Epsilon Archive for Student Projects

Abstract

In 1993 Sweden introduced a new Forest policy, with a larger freedom of action for the forest owners, but in the same time the forest owners are expected to take greater consideration of the forests and the environment, that is required by the law. This is necessary to be able to obtain the goals of the new policy. Therefore the demand for competence and guidance is larger than before. At the same period of time organisations where slimmed and trimmed during a economic recession and the question is how this has affected the number of employees on different levels in the organisations, the competence of the employees and their internal education and if these changes affects the possibility of implementing the forest policy.

This study contains three points in time where measures were made, 1990, 1995 and 2000. Totally 30 persons were chosen at the central offices at forest companies, at forest owner foundations, at trade associations and at church dioceses. They received a questionnaire by post and the answers were gathered by phone. 67% replayed on the questionnaire. The results were grouped by year, organisational level and by type of organisation.

The study showed that the number of regions had decreased, with 80% at the companies and with 50% at the forest owner foundations, between 1990 and 2000. The number of districts had also decreased during the same period, hut not quite as much (-50 %).

The number of employees decreased, with totally 77% between 1990 and 2000. The largest decrease occurred on the central level of the organisation and the least decrease at the regions. The decrease was largest between 1990 and 1995 and largest at the forest companies. The number of cutting teams decreased like the number of persons in every team. The number of employed with operative work in the forest have also decreased in al organisations. The number of employed with direct contact with forest owners at a daily basis have decreased as weIl, with exception from the forest owner foundations, where the number increased between 1995 and 2000. The number of employees per 10000 ha decreased with totally 68 % between 1990 and 2000. The number decreased most in the forest companies and least in the forest owner foundations.

Considering the competence of the employed the results showed that the number of employed with only upper secondary school decreased and the number of employed with collage education increased. The number of employed with some kind of forestall education per 10 000 ha also increased, totally with 51 % between 1990 and 2000. A large part of the employed with collage education have some kind of forestall education.

The dominating part of the education categories per 10000 ha have decreased at the central level in the organisations, but the number of forest engineers and graduate foresters has increased, so have the number of civil engineers. The category for upper secondary school decreased the most. In the regions al categories of education per 10 000 ha decreased, the category for other education most. You can see a slight increase in the number of forest technicians and forest engineers between the years of 1995 and 2000. In the districts the number of employees per 10000 ha with only upper secondary school degree, with other education, forest technicians and those with biological or environmental education decreased. On the other hand the number of forest engineers and above al graduate foresters increased in the districts.

The number of days per employed spent on internal education has decreased at the central level, hut it have increased in the regions and in the districts. The total amount of days is higher 2000 than 1990, the peak was in year 1995.

Year 2000 the dominating part of the internal education was in the category of other education, including data- and organisational education etc. Forest management and nature consideration had equally large parts. The part for culture environmental care was relatively small. The direction of the internal education year 1995 was rather equal to that year 2000, if you go back to year 1990 you can see a larger difference. Forest management had a larger part, white nature consideration had a much smaller part. The part for culture environmental care and the category of other education were about as large 1990 as they were later, around 10 respective 35 %.

The conclusions are that the organisation of the forest companies has changed a great deal and horizontal organisations structures have resulted in a large decrease of the number of employees. The increase in competence that has occurred cannot completely compensate the loss of employees, but with increased competence trough out the whole organisation it should be easier to implement new policies and new ideas.