| About Choices we Make by Artûrs Graudins, Latvian Core group member My name is Artûrs Graudins. From 1998 I work at AS Severstallat as a head of the personnel and quality management department. There are 150 workers at the company. The company is a leader in the Baltics in the field of metal trade and processing. In 2003 the total turnover was 22 mil. LVL. My social responsibilities – I am a member of Latvia Personnel Management Association Board and Legal Commission. How many times each one of us had to make choices? What have they been and have they been successful? From what I have chosen my life has been formed and will be forming further on. By making the right choices we gain success. Have I made the right choice by joining this project – this question raised while I was preparing for today’s activities. Today evaluating my choice made in September 2003 – to participate in LAEA and Nordic countries’ joint project L4S – my family and myself, we say that the right choice was made. I would like to mention a few positive things in connection with the project: I have participated in an international dynamic project that in the long term has been well prepared, has good management and has been filled with new interpersonal attitudes that have been stimulating and have given me new ideas for other projects. In this project I have gained an understanding of new things. It has given me courage and stimulated me to initiate and implement an integrated management system project in my company lasting 300 days, from February until November 2002. The initiative was approved at a managerial meeting and I was appointed project leader. I was glad about the changes in the company – it continued to work with more success then before – the business increase last year was 5 mill more than in 2001. The company’s re-structuring was being implemented successfully and new technological equipment was being brought into operation. Two very important economic projects were started. As a result of all that, Bureau Veritas leading auditor on 21 November, 2002 declared during the final meeting that the company’s activities corresponded to all three international standards ISO 2000 (quality), ISO 14001 (environmental protection), OHSAS 1800 (work protection) and their requirements. It is a rare occurrence in Latvia for all three standards to be introduced at the same time without the involvement of additional staff. The multiplicator project has encouraged me to develop pilot projects in the field of social help – a Christian help telephone line has been set up. 32 volunteers have been trained and from 11 January, 2003 they have started to offer help by phone to people in critical situations. A Latvian Help Line Call Association has been established and this year it has signed up to become a member of the International HELP LINE CALL CENTRE Association IFOTES in Switzerland. I have personally developed 5 projects, study programmes for adult training – three of which have gained financing. In December 2002, the Latvian Personnel Management Association (LPMA) received a grant for a project On Democratic Working Environment and Legal Working Relations Strengthening in Latvia from Latvia Human Rights and Ethnic Studies Center and the Soros Foundation Baltic American Partnership programme. I am the initiator and the manager of the project. One of the project’s objectives, together with the Latvian Human Rights Institute’s leading specialists of working and human rights, is to prepare and print methodological recommendations for involved partners in working rights in order to decrease and avoid existing or possible direct or indirect discrimination, on regulations in the New Working Law, that prohibits direct or indirect discrimination irrespective of the employees’ nationality, colour, family situation, or other reasons. It is the beginning of personnel management library and LPMA methodological materials. The issue of direct and indirect discrimination is topical even in other
European countries. At the moment, the Europe Union directives on anti-discrimination
are under development. LPMA has been invited by European Personnel Management
Association to give their view on these issues in January 2003. What Next? The project has given me a knowledge of the great significance of paying attention to the company’s personnel managers, their training. It has been decided to change drastically the company’s personnel training, evaluation and attestation procedure and policy in 2003. A strategic decision has been prepared, to be evaluated on February 3, on the training of 10 of the company’s internal consultants to train company staff during the whole of 2003 on such issues as processing, service, economy, legal and social aspects – everything that is important to the company. Training will be offered to the entire staff. The project foresees that the internal consultants will implement the training. Experience gained during a Multiplicator project in Danish Telecom is expected to be used – the division of time foreseen for internal consultants to fulfil their tasks will be 80/20. 80% is earmarked for main tasks, 20% – for personnel training and qualification improvement. In December 2002, we started negotiations with Toms Urdze about a possible pilot project within the framework of the program KomPas. Workers’ assessment has been completed in one of our cooperation partners’ companies – Cherepovec Metallurgical Factory, where there are 45 thousand people working. There each position – where the person significantly influences results of the structural unit’s work – has been attested based on three criteria: personal influence on the quality of the product/service, the cost of professional errors and the level of responsibility. These three criteria will be the main ones used when implementing attestation in our company as well. The motto of the project in Latvia is – be successful in your knowledge, be the first in making your choice. Each one of us has a new choice today – learning to learn. A new possibility to make a choice? Maybe it is meant for you! I hope I have given reasonable stimulation to think about the choices we make. They do influence where we will be and what we will do tomorrow. Whether or not God will be with us. Others call it success or being on the bright side of the Moon. I wish you all to be on the bright side of the Moon!
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