Published: October 16th, 2017 by Tsvetina Kirova
The Good Way of Learning
“At Arla, we let in the goodness.” I understood the true meaning of this sentence once I joined the company. Everyone I have met so far is beyond friendly and approachable. If I want to learn about supply chain, marketing or any other topic, I can go to any of my colleagues with questions. For example, if I read a presentation about our new Quality and Food Safety strategy at Arla Foods Ingredients and there is a concept that I don’t understand I can just approach our Vice President and he will take 15 minutes to explain everything. I even scheduled monthly calls with my mentor (a senior manager assigned to guide me through the F15 programme) who teaches me about e-Commerce, marketing and sales.
International Learning Experience
I am born and raised in Bulgaria but I have always been in love with foreign languages and traveling. Arla has offices in more than 35 locations around the world and operates in over 100 countries. As an F15 you can go on three rotations: one in Denmark and two abroad in locations such as Dubai, Stockholm, Lagos, Beijing, amongst others. Not to mention all the other traveling you will have for your projects and trainings. Therefore, you can expect to work with international colleagues, learn about consumers from different cultural backgrounds and even pick up a new language or two on the way.
Learning at a Growing Company
Arla is a growing consumer goods company with annual revenues of 9.6 billion EUR in 2016. Arla Foods Ingredients, which is Arla’s daughter company where I have my first rotation, doubles its size every five years and is expected to reach 650 million EUR in revenues in 2017. The constant growth, internationalization and focus on innovation are beyond motivating. Arla believes in learning by doing and when there is so much to do, you can learn a lot. As an F15 you can have three cross-functional rotations in areas such as strategy, finance, marketing, and even IT or legal. Furthermore, all F15s go through five training modules that cover topics like leadership and personal development as well as complete a final project about innovation. Besides, Arla offers plenty of opportunities for employees to grow: personally as well as professionally. You can for example take courses in soft or hard skills and at a later stage of your career you can even enrol in specialized programs for executive training such as the Arla Global Talent Accelerator Programme.
