CEO's Chronicle January 2026
- Jan 28
- 3 min read
Swedish industry likes to talk about skills shortages and retirements. But the real problem is quieter and far more business-critical
What is disappearing is not people, but relationships, business logic and judgment. When experienced employees leave, structures are missing that capture what was never written down but always made the deal. The result is a generational shift where organizations risk losing their competitive advantage long before anyone retires.
Swedish industry often talks about skills shortages. About retirements. About the difficulty of finding the next generation. It sounds dramatic. And it's convenient. Because then the problem becomes something that happens outside the organization.
But that's not where the problem lies.
What is now disappearing is not people. It is customer relationships, business logic and practical judgment. And it is precisely this transfer that Swedish industry has been remarkably ill-prepared for.
The numbers are well-known. According to Statistics Sweden, over 30 percent of employees in the manufacturing industry are over 50 years old, and the proportion is even higher in key positions such as project management, production and customer responsibility. At the same time, employment periods are becoming shorter.
Younger employees change employers more often than previous generations, sometimes out of curiosity, sometimes out of impatience, often out of rationality.
At the same time, large parts of the industry's business are built on relationships that span ten, twenty, sometimes thirty years.
It's an equation that doesn't add up.
Yet we pretend it does.
In many industrial companies, the business still rests on individuals. Those who “know the customer”. Those who know why a certain approach works. Those who understand which compromises are possible and which should never be made. When they leave the organization, not only does expertise disappear. Entire contexts disappear.
In theory, this should be captured by systems, processes and documentation. In practice, it rarely is. CRM systems describe what has happened – not why. Process maps show flows – but not judgment. What really decides the deal remains in the minds of people who have been involved for a long time.
This is where the industry's real generational problems arise.
As tenures shorten, onboarding becomes business-critical. Yet in many companies, it is still informal, person-dependent, and unevenly implemented. New employees are expected to deliver quickly but are introduced to the organization as if they will stay for twenty years.
The result is predictable.
It takes a long time for new employees to create value.
Decision postponed.
Responsibility moves around the organization.
And customer relationships are gradually becoming thinner.
This is not a problem with the younger generation. It is a systemic failure. We have built organizations that assume long-term continuity while knowing that it no longer exists.
Despite this, many industrial companies lack answers to a simple question:
What in our business can we absolutely not afford to lose and where is it documented, trained and transferred?
Silence is often telling.
At the same time, studies show that companies with a clear systematic approach to how business is conducted – with structured knowledge transfer, clear decision-making mandates and well-thought-out onboarding – manage staff turnover significantly better. Yet these issues are often the lowest priority in management teams. Perhaps because they are difficult. Perhaps because they cannot be purchased as an IT system. Perhaps because they require time from those who already know the business best.
But the consequence is the same.
This is not a future problem.
It's already happening.
It is not visible in pension statistics or recruitment campaigns, but in everyday life: in decisions that take a turn too far, in businesses that become more cautious, and in customer relationships that slowly lose depth when the right people are no longer around.
Swedish industry is facing a generational shift where business is too much personal, not organizational. When people leave the company, relationships, judgment and competitive advantage go out the door.
The industry that will cope best in the coming years will not be the one that implements the most systems or employs the most young people.
It will be the one who ensures that the business can actually be taken over. Because in the end, the question is not whether we have time to replace the people. But whether we have made the business possible to inherit before they disappear.
And that responsibility does not lie with the next generation. It lies with today's management.
/ Mikeal Nylund CEO.
Mikael Nylund
CEO, MinditThe House of Sales & Leadership