Denmark

Danish Crown offers free industrial operator training to employees

For the first time ever, Danish Crown ensures that employees can be trained as industrial operators with pay during the course, just as the participants are guaranteed an industrial operator job afterwards.

Posted on Mar 03 ,00:25

Danish Crown's workplaces are developing rapidly these years as the company significantly increases the amount of technology and automation in production. Therefore, in the future there will also be a need for other skills than there have been up to now.

Instead of hiring new people with those skills, for the first time ever, Danish Crown is offering the possibility for industrial operator training to all employees at the Danish processing factories and slaughterhouses, just as those involved are guaranteed an industrial operator job after the training at their current workplace. 

"In the food industry, in the future we will only need more people who can combine food craftsmanship with handling robots or other forms of automation. If we are to achieve that goal, more people must make the leap from unskilled to skilled. Here, systematic training planning is needed, in collaboration within the company. It is beneficial for both the industry and the working life of the individual," says union secretary of the Food Federation, Per Hansen.

During the training, the employees are paid an average of their normal salary, just as Danish Crown also pays for board and lodging for those who live far away from the school and transport for the others.

"Employees with this combination of skills will be incredibly important in the slaughterhouses and processing factories of the future in Danish Crown. We see no reason to look for that outside the city first, when we have skilled employees who know how to work with food, but need to have the technical part built on top of their expertise," says Per Laursen, who is production director for the pig slaughterhouses in Danish Crown.

The training takes approximately two years for the employees, and they alternate between being at school at EUC Lillebælt in Fredericia and trying out the new skills in practice in industrial operator positions in Ringsted, Blans, Horsens, Vejle and Holsted respectively, where the 12 employees on the first team is off.

One of the participants is 26-year-old Mikkel Bigum, who before then worked as a butcher on the evening shift in Blans. When he saw the offer, he had no doubts.

"I think it is a fantastic opportunity, and a very nice offer from Danish Crown. Of course, the education prepares me better for working life, but I can also see that it makes very good sense for Danish Crown that I and others can supplement our professional skills with this type of competence as the amount of automation increases," says Mikkel Bigum.

Danish Crown experienced far more applicants than there was room for in the first team. Therefore, the next team will start at the beginning of September 2023, and it is expected that more teams will follow in the same style thereafter.

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