Federal-Mogul expands 120-employee Romanian center team - OT print issue

While Federal-Mogul is set to expand its team, new investors are coming into Ploiesti to add more than 500 jobs to the city, Simona Scutaru, Service Center Site leader & HR Country Manager Federal-Mogul Motorparts tells Outsourcing Today.

"Although the unemployment rate is low, we still find good expertise in the market, doubled by the fact that there are new generations graduating and willing to learn and develop their career. If we refer to Ploiesti, we have here one of the lowest unemployment rates in Romania (bellow 4 per cent), while 20 multinationals are present on the local market (US, Japanese, Italian, German)," she says.

"At least two more multinationals will open manufacturing facilities in Ploiesti by the end of 2016 – beginning of 2017, creating an additional of 500 jobs. We believe that although the competition is high, we attract and keep in the company the right capabilities to develop our local business."

Federal-Mogul opened a first facility in Romania in 2014. Last year it perfected an investment of about 67 million USD into a Ploiesti factory, according to local press. The company has 120 employees in its shared service centre, as well.
And the company expands.

"As we are developing our businesses in Romania, we are more in the moment to expand our team and less in replacing people-on-the-move. Generally, employers fight to cut turnover mainly for white collars and management through additional benefits and flexible work time. Building a positive and feed-forward based culture is one of the main pillars is building employees` trust and loyalty to our company," says Scutaru.

As labour market started to change fast, from the existing capabilities in the market to the companies` approach related to the recruitment process, companies moved to attracting potential and building capabilities from inside.
"Although the unemployment rate is low, we still find good expertise in the market, doubled by the fact that there are new generations graduating and willing to learn and develop their career. Referring to Ploiesti, although the competition is high, we attract and keep in the company the right capabilities to develop our local business."

And while developing the local businesses, companies are more in the moment of expanding their team and less in replacing people-on-the-move. Generally, employers fight to cut turnover mainly for white collars and management through additional benefits and flexible work time.
"Building a positive and feed-forward based culture is one of the main pillars is building employees` trust and loyalty to our company. Generating a flexible environment where people feel appreciated and listened returns to the company more stability and room for new or improvement ideas," she explains.

And when talking about employee motivation, companies now split them into two different groups, because of the need to satisfy different generations.

For the group age of 30 years and above, motivation comes from learning and development opportunities provided by the employer, clarity in the career path, balance work-life and workspace culture and collaboration relationships.
Whilst for the group under 30, different needs have been noticed, from flexibility for the working hours, working-from-home possibility, to participation in learning & development programs or engagement & involvement programs. "They have a natural need for action, which comes with excitement and energy in getting involved in all kind of job related or extra programs, such as CSR (corporate and social responsibility), community or environmental initiatives," Scutaru adds.

Expansion is challenging

Last year was a challenging one for Federal-Mogul HR team in Romania, as it expanded the teams in all locations. "We had a high number of open positions, hundreds of experienced candidates, but we believe we did good job in building a great team with high performances."

Meanwhile, 2016 comes with the challenge of growing the successors line from within, building further capabilities and skills. "For the production areas, we have the challenge of the base salary for white collars which is not increasing as fast to compete with the new companies in the local market," Scutaru explains.

"We believe we have a good mix between the maturity and expertise of our experienced colleagues and the positive energy and fast-learning skills of our "new generation" employees. We mix those two in different successful projects we have in the company, but also in extra-job activities we have together," she concludes.

All industries are positively impacted by the latest trends in using internet as a communication and working tool. We are a global and matrix-based company, with constant interactions between employees all over the world. To be able to do that we use mobile internet communications tools and automated tools. Internet of things will change even more the way companies communicate and will increase their reaction to the market trends. On the other hand, being dependent of internet and online tools might increase the transparency and clarity of employer & products branding.
Automation is far more important in production, as it supports increased productivity, although we have to take into account the costs related to training for maintenance/ automation personnel and for skills development which may slightly increase. For production areas, the internet communication tools are mainly meant to support the face-to-face communication style, as there is a higher need of direct interaction.

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