1. How would you summarize in 6 sentences your first experiences and how you feel yourself in the role?
I feel great😊 It’s been an amazing ride since I returned from my maternity leave and jumped into this role as of last October. There was a busy agenda full of commitments to smoothly deliver in Q4, and it was great team work and lots of positive energy from my ONE HR community @MOL Group which flowed around.
2. How did you prepare for your first day (in the role)?
I took over this role straight from my maternity leave with my firstborn, therefore my first days and weeks were special from this perspective as well. Beside managing the personal aspect of the onboarding, I built on the great handover I received, as well as absolutely dedicated support of my team members. Now being a mother, time management skill rose to a new skyrocketing dimension.
3. What was the most positive surprise of your first months?
I wasn’t surprised with anything really – it’s important to have a good vision and a clear roadmap. Life happens every day and we tweak some of the topics and approaches on the go. And that’s what makes working in this organization so fulfilling for me.
4. Please share one or more of your first success stories, which you are proud of.
During my first 3 months we created our HR vision for 2025, also including our own HR upskilling plan, which will drive the necessary skill development for the future of work in our community. I am also proud that we could facilitate meaningful conversations with our top management during this period about talent attraction, development & retention – this gave us great insights about the way forward in talent management for MOL Group overall.
5. Have you developed any new habit since you have started (in the new role)?
I drink lots of rooibos tea every day 😊 – Work related – I focus on my conscious calendar management much more than earlier, seeing how busy the agenda can get.
6. Should your colleagues need to figure out from 1 typical sentence that it’s you, what would that be?
Did you sense check this idea with the business? – I usually repeat this as I strongly believe that customer feedback is essential for delivering any HR products, policies and tools. I see that the answer for this question is more and more on the positive end, and we should continue building on our internal clients’ feedbacks.
7. What are your 3 most important goals for the next 2 years? What would you like to achieve?
My most important goal is to enable my HR team & community to become an agile, data-driven, high-performance operation, with colleagues having the right skillset and working in a balanced way vs. their private lives. I also would like to maintain MOL Group’s labour market position in our core countries and become more attractive with the younger generations and talents in general. And as the third point, I would like to facilitate within MOL Group the importance of mental health and self-care. Being psychologist by profession, this is sthg I strongly believe in as being critical aspect of our lives, especially in these Covid driven times.
8. Is there a book you plan to read for inspiration or munition to achieve these?
During the next months I’m planning to read Doing Agile Right – Transformation without chaos – it has very promising reviews and would be a good read for kicking off our HR agile journey.
9. New challenges are exciting, but they require a lot of energy too. How will you re-charge?
Managing work-life balance with a small kid requires a lot of energy indeed, the rare occassions of me-time are usually spent with a good coffee and book, or by walking in the nature and just staring at the green.
10. Which HR Best award would you see proudly on your wall by the end of the year?
As one of the biggest employers in the region, fortunately we are regularly awarded on different forums. What I would love to see more is receiving awards for digital HR innovations & innovative HR practices.
