Age is just a number

You can tell by talking with Marit Sørløkken for only a couple of minutes. She is the kind of person you are comfortable sharing almost anything with because of her relaxed attitude and warm personality. She puts a smile on your face – not a bad quality for a Human Resources Administrator. 

Marit Sørløkken, however, didn’t start her career with Lantmännen Unibake in HR. She was hired as an operator at the Langhus bakery in 1986 where she worked the evening shift sorting and packing bread. It was named “the mama shift” because most of the people were women who were busy seeing to their children during the daytime. Marit has five children, so the mama shift was a perfect fit. 

“Only a couple of years later, I got into the political aspects of the job because back then, we didn’t get any extra money for working in the evening. I was appointed as shop steward, I held meetings with management, arranged classes for employees, and participated in different working parties in the central union,” Marit Sørløkken recollects. 

Since then, she has moved around a lot in Lantmännen Unibake Norway in different leadership roles. In 2019, she started working in HR because she has always liked working with people, helping, guiding, sharing, following up, giving feedback, as well as working for employees to become safe, independent, and successful. 

“My impression is, that people instantly have confidence in who I am and what I say. It’s important for me to be very transparent when I communicate, and I take personal pride in doing things in a correct manner. From my time in production, I perhaps have a special heart for our workers in the production departments. That's where I started my own career and where I know the processes,” she says. 

Marit is 69, and she plans on working until she is 72.  

“I still enjoy coming to work. The other day, I worked on a Sunday, and then I left earlier Monday. I value the flexibility very much and thrive in a trust-based system. It’s also okay to make a mistake and learn from it.” 

A dynamic team  
Veslemøy Kihle Stavseth is 26. When she was in high school, she attended Norges Toppidrettsgymnas in Lillehammer where she pursued the dream of becoming a professional skier. But a knee injury put an end to that dream, and she had to come up with a plan B. She decided to study HR Tech and Management in Oslo where she today is in her final year. 

“To be honest, I didn’t really know what HR was before I studied. But now, HR is what I want to do. I got a job working part time as an HR Assistant at Lantmännen Unibake Norway together with Marit. I like it. For me working with people is more interesting than working in finance with spreadsheets,” Veslemøy Kihle Stavseth says. 

The two women form a dynamic HR team, and they enjoy working together. 

“In my opinion, Marit can do absolutely everything,” Veslemøy says while Marit laughs it off in the background and shakes her head. “It’s true, you can. You are always available, you are always ready to help, and you have so much knowledge about how the organisation works. I have only worked here for two years but I have already learned a lot. Mainly because of Marit.” 

Veslemøy Kihle Stavseth is of course aware of the age difference between them but it’s not something she thinks about. “Marit is open to new things. Also using digital tools to perform daily tasks.” 

“That’s true,” Marit replies. “But on the other hand, Veslemøy has an advantage compared to me. For instance, Veslemøy is involved in an AI project where we try to implement AI in different functions across our organization to automate things, make them simpler and more efficient. Veslemøy has a natural talent for understanding technology.” 

6,000 leaders 
One of the things, they can both agree on is the importance of Lantmännen Unibake’s company values. Values can easily be something that live in a desk drawer and never sees daylight. But at least in Lantmännen Unibake Norway, the company values – Share & Inspire, Generosity & Responsibility, Brave & Curious – are taped to the wall where everyone can see them. 

“I often use our values when I have conversations with employees. We go through them together, and we talk about what it means, for example, to share knowledge instead of keeping it to yourself. I also like to return to our values as a follow-up conversation where employees must show me that they live by our values,” Marit Sørløkken says. 

“I have friends who work in companies where company values are not as alive as they are in Unibake,” Veslemøy Kihle Stavseth adds. “Here, the values are something we are together, as a big family. That’s also why we say that we don’t have 6,000 employees in Unibake, but 6,000 leaders. Everybody is equally important.”