Human Resources - As Individual As Your Business 2021 by CorD Magazine

“WITHOUT THE RIGHT SUCCESSION PLANNING PUT TO PLAY IN HUMAN RESOURCES, WE BUILD FOR THE FUTURE WITHOUT A FUTURE.” MMANTI UMOH

By Miloš Belčević

Natal Dank, Agile HR Pioneer; Author and Keynote Speaker

New Challenges

- NEW HR

AI, global pandemic and new ways of working; developing leaders for jobs that still don’t exists, and preparing organizations for new and changing contexts… HR has some great challenges. But are there also hidden opportunities, and some exciting times, as a silver lining?

fter spending more than a decade working in senior HR positions, Natal Dank is considered a pioneer of Agile HR. The founder of PXO Culture, co-author of one of the most influential Agile HR books, “Agile HR: Deliver Value in a Changing World of Work”, she was a co-founder and director of the AgileHR Community and has helped numerous organisations achieve their full potential through this new way of approaching HR.

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You’re seen as one of the pioneers of Agile HR, but how did you discover Agile and what attracted you to it back in the day? One thing that Agile represents, for both organisations and HR, is the new way of working. I worked in senior HR positions for a number of years and started to recognise a need to work differently. We have a lot of businesses at different stages of this Agile journey, and I thought there was a need for HR processes to also get back to being both about the human and about what the business was trying to achieve. I was in a large, senior HR role, and we were using a 25-box matrix to assess the talent. This is just a huge process and we were collecting all this data, but then we didn’t really do that much with this information, and it wasn’t really connected to making great decisions around developing people and building talent. So, I left that role a bit

disheartened with where HR was at, and I was fortunate to work with a company that was very agile – they were originally a start-up, but they’ve grown bigger and most of their teams, especially in the tech area, were still working in a very agile way. I was challenged to work differently – to work in a more evidence-based way, to experiment, test and learn, which are all themes of ‘Agile’. What came out of it is that I found this was a much better way to create HR solutions, because you create them with other people, building the change together, and you tested that, listened to feedback (does this work or not? If it doesn’t, then don’t do it). This is also how businesses are working now; this is what you’ve got to do for your customers, and this is why some businesses are proving very successful by using this approach. Businesses have understood for quite a while that we need to be more collaborative, more responsive; that we need to be innovative. I realised that HR needed to update. We needed to update the way we work in order to get better results, but we also needed to update HR processes to support businesses in a new way. Besides changing your professional life, did Agile also influence you personally, and if so how? Definitely! A lot of people in the Agile world talk about Agile as a sense of being, it’s an all-life experience, so it definitely changes your outlook. From little things, like sometimes you work too long on trying to find a perfect solution, where actually you should just start somewhere, give it a go, and learn from it and then build upon it. You can do that a lot in your personal life; you can overthink and try to plan it all out, but it’s not until you give it a go that you realise what’s going to work out or not. I think I became more open to experimentation in general in that sense, that test and learn. In Agile there’s a way of working that’s about visualising your work and prioritising what you do on the basis of value. A great way to start with Agile is to use a Personal Kanban. Kanban is about visualising your work and knowing what’s

The market is more complex, there’s more uncertainty and more disruption. Everyone is trying to find the answers to all of these problems, and Agile gives you a way to try to find these answers

the most important thing to work on, at what stage and why. And then it’s about not overcommitting – seeing how much work you have underway and what you can commit to. It’s very interesting to start bringing those methods into your own ways of working at a personal level, because that gives you an idea that there is so much that you want to try and get done in your life – whether that’s your personal life, work, or things you need to do with the family – and you’re never going to get all that done. By focusing on one thing and doing it well and getting that through to the ‘done column’, you can have a little sense of achievement around it. And then there’s also all those other things that you’re probably just not going to get to, and that’s okay. It gives you a better way of managing everyday life –

Agile influences everything in many ways. You’re co-author of the book ‘Agile HR: Deliver Value in a Changing World of Work’. For whom is this book intended? The book is intended for HR professionals, professionals that work in learning and development, organisational development, organisational design, change management etc.; everyone who works in that area of people and culture. And it was intended to be very practical. I receive positive feedback that it is very toolkit-based, there’s a lot in there that people can go and apply immediately to their scenarios and roles, and that’s the way we intended it to be. The idea is: if I was starting again, and I was starting with HR, I’d need a book to help me do March

that, and this is meant to be that book. And what would be the single major takeaway from the book? I would stay it is: understanding the problem that you are trying to solve. In the world of HR, there are major topics that we are trying to tackle: we’re focusing on well-being – but what does well-being mean? That’s such a big and complex topic. We’re building a hybrid office for the future of work – that’s huge. We’re developing leaders for roles of the future that we don’t yet know... All of these topics are really, really big and complex, and Agile is about helping you break that down, defining the problem you’re trying to solve for your organisation and then going after that. Basically: what problem are you trying to solve; why are you doing it; and then focus on that one thing first and get it done. What is the most important thing to have in mind for HR to successfully embrace this Agile transformation? A word of warning here: Agile HR is very contextual, so your context will influence your approach. If you’re working at a small start-up that’s being ‘Agile’ from where it goes and there’s a different kind of culture and values, you’re probably going to be able to do a lot more and maybe work in a different way at a faster pace. If you’re working at a more traditional company, more hierarchical, more bureaucratic, and there’s a bit more of a legacy, then the changes might be a bit slower; you might need to build change over time. Your context definitely influences your approach. I think it’s important to be very clear about your context and to just be quite realistic about it: where do I start and why. Agile is something traditionally tied to tech, but more and more non-tech teams are moving towards the Agile way of working. Why do you think that’s the case? The Agile mindset is about placing your customer at the heart of what you’re doing, 6

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I would encourage professionals to embrace this new way of working. If we start having that Agile, product development mindset in our HR teams, we will build an entirely different approach to how we do HR and incrementally, bit by bit, slice by slice, delivering that value to your customer. What’s happening is that people are trying to do that everywhere in business. Everyone’s saying ‘we need to be more customer-centric, we need to innovate, we need to deliver value faster, we need to be more collaborative’… We know that successful companies build their entire customer experience in a more holistic way. Netflix has changed the way we watch television, Tesla is changing the way we drive cars. These companies are coming to the market not just to disrupt, but they’re thinking about how to do it in a fundamentally different way. The market is more complex, there’s more uncertainty and more disruption. Everyone is trying to find the answers to all of these problems, and Agile gives

you a way to try to find those answers. Finally, what would your advice be for the younger people – who aren’t only new to Agile HR, but to HR generally ? Don’t even think about learning it in the traditional way (laughs). Like organisations, the HR profession is now composed of people who have worked for a number of years in a traditional way and want to change; people that are perhaps still working traditionally and a whole new bunch of people who don’t have any of that legacy, and that’s awesome. I would just encourage them to embrace this new way of working. If we start having that Agile product development mindset in our HR teams, we will simply build an entirely different approach to how we do HR.

Always Striving

TO BE BETTER Although we are already one of the most desirable employers, we will strive to be even better in the future!

Jovana Ivanović, HR Director, Coca-Cola HBC Serbia

ajor global companies realised the relevance of HR managers and the role of this position long ago. Jovana Ivanović, the new HR director of Coca-Cola HBC Serbia, reveals how Coca-Cola HBC Serbia motivates its employees and contributes to their professional development, and why the HR role is so important. With the decade of experience in the HR sector that she brings to this position, she will contribute to even greater successes in improving employee performance, capabilities and engagement, as well as the company’s overall business culture. How did the COVID-19 Pandemic change your approach to employee management and the HR role? A strange year, to say the least, is behind us. A lot changed, but our commitment to employee well-being did not. In the first weeks, we demonstrated skills that we’d only trained in theory before. This primarily relates to agility and adaptation to the changes in the working environment on an almost daily basis. I am particularly proud of the fact that our employees expressed incredible collegiality and solidarity by creating a safe place for work, caring for their own and their colleagues’health, together with the company management. Under such circumstances, I can say that the role of a HR manager is even

more complex, because, for instance, we have people who continued to work in the field, then those who’ve been working from home for a year now, and those who have to come to the plant due to the nature of their jobs. Our aim is to offer everyone the same level of ‘service’, specifically in the sense of effective communication, opportunities to educate themselves online and psychological support via free sessions with experts. When

sense, we support their development, both vertically and horizontally, enabling them to explore their preferences and short- and longterm professional aspirations. Additionally, as our company operates on 28 markets worldwide, there are myriad opportunities to gain global knowhow and experience. Another important element is our authentic corporate culture, practised by existing employees and developed further by

The title of the most desirable employer is a result of years of hard work on ensuring good working conditions and creating a working atmosphere that generates creative development, critical thinking and healthy competition now, nearly a year after the outbreak of the pandemic, employees perform their activities with even stronger commitment and still feel a bond with their colleagues and the company, you know that a good job is being done and that the HR role has achieved its purpose. Coca-Cola HBC Serbia has been at the very top of various survey-based rankings of the most desirable employers for years. What contributes to these excellent results? Just as the Coca-Cola recipe is a secret, how Coca-Cola HBC Serbia has managed to stay in the position of the most desirable employer will also remain a secret. What I can tell you is that the title of the most desirable employer is a result of years of hard work on ensuring good working conditions and creating a working atmosphere that generates creative development, critical thinking and healthy competition. Our employees have an absolute opportunity to reach their full professional potential. In that

new ones. All that combined makes us a good employer for more than 1,400 employees and a highly desirable employer for those who wish to join our winning team. What will be in the focus of the CocaCola HBC Serbia HR sector in the period ahead? Our absolute priority in the coming period is the simultaneous development of employees and new technologies, especially bearing in mind that our company and the whole society have undergone an accelerated digitisation process during the previous period. We will continue to listen carefully to the professional preferences of people in the company and strive to successfully harmonise the ambitions of employees with the jobs they perform, being professional and fair in selecting and assessing future recruits. In short, although we are already one of the most desirable employers, we will strive to be even better in the future!

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Infostud

Tanja Ikić, Head Of Human Resources - Infostud Group

HOW CHIEF HUMAN RESOURCES OFFICERS CONTRIBUTE TO THE OVERALL GROWTH

AND DEVELOPMENT OF A COMPANY

s companies grow bigger and bigger, so does the complexity of the role of HR in their systems. Setting aside all differences of industry and culture, the main goals of HR remain the same: enable the right culture to get the right people and keep them motivated to deliver business results. In order to do this well, HR departments, and especially the chief human resources officer (CHRO), have to be really good at a couple of things. KNOWING THE CONTEXT OUTWARD-FACING ASPECT Assuming you are a CHRO, you have to be mindful of the overall circumstances and the context in which the organisation is working. Summing up all the possible risks and opportunities is one of the CHRO’s main tasks, and looking at it through the lens that asks “how great an impact does this have on my company?”. We’re talking about the classic PESTLE analysis – looking at the political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental context in which you operate. These contexts are really useful for business strategies and analysis, but looking into it further, from the perspective of the workforce, is very important for creating the right HR strategy.

It’s a well-known fact that a company’s success is dependent largely on its people. Having a great team of skilled, motivated and proactive employees is becoming a number one priority for managers and business owner wanting to ensure long-term growth. However, the road that leads there isn’t always quite a clear. And that’s where HR comes in 8

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INWARD-FACING ASPECT BUSINESS PERSPECTIVE Having a deep understanding of the company’s mission, vision and strategy is crucial for delivering value to that company. This ensures that you can make sense of the causes and effects of certain business moves, in order to get ahead of it, to be prepared and have HR initiatives in line with them, and even ahead of them. True value is thus created – people are ready for the upcoming changes and can achieve their full potential.

PEOPLE PERSPECTIVE To really know which initiatives could deliver the right shift in your workforce (when required), it is crucial to know your people, as well as the practises and processes that are in place. Having a clear idea of the current culture, management style and systems in place can ensure that you are really aware of the effect that could result from each shift. You should also know if you’re looking to make too big of a shift, one that your organisation can’t get on board with, at least not just yet. If that is the case, considering the current state of affairs, you can suggest gradual shifts that will ease people in and make that change transparent and acceptable to most. WHERE DO WE WANT TO BE? With both a deep understanding of the strategy and the inner workings of the company, you can get to the point where you can really see where you want your workforce to be over the long term. Some of the questions to ask yourself are: • Is your company strategy going to be best supported (and realised) with the most experienced, highly specialised individuals, or the most innovative, almost disruptive specialists, or a mix of both? • Do you have all the competencies in the company that will ensure a successful realisation of the strategy? If not, how can you get them: by internally training such people or hiring them? • Is your line management onboard and aspiring to the same goals? Do they understand the strategy? • Are your people engaged and motivated to support your mission? Is your vision in line with their passions? • Are your culture and values reflective of the vision? These questions are just some of the starting points to get a clear picture of where you need to be in terms of the people in order to achieve the results that your company is striving towards. HOW DO WE GET THERE? Now that you know the “where you want to be”, it’s time to assess how long the road to it is, so that you can progress to making it happen. Always have in mind where your workforce needs to be, and align that with

potential shifts in company strategy. The road itself can now become your HR strategy and to make it happen; your role as CHRO is very important. Of course, that then becomes a shared goal within the HR department, and it’s wise to really get your people to see the required shifts and get them to help you chart the way. By doing this, you’re letting your HR team do their best work. Your job at this point is slightly different. You need to have your eyes on the charted map and to look at the obstacles down the road, anticipate them, and see how to overcome them and who can help you to do so. You also need to keep an eye on the engine that is getting you where you want to go – are all the indicators of its health positive? How to ensure the way you’re going gets easier over the long term? This is where people skills really come to the fore. A CHRO has to be really at-

tentive to the needs and aspirations of all key stakeholders in the company – board members, business leaders, C-suite etc., but also needs to have an understanding of their core values and personal goals. All this is required to build a strong connection of trust with the key stakeholders. You really need to understand how they define success and how they see the road to it. You should also be mindful of how comfortable they are with taking sidetracks to ensure that success is more of a long-term achievement and not just a short-term win. In this way, when sidetracks are required, or you run into some setbacks and know the way around them, you’ll be able to frame the issue so that you ensure some leeway from the stakeholders that will help you keep on track. Of course, it is of paramount importance that you make good on your promises and deliver results, otherwise the next sidetrack or setback won’t be as easy to navigate.

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Robert Jenovai, Chief HR Officer, Nelt Group

PEOPLE- ON THE TOP OF

NELT’S AGENDA Sincere care for employees through structured people development and regular two-way communication should be the number one priority for all leaders. This way we strengthen motivation, generating the ambition to perform and the ambition to achieve results. Without such culture in place, there is no personal development of employees, nor development of the company business on building trust in employees, partners and clients, with a high level of responsibility for the broader community. Apart from regular reinforcements through most talented external candidates, internal movements are also frequent. Therefore, many of high positions are held by our employees, who have developed themselves and gradually progressed within the company. They represent Nelt’s best ambassadors.

ignificant changes to organizational structure of Nelt Group and new approach toour modus operandi secured us stability and helped us gain new businesses in 2020, an extremely challenging year for the entire economy. Significant changes to organizational structure of Nelt Group and new approach toour modus operandi secured us stability and helped us gain new businesses in 2020, an extremely challenging year for the entire economy.

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During its 29 years of operations, Nelt Group has become synonym for the successful business system. Does most of the credit for that belong to employees? Great credit certainly goes to employees and teams. In addition, continuous learning, as a characteristic of our organisation, has contributed greatly to us building a successful and sustainable business system. Through its vision, clear strategy, commitment and orientation towards goals, Nelt Group bases its

Across all markets where Nelt operates the company has as many as 4,000 workers. How do you succeed in ensuring that they all see Nelt as their home and share Nelt’s value system? We strongly believe that the long-term success of the company is dependent on two equally important factors: financial capital and human resources. That’s why on all levels we are committed to the company values – a winning mentality, innovation, ownership, long-term perspective, and caring mentality. These values are turned into specific behaviours, so every single employee can understand and reflect them in daily operations. We communicate our values in a very structured way through the organization. On the top, we build a culture in which everyone lives the values of Nelt through personal example. Our values will be a key factor in the realisation of our vision and strategic goals over the next 29 years of operations. How do you encourage innovation, ownership, commitment, and a winning mentality among employees?

We provide a working environment in which everyone can give their best.That gives rise to personal responsibility, innovativeness and a winning mentality, which leads us to the desired result. We improve our processes based on employee suggestions and ideas; we support changes and don’t accept the status quo. Our starting point is complete trust in our employees, in their competencies and skills, while the leaders in the organisation create an environment in which their teams provide suggestions, make decisions, and take responsibility. Or, stated more specifically, employees can feel both autonomy and support within the scope of their responsibilities. What is a pleasant and stimulating working environment for you? What can and should a good worker expect from their employer? We endeavour to create a working environment in which everyone can contribute in the best way, but also to achieve personal ambitions. Besides modern workplace, we provide lots of other benefits through comparative earnings and rewarding system for personal and team contributions. Apart from this, the company also supports the career aspirations of employees, and provides certain flexibility and fair work life balance. It’s crucial to provide purpose to employees: “…connect me with the company values, vision and mission, provide me a meaningful job and help me to feel that I belong here...”. Everyone wonders how they should motivate their employees, but we just need to stop demotivating them. We need a more adaptive approach that’s more focused on individuals, focused on what motivates each and every one of us. Could you tell us a little more about your “Good Start” program, which you launched five years ago? The eight months long development program is targeting final year students, graduates and master’s students, who are willing to learn through practical on-the-job experience. Each “good starter” receives a mentor with whom they go through all phases and tasks, and as part of their preparation, and gets a training at the beginning of each phase. At the end of each phase, through the presentation, participants show what they have learned and how they would solve a specific real life business task, while mentors are to provide their feedback.The program results in a complete project that the trainee should present,

We endeavour to create a working environment in which everyone can contribute in the best way, but also to achieve personal ambitions summarizing all their newly acquired knowledge. We consider this program as being special for three reasons. First of all, it is very important for the whole organisation, because more than 60 colleagues participate in the process, through training, mentoring, assessments, field work and providing feedback. The HR function and Business are equally included in the program, giving it greater value and significance. Secondly, the program includes both internal and external candidates. Internal candidates transfer company values and make integration easier, while external candidates provide freshness, new ideas and a different perspective. Thirdly, more than 90% of participants from previous generations were hired. They represent a talent pool that will very soon be ready for their next roles and responsibilities, improving and developing Nelt’s operations in the coming years. How have you handled the pandemic that has now been going on for a year? What does the “new normal” look like at Nelt? Unity is the key word which describes us in this time of the pandemic. Additionally, the values we nurture have bubbled up to the surface and become even more visible. During the moments of crisis, we clearly saw that our employees truly live our values, which show that we did the right things during the previous period. We demonstrated a winning mentality and the ability to very quickly adapt, organise and do our job, even in

situations where that seems impossible. We organised an internal “Crisis Team”, which spent the whole time taking care of the consistency and timeliness of all activities, but also transparency in communication through the organisation, which we gave special importance during this period. We provided full support to our colleagues in the field, in order to ease the situation for them in these times of extraordinary circumstances. As a company, in the pandemic, we justified the importance of our role in the FMCG supply chain inall markets in whichwe operate. Thanks to the efforts of everyone in the Nelt Group, shops are well supplied, and citizens have access to required products. Many companies have been forced to reduce their employee numbers and salaries, to close facilities and abandon markets, while Nelt is announcing job vacancies... You’ve had no reason to change plans? Last year was for sure the year which required change over plans. We deeply analysed and re-examined our processes, and adjusted the “route to market”, considering new requirements and digital trends, and we did all of this with the aim to ensure the long-term sustainability of the company. In that sense, 2020 was a year of significant changes, but with the winning mentality of our organisation, timely decisions and a clear orientation towards achieving goals, we are today talking about hiring new employees.

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Marina Matić, HR Director, MPC Properties

The Time Has Come To

OVERCOME FEARS Thanks to the clear defining of rules of conduct at work during the period of the pandemic, the lives and health of employees were preserved, while the actual operations of MPC Properties were improved thanks to reorganisation. Discussing all of this for CorD Magazine is MPC Properties HR Director Marina Matić

n the period that lies ahead of us, the HR sector will have a role that is extremely demanding, much more demanding than the one it previously had. It will be our job, among other things, to help people overcome their fears in a healthy way and to return to normal flows of life and work. Working with people is neither easy nor simple even under the most normal circumstances, never mind under the conditions of a pandemic. How has 12

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MPC Properties dealt with this? From the very outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, we defined very clear rules of conduct, while keeping things

in order for us to work together to build an awareness among employees that these rules, although they sometimes appear strict, are necessary for all of us to have

Working from home is good, but only to a certain extent, because humans are social beings who have a need for social contact, and neglecting that is not good under control implied a strong connection between the human resources sector, corporate security and all line managers,

the luxury of coming to work during these times. Our rules defined in such a way were accompanied by a flexible ap-

Working from home is good, but only to a certain extent, because humans are social beings who have a need for social contact, and neglecting that is not good. I don’t believe that anything excessive is good. It is neither normal for us all to be in the office non-stop, which is something I thought even before the pandemic, nor for us all to now constantly work from home. It also isn’t good for us to succumb to a state of collective lethargy, where isolation and life without social contacts and interaction lead, because we aren’t even aware of how difficult it is to pull ourselves out of that later. I’m afraid that we’ll be forced to return to normality unless we find a healthy measure in everything during these days.

proach, which means that we approached each case individually, maintaining direct contact with each employee who is ill or under isolation, and monitoring the situation constantly. The percentage of those infected among our team has not exceeded 15 per cent of the total number of employees over the past year, which we consider a great thing that has helped us maintain the continuity of our operations. Many companies offered people psychological assistance at the very beginning of the pandemic, while we considered that people should first be given an opportunity to grow accustomed to what was happening to us.They had to get used to us having to wear masks all day, to no more than three people being in the meeting room at the same time, but also to get used to various other restrictions. Then, after that initial shock has subsided, we introduced psychological support for employees, which they really use and which we will definitely continue providing. Many companies had to reduce their number of employees and salaries. Did you also face this need? We used the time of COVID to carry out a serious reorganisation of the company, and since November we’ve also had a new CEO. Apart from introducing changes at the highest level, we also looked to optimise certain things. Some people are no longer with us, but we also sought to promote some exceptional people and provide them with an opportunity to find themselves in new, higher positions with new responsibilities, so that they could show their potential and continue developing in a business sense. Working from home represented an exception prior to the pandemic, but it

Our rules defined in such a way were accompanied by a flexible approach, which means that we approached each case individually, maintaining direct contact with each employee who is ill or under isolation, and monitoring the situation constantly has now become an everyday norm for a year. Will that also be our future? As a psychologist first and foremost, and not just as an HR specialist, I must emphasise that I don’t believe working from home will become a common thing.

What are all the channels you utilise to communicate with employees? We’ve strived from the very beginning to strengthen communication and to communicate all information – both related to the pandemic and everything else related to business – to everyone as transparently as possible. We’ve had one-on-one conversations with people who report having symptoms or contact with people suspected of being infected, while an “open door policy” is certainly something that’s characteristic of our HR team. Due to the fact that more work was nonetheless done from home, we somewhat pushed communication by email, in order for us to reach everyone, and at the end of the year we organised an online town hall meeting at which we shared some important information about our operations with employees. As of March we’re introducing something called ‘the team of ambassadors of organisational values’, where a team of 15 people from different sectors of the organisation will, once a month, discuss ways to improve communication and transparency within the scope of our organisation. March

Care Workers

No Care For

CARE WORKERS

Decades of public neglect and underspending have brought us to the point that even an unprecedented global health emergency and economic collapse are not enough to make mistreatment of lowpaid essential workers socially and politically unacceptable. Our applause is no longer enough to keep them keeping us safe 14

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hose who thought that a pandemic would make everyone realize the crucial role of care workers should think again. With the coronavirus still spreading rapidly, frontline workers are more essential – and at greater risk – than ever, yet public attention has shifted elsewhere. Worse, as economies collapse and labor-market conditions deteriorate, em-

ployers in the private and public sector alike have grown more cynical in their treatment of essential workers. Far from instilling a deeper appreciation for their employees, the pandemic-induced surge in unemployment has enabled employers to exploit workers even more. Capitalism has always had an uneasy relationship with care work. Although capitalist production relies heavily on unpaid and underpaid labor performed by women, migrants, and other disadvantaged social groups, it has historically pushed that work off the books and underground, into informality. As a result, all the varied tasks associated with social reproduction are barely recognised, much less rewarded or remunerated. Because so much care work is performed for free by women and girls within families and communities, it is simply taken for granted and, because it is outside the market, not counted as economic activity. Unpaid work performed by women who have no other choice thus creates a vicious cycle of devaluation. When women do enter labor markets, their wages tend to be lower than those of men, not only because they are willing to work for less, but also because so much of their work is available for free. Hence, occupations dominated by women – such as in the care sector – tend to be lower paid; even men doing similar work suffer a wage penalty. In the case of health care, there are additional occupational hierarchies to navigate, from highly paid “professionals” like specialist physicians down to nurses, ward attendants and cleaners. Unsurprisingly, the gender balance within each occupation changes as one goes down the pecking order, with women concentrated in the lower-status, worst-paid positions. Globally, women hold 70% of all health-care jobs. But they are more likely to be nurses, midwives, and community health workers, while men comprise a disproportionate share of better-paid occupations like surgeons, physicians, dentists, and pharmacists. Community health workers are perhaps the most exploited of all health workers, especially in developing countries. They often aren’t recognised as workers at all, but rather as “volunteers”. As such, they rarely benefit

from formal contracts that provide job security and a fair wage, let alone protections like health care. Women healthcare workers are also more at risk in the current pandemic, because they are more likely to be involved in activities that require close physical contact with patients. For a brief period after the pandemic first erupted, these workers were widely recognised for their

For example, in the United States, a brief period during which some companies offered their frontline workers slightly higher wages was soon followed by reversion to the norm: wages returned to their previous lows – and sometimes went lower. Similarly, in the United Kingdom, Prime Minister Boris Johnson thanked the immigrant nurses – “Jenny from New Zealand”, “Luis from Portugal” – who saved

Community health workers are perhaps the most exploited of all health workers, especially in developing countries. They often aren't recognised as workers at all, but rather as “volunteers”.

critical contributions to society. Around the world, political leaders and members of the public applauded essential workers, singing their praises from balconies and leaving flower bouquets outside hospitals. But while health-care workers at all levels were rightly described as “heroes,” that seems to have represented the extent of their reward. The public acclaim has not translated into better working conditions or higher wages, and certainly not systematic efforts to ensure their physical safety during the pandemic.

his life when he was hospitalised with COVID-19. But then he had no problem trying to slap a surcharge on immigration fees (ironically for the purpose of funding the National Health Service). The situation in developing countries is even worse. Governments faced with falling tax revenues are practicing austerity in the midst of a health emergency and recession, slashing non-COVID-19 health spending, forcing pay cuts and longer hours on health workers, and avoiding the expense of procuring personal protective equipment. March

Aleksandra Dutina, HR Director, Carlsberg Srbija

The Synergy Of Diversity

YIELDS RESULTS

Carlsberg Srbija, as a company that operates at the global level, and as a responsible company, endeavours to develop and foresee its business plans, risks and challenges on time. Although this isn’t always possible, it’s important to follow the company’s strategy, and to familiarise and connect employees with it

f you have a clear objective, if you believe that your people will work to the best of their abilities, if you give them the tools and support, if you take responsibility when that’s required and are capable of making difficult decisions if and when necessary, then the result will not be lacking - says Aleksandra Dutina in this interview for CorD Magazine, revealing the secret of Carlsberg’s success.

year, while alongside that you also managed to preserve the lives and health of employees. How did you organise your work? Beer cannot be made from home... We realised very quickly, following the outbreak of the pandemic, that it was necessary for us to adapt to the new circumstances as soon as possible, because they would last. We introduced work from home where that was possible, due to the nature of the work, physically dividing our employees into teams, in order for us to ensure people’s safety and the sustainability of the process. We had open communication with all employees from the outset, while managers had the flexibility to organise their team’s work in the way that best suits that team. Security, trust and constant and open communication were our basic principles during the state of emergency and the pandemic generally. We thereby provided our employees with the sense of certainty and trust that was essential to all of us during the difficult period that hit all of us.

before the pandemic, not to mention what it’s like now. To what extent does this complicate the work of the HR sector? How did you deal with situations that were impossible to foresee? Sometimes you find yourself in an unpredictable situation that forces you to think and react quickly, to view things from different perspectives and make an estimate based on the information you have at your disposal, which is also often incomplete. The HR sector strives to follow the company’s strategy in the best way possible, to familiarise and connect employees with it, to provide tools for successful operations, while at the same time taking care of all employees and their needs. Now that those needs are changing at lightning speed, it is necessary to have great flexibility and understanding; to have discussions and action plans that will support the company’s strategy in the best way. Our sector represents the point of contact between business and people, and we endeavour to integrate everything together through conduct that reflects our culture.

Despite the pandemic, the Carlsberg Group achieved stable financial results over the past

The business environment, both locally and globally, was challenging and unpredictable even

How important is the HR sector in large systems like that of Carlsberg? Can strategic

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goals be set and implemented without you? The team that deals with human resources is an important link in every major system, starting from the operational part to the strategic. Unfortunately, this isn’t always the opinion of business, for differing justified and unjustified reasons. Nevertheless, HR should provide credible support to management, participating in and initiating many strategic proposals, setting and nurturing culture, dealing with its people and participating in the devising of long-term plans. HR should have integrity and should enjoy the trust of employees, because that’s the only way employees and management can move in the same direction and head towards the same goal. How much time, effort and knowhow do you invest in the process of selecting and evaluating candidates? How important are a candidate’s skills and competences , and how important is their ability to adapt to a team? The recruitment and selection process is very important to us and we develop it continuously, in accordance with needs and the market. That’s a two-way relationship, of the candidate towards the company and vice versa. Competences are important to us, but potential is more important to us, as well as the actual values that new employees will bring us, and whether we correspond mutually in that sense. Carlsberg fosters certain business and human values, and it’s nice when they match the values of the candidate. We aren’t looking for someone who will adapt to us, but rather someone who will fit into our family, because the synergy of diverse people working together is the most valuable resource a company can possess. The needs of different parts of the organisation are certainly specific and candidates with a certain level of experience are very often sought, but nevertheless, in every selection we conduct, we strive to integrate a new colleague into our culture and thus enrich it. Does Carlsberg encourage personal initiative, personal development and healthy ambition? Do you believe that learning on the job – with colleagues and from colleagues – is as important as a formal education? I firmly believe in the continuous advancement of individuals and teams. Formal education provides the basis for doing a job, but in my opinion it’s also equally important to have

Apart from formal education, it's equally important for a job to have healthy ambition, a competitive spirit and way of thinking, personal values, trust and results achieved

healthy ambition, a competitive spirit and way of thinking, personal values, trust and, in the end, results achieved. When it comes to additional training, like it or not, constant additional training is essential in today’s world. The whole world is changing, from ways of communicating to the business process itself, and there’s no possibility of remaining with the same level of knowledge and advancing at work. Is it possible to achieve good business results over the long term without a good team spirit? How do you build team spirit? Everything is very closely connected. Good results are built with good plans, exchanges of ideas, respect for deadlines, taking responsibility and placing trust in your employees. So, if you have a clear aim of where you want to be, and you give your teams autonomy to do their best, you give them the tools and support, take responsibility when required and make difficult decisions sometimes, then you’ll most

often also achieve a good result. Sometimes the circumstances under which you operate help a little, but in most cases joint effort and the work of all participants are required for a good result. Other than monetarily, how do you reward loyalty, dedication, striving for high achievements, agility etc.? This relates to the overall experience that an employee has while working at the company – with whom they work specifically, where they work, under what kind of conditions, whether they have the freedom to express their own ideas, suggestions, concerns and fears... This is that feeling in the stomach when you arrive at work or start your workday online. Earnings are certainly an important factor, and both tangible and intangible benefits, but so are recognition, praise, sincere feedback, education, the practical implementing of one’s own ideas etc. The best reward is when you feel good that you belong to a team and a company, when you are its ambassador in the best sense.

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Youth Fair – The Region’s Biggest

EMPLOYER BRANDING EVENT The Youth Fair, as the biggest employer branding event, has been the most important career event in this part of Europe for years, attended each year by thousands of students and graduates from all over Serbia and the region who want to meet the best employers and take the first steps in their careers

he idea of the project is to encourage the development of young people by connecting them with employers, companies and institutions. With this, organisers want to improve the quality of life of today’s youth, helping them to invest in their future and, ultimately, take a step towards keeping young potentials and future professionals in our country.

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Accordingly, the main goal of the event is to provide jobs and internships to candidates, as well as providing them with informal education through workshops / lectures that equip them with new theoretical knowledge and practical skills in their areas of interest. Despite the pandemic, the first ONLINE version of the Youth Fair was successfully organised in October 2020.

The sixth Belgrade Youth Fair was held last year and gathered together over 4,200 young people from all parts of Serbia and the biggest employers in the country. However, due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, it was held online for the first time in 2020, connecting young people with employers through online activities like: chat with employers, simulations of job interviews, numerous lectures,

workshops and a knowledge quiz. The companies and organisations participating in last year’s event were: PepsiCo, Nelt, Hemofarm, UniCredit Bank, Metro, Atos, Bosch, Mercator–S, Milsped Group, Futura kid, MPC Properties, TPA, Bambi, Atlantic Group, Phoenix Group, Karanović&Partners, Trizma, Delhaize, Coca-Cola HBC, Sanne, P&G, Adecco, Naj Student, Nestle, PwC Srbija, ERSTE Bank, DDOR Osiguranje and SBU. The Big HR conference attracted great interest from the start of the event, precisely because young people are interested in constant improvement under the scope of the topics presented through panel discussions: Representatives of Bambi, Hemofarm, UniCredit, Bosch, Sanne and a moderator from the Employer Branding Agency discussed the first panel, with the topic “From studying to a great job”. They shared stories about their career paths and highlighted some important career tips. The panel participants also emphasised that formal education is not an obstacle to doing the job you want and that you should always be true to yourself. In the panel discussion entitled “Modern Human Resources - New Methods and Techniques”, representatives of PepsiCo, PwC, Mercator-s and MPC Properties provided advice and spoke about the solutions that their companies have taken in response to current world events. They stated that flexibility and the good organisation of work and employees were key principles, while noting that it is also important to preserve mental health and a balance between one’s business and private life. How important is talent management, what values and criteria form the basis for their selection, how can the right talents be found for certain positions... These were among the issues discussed in the panel of the same name that included representatives of Nelt, Delhaize, Erste Bank, Adecco and Coca Cola HBC. The second day of the Youth Fair saw lectures given on specific topics by representatives of companies. Some of the topics included “News in Digital Marketing and how to use Insight analytics”, presented by PepsiCo and including discussion of development programmes, training courses and the function of digital marketing, detailing the

job and its advantages and disadvantages, … An extremely useful and practical lecture for young people was given by the Karanović & Partners Law Office on the topic “Towards the first employment: rights and obligations arising from the establishment of employment”. Another popular topic of great importance for young job seekers was addressed in Nestle’s lecture “How to look for a job and how to prepare for an interview?”, which summarised what this company has done to date and what this new reality has brought in the process. The Youth Fair managed to connect young people seeking internships and employment with the best employers, but also to resolve many of the doubts that young people face when preparing for their first job, and we are sure that this approach is of great importance to individuals who want to be well-informed and to take the first steps towards their future careers, as well as for companies that want to provide them with that opportunity. Youth Fair is also in online format this year The 7th Belgrade Youth Fair, the biggest career event in the region, will be held in Serbia on 22nd and 23th of April. And this year it will be also in an interactive online format, where young people will have the opportunity to connect with many employers in order to secure an internship or employment, but also to gain numerous knowledge for which they will receive a free certificate. The program will last from 10 am to 5 pm, and will consist of a fair and conference part. “This year as well, due to the conditions

of the pandemic we are in, Belgrade Youth Fair will be organized in an interactive online format, but with the fulfillment of all expectations of candidates and employers. This year, numerous internships and employment programs will be presented, also the benefits that each of the companies can offer, and all those who present will be able to participate in interview simulations, CV counseling as well as numerous workshops, prize quizzes and panel discussions. Also, an even bigger number of different employers are expected this year, so there will be more chances to find an internship / job and learn new skills, “said Miloš Čevizović, project director. Some of the activities that await you: • Chat with employers • Employer profile • Internship / job ads • Big HR conference • Job interview simulations • IG live interviews • Online company knowledge quizzes • CV database available to employers throughout the year • CV Counseling Some of the topics of the conference part of the project, which will be held by the greatest experts, will be: • How to look for a job and how to prepare for an interview; • How do I choose the best employer for me? • How to find the ideal job; • Marketing and HR trends, business, information technology. Applications for this year are open and you can apply via website: www.youthfair.rs

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“NOTHING WE DO IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN HIRING PEOPLE. AT THE END OF THE DAY, YOU BET ON PEOPLE, NOT STRATEGIES.” ~ LAWRENCE BOSSIDY

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