The recruitment of workers

September 11, 2023

The recruitment of workers for the new factory was, of course, a matter of top priority. The most important was to find good qualified skilled workers, who could form the basis for the further training of apprentices. The recruited workers often came from old blacksmith families.

In 1880, a change of management took place in the workshop. The Operations Manager Lundbäck left the company and was succeeded by Carl Fredrik Kuylenstierna. Engineer Kuylenstierna was unique among the local factory men of Skaraborg county. He had served at the county’s three oldest mechanical workshops; Forsviks Mekaniska Verkstad, Skövde Mekaniska Verkstad and now also Lidköping Mekaniska Verkstad.

The sales organization was extremely primitive and undeveloped in the company. When the business began to go badly, the operations manager had to go out as a salesman to arrange orders.The factory’s human resources in administration and engineering were limited, which meant that a huge amount of work pressure ended up on the manager. In addition to leading the technical part of the factory work, he also designed, was responsible for all correspondence, was the factory’s salesman, calculator and finally also personally financially responsible.

It natural that LMV developed into “a kingdom in itself”. An institutional and human homogeneity with a real “family factory”. An institution, where sons and grandsons, nephews and cousins have formed a good part of the working class since the creation of the factory. In government agencies, such a recruitment principle is usually considered to lead to prejudice and other undesirable consequences. But in such a highly skilled, technical specialist field as the machine tool industry, family recruitment was usually considered to be directly useful. Professional heritage and family ties with colleagues contributed to a solidarity towards the company.

The first staff photo was taken in 1901. The management group, is fronted by the aged company founder A.F. Rohdin. He is surrounded by engineers Hedin and Öhlund, accountant Behrens and designer Adolf Grönlund

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