Positivity and resistance (too)

Feedback in the early phase of the change process has been mostly positive. Many employees have shared how the new methods and tools have made their work easier, improved access to information, and activated communication between departments. At the same time, the new ways of working have encouraged broader reflection on internal processes, and new cross team collaboration has emerged within the organisation.

Adopting a new kind of culture almost always brings challenges — and Junttan was no exception. Training videos were watched, but not necessarily revisited; support offers were not always responded to; and only a handful of people attended support clinics.

“Our organisation includes many employees with over 10–15 years of service, and for some, adopting the changes was more challenging because previous ways of working had been in place for so long. For example, in production, the earlier approach of using files from network drives was clear and functional for many, so seeing the benefits of the change was initially more difficult. In these cases, hands on support and highlighting concrete solutions that make daily work easier are essential. We are still in the phase of adopting the new ways of working,” Karhu explains.

Sulava as a patient sparring partner

Collaboration between Junttan and Sulava in the project was exceptionally close and built on strong personal relationships. For Junttan’s project team, Sulava served as an experienced and patient sparring partner and advisor.

“I am truly grateful that we have been able to work with your patient and experienced professionals. It has been incredibly easy to go through important — even major — matters together, and the consultants’ experience from similar projects elsewhere was crucial to our success,” Karhu comments.

Future: focus on boosting efficiency

Junttan’s transformation project is far from finished, even though the tools have been adopted and common rules of engagement have been created and launched. The next focus is on improving efficiency and streamlining daily work across the entire organisation, while continuing to advance the strategic roadmap.

The company also aims to bring technology enabled services to its customers in the future, and this development will proceed alongside the internal transformation.

Author: Juhani Lassila
Published in October 2020