Reliable delivery above anything else
Warehouse manager Bent Frisk is a can-do man with Solar blue blood. Playing major roles in Solar Danmark as central warehouse manager and staff-elected member of our Board of Directors, Bent has a stand on good management and Solar’s direction – and he is not afraid to go his own ways to get the results he wants.
With a background in the car industry, Bent came to Solar Danmark in 1985 and designed a new warehouse that was 2,500 square metres at the time. Today, it has grown into a 40,000 square metres highly automated central warehouse that makes up the backbone of Solar’s business. “Making sure that our customers get the right things at the right time in the right place is what really matters. That’s what our customers need so that they can go on with their businesses. Stable, reliable delivery goes before anything else,” says Bent.
Mr Central Warehouse
Although Bent Frisk is Solar Danmark’s Mr Central Warehouse, his career in Solar has also taken him to projects in Germany, Poland and Finland. And in 2000, he and his family pulled up stakes and moved to Norway. Working in Norway was great, and in addition to giving him the possibility to build up a strong central warehouse in one of Solar’s subsidiaries, one experience in Norway stays with him always: the fire that destroyed our Norwegian central warehouse on a Sunday in February 2000. 2,500 square metres burned to the ground and the flames ate both buildings and every single item we had in stock. Luckily, it was on a Sunday and no one was hurt in the fire.
It goes without saying that it was a horrific day for Solar. But when you live and breathe supply chain, the ambition to restore our ability to supply immediately takes over. To make a long story short, it took Bent and his crew less than a day to find a new temporary storage building, and by Monday morning, the setting up of a temporary central warehouse in Gardermoen began. By Wednesday, they had a fully functioning and stocked warehouse. “In a situation like that, you really find out who is in, and who is out. There is a can-do mentality about Solar that still exists today. And when the going gets tough, that’s the mentality which carries us through. We do not stop until things have been done,” says Bent.
Good management develops employees
Bent currently runs a team of 156 committed warehouse workers. He is very dedicated to practicing good management and has developed a quite holistic approach over the years: “My most important responsibility is to make it possible for the employees to be the best they can be. I want them to build competences and be attractive to other companies. And I want our workplace to be a good place to be so that they choose to stay because they want to – not because they have to,” says Bent who is happy to say that very few of Solar’s warehouse workers leave to go to another company. They leave to take retirement. But mostly, they stay with us until then.
In Bent’s team, there is room for diversity. There is no stereotype for the people who work there, because if you are willing to learn and work hard, there is a way – also for people who may have a hard time getting access to the Danish labour market. Recently, Bent has taken in four refugees with African and Syrian backgrounds. They work three days a week in the warehouse and spend the other two workdays in language school to learn Danish. “I want them to learn Danish well enough to be able to read and understand the standard instructions we work by in the warehouse. If they do that, they can be a valuable asset in our workforce, on equal terms with our Danish workers.”
Member of the Board of Directors
The past 10 years, Bent has been one of Solar’s three staff-elected representative in our Board of Directors. With its nine members in total, Bent has 1/9 influence on major decisions that are made for Solar, and he doesn’t doubt for a second that the voices of the staff-elected representatives are heard at least equal to the other members’. “We are lucky to have a group of owners that really cares about the company and the employees. My responsibility is to carry Solar’s spirit into the board, and it is very easy to see that our board has the wellbeing of our workforce at heart.”
Bent has a lot on his plate, and it is easy to see that he loves every minute of it. In fact, he says that if one day he has to retire, the world is open for him to embark on the next adventure in life. So don’t be surprised if one day, you can buy a hotdog from Bent Frisk’s hotdog stand in San Francisco. But for now, there are too many things in Solar which require Bent’s attention.