Mergim Mustafa

26-year-old Mergim works as a Freight Forwarder Trainee in DSV’s Road division at the Swedish head office in Landskrona.
At DSV, Mergim has found an educational setup and organisational culture that enables him to pursue his dreams for the future – perhaps even abroad one day.

DSV could fulfill Mergim’s ambitions for his career

Before he began his work with DSV, Mergim was no stranger to the world of logistics. For a period of time Mergim worked at another Danish logistics company, but here they weren’t able to fulfill Mergim’s dream of building a career within transportation:

“I wanted to progress with my career, but at my previous job making a career for myself was not an option. So, I had to move on, and I saw DSV was looking for Young DSV trainees, offering the opportunity to get an education at the same time as working full time. Not that many companies in Sweden can offer you such an opportunity so naturally I applied.”

Empowerment breeds responsibility

At DSV, employees are offered a high level of ownership for their areas of responsibility. Trainees too are given responsibilities early on:

“I have my own tasks within my area”, Mergim tells us, “and here I actually decide what I want to do and how I want to do it. As long as I do well there is no problem. I have a lot of responsibility and I feel confident about that,” Mergim explains.

Competition and collaboration motivate and propel you forward

“At the office, my team is very competitive – just as I am. I like to compete with myself and others too and I want to achieve good results every time. In our team right now, our manager likes to support this competitive spirit because when we compete, we improve. He tells us when we do well; he doesn’t keep it to himself,” Mergim explains and continues:
 
“I am very motivated by the collaboration I have with my colleagues. We each have our own areas, where we plan shipments, but we help each other out whenever one of us needs a hand. For instance, when we are very busy, we can be hard-pressed to find enough lorries. When this happens, we help each other find another haulier who can supply the trucks we need. Sometimes it’s the other way around, and I have a surplus of trucks in my area that I can send to my colleagues’ area. This doesn’t only happen within the team. It's with all the other department's at DSV: If you're under pressure, the other teams will help you out.”

Learning to keep your cool and not take the easy route

When you ask Mergim what the most important thing he has learned during his time with DSV is, he highlights two things:

“To think outside of the box in order to find different solutions and achieve good results. I have learned not just to pick the easiest route, but to go the extra mile to find the very best solution for my customer, even if this is the tougher route to take for me. In addition to this freight-forwarding is a busy line of work and I've learned how to handle stressful situations by keeping my cool. I know I will solve the situation so there is no reason to stress about it – these are probably the most important things I have learned.”

The ability to ‘think outside the box’ is one, Mergim recognises as commonly shared and encouraged among DSV employees:

“I feel the ‘DSV DNA’ in all my colleagues around Europe, whom I talk to - it's as if we have the same mind: In our job, we don’t just say: “No, sorry I don’t have a solution” to our customer. We need to be able to think outside the box to find a solution, if one is not readily available." 

The future may be global

“At the moment, I am still a trainee and part of the Young DSV programme, but I think someday I would like to try working at another office in a different country maybe. It’s good to know how other countries work and I think it's good to have some international experience if you want to progress within the company,” Mergim rounds off his thoughts about working at DSV and his ambitions for the future.