HR director shepherded diverse corporate practices into a single harmonised policy

    Posten Logistik is a logistics company which is owned by the Swedish Post Office and headquartered in the Finnish city of Vantaa, just outside Helsinki. It also has sites in Turku, Lahti, Tampere and Tallinn. The company employs around 250 people. In the winter of 2008, the company began a merger process to integrate four companies. Minna Virmajoki, who is in charge of the company’s financial and personnel matters, didn’t have enough hours in the day to handle everything herself, so she needed an HR professional to take care of personnel matters and to set up, develop and harmonise the company’s human resources processes and practices. 

    She found the help she needed in HR4’s human resources director service. An HR4 consultant started working as Posten Logistik’s outsourced director of human resources in May 2008. When the service launched, the merger had already begun, but the companies were still working largely as individual firms with their own cultures and ways of working. In practice, the HR director ended up working not just in one organisation but in four different organisations, and she had to learn the working practices and people in each one. Initially the HR director was busy familiarising herself with the company and preparing for the merger, as well as dealing with a payroll outsourcing project, business transfers, a staff survey, recruiting a number of staff and various employment contract matters.

    HR4’s human resources director service set up, developed and harmonised the company’s personnel management processes and practices, including:

    • Defining and harmonising staff benefits, practices and guidance.
    • Setting up collaborative and health & safety organisations.
    • Set up model recruitment, induction and staff appraisal processes.

    The human resources director was also responsible for:

    • Employment and salary matters.
    • Conducting a staff survey.
    • Coordinating recruitment.

    Partnership with HR4 was utilised in a variety of ways

    In addition to the HR director service, Posten Logistik used HR4’s recruitment outsourcing service. In the future, the company wants to train its line managers and HR team and transfer the HR director’s knowledge and skills to the team members. This transfer will be supported by HR4’s training and mentoring. 

    HR4 has significantly helped Posten Logistik to concentrate on its own business by creating HR processes and practices that support its operations.