Varför lämnar maskinförare skogsbranschen? :

Sammanfattning: Resignations are common in all business sectors and can also be found among forest machine operators in the forest business. As the industry today faces a lack of forest machine operators it is justified to determine why machine operators choose to quit their jobs. The aim of this study was to a) find out the number of machine operators that have resigned b) identify and analyse the cause for these resignations c) identify the reasons why the machine operators started to work in the forest and d) give suggestions on different measures that will limit resignations amongst forest machine operators. A questionnaire was sent to machine operators who have quit working as employees, contractors or as employees for contractors with Holmen Skog during 2003-2007. 32 machine operators responded to the questionnaire. Interviews were made with 10 machine operators who had answered the questionnaire to gather more qualitative data. The results of the study indicate that fewer forest machine operators change profession than employees in other occupations in Sweden. The study shows that the major cause for machine operators to resign were organizational reasons, due to insufficient leadership, inconvenient working hours and high levels of demand and stress. Economic reasons in the form of low salary was also one major contributing reason. The younger machine operators mainly resigned due to discomfort. This was due to the fact that the machine operators did not appreciate the many hours they worked alone in the forest, as well as the bad social atmosphere they felt at work. The motives for becoming a forest machine operator were that they liked to be in the forest, they had a large interest in machines and appreciated the freedom in the job as a forest machine operator. It was concluded that measures preventing forest machine operators from resigning would be to improve the leadership competence of the contractors. Leadership should become part of the curriculum of the forest machine operators’ education. The newly-trained machine operators should be given help and support to get into the contractor enterprises. The communication within the contractor enterprises must be improved and measures must be taken to increase work satisfaction and motivation amongst the machine operators.