Laura Bușu Boboc, HR Lead at Michelin Corporate & Business Services (CBS) Bucharest: We believe in collective intelligence and collaboration, authenticity and self-awareness

2024 is a special year for THE DIPLOMAT-BUCHAREST business media platform. This year, we mark 20 years‘ anniversary on the media market in Romania, as well as 10 years since we established and developed OUTSOURCING-TODAY and the series of events dedicated to people in companies: PEOPLE EMPOWERING BUSINESS (Forum & Awards).

Therefore, for 2024’s anniversary year, we aim at shining a light to the best-in-class professionals in the Romanian economy. This anniversary year creates the editorial opportunity to address and spotlight what makes people to be the greatest and the most valued resource of a company as well as highlighting the personal approach on developing a strong career path and make a significant mark to broader business community.

To shine a light on the proffesional and career path and vision, we talked to Laura Bușu Boboc, HR Lead at Michelin Corporate & Business Services (CBS) Bucharest:

Creating the strong roots of a career

It was a mix of studies and professional experiences. I started my career 20 years ago in a corporate call center and looking back I could not think I could have a better start because I learned how to work with clients, how to be customer oriented, how to grow resilience and have a problem-solving attitude.

Other key step was to move to a BPO and learn operations, project transfers, working to the client site to take over activities, build procedures, design, and implement KPIs – specific operation activities.

Then the next milestone was to move to HR Management consulting in one of the Big4 companies, and I recall these years like full training years, not working time. Switching for one project to another from very straight-forward projects like competency matrix design and salary grids to long time projects like culture evaluation and change. Working one day in an industry and the next day in another; handling several projects at the same time, with different team members and different clients. I learned much more than HR, I learned sales, presentation skills, project management, managing stakeholders and how to trust myself – you can learn all you want with only 2 conditions: show genuine interest on the topic and allow yourself time.

At a certain point in my career, I was manager for the first time, and I practiced and learned to listen, evaluate, develop people in a way that was somehow different from what I expected, because some things you can only learn by practice, regardless of the theoretical base you have.

Then I was a manager of managers and teaching others how to be managers while you are their manager was new for me; I had also experienced the HR Business Partner role, advising, and coaching; but again, some things require practice and your personal touch. Each manager has a personal touch, but you can only find it when you are confident to master the basics and when you know that you are doing the right thing to help your team grow. When you are a new manager, you might be so stressed not to disappoint your team that you might not be authentic in full.

So, when I reached this point of my career as HR Lead for Michelin Corporate Business Center, I had in my “experience pack”, the industry knowledge, technical savvy, management experience and a big passion for people and people development.

Reflecting the distinct culture and values of the company

Our company’s culture is rooted in principles that support a positive and inclusive work environment and as main values I would mention openness, transparency, flexibility and empowerment, a culture when people are listened and have the space to learn and develop, to contribute to other projects outside their role and be part of different communities.

As an example, our program Citizen Developers Bootcamp is offering to my colleagues the opportunity to be part of an innovative learning community where they can find digital solutions for internal business processes. The 2023 edition had over 60 volunteers involved and with the help of 32 trainers, they delivered 69 internal projects.

We also launched in 2023 the Ideas in Motion program, where we encourage anyone, regardless of their roles and department, to propose a business idea, pass through a pitch process and can implement it with the funding and guidance necessary.

We prioritize creating a safe space for all employees and a culture in which we put people first, rely on our collective intelligence and collaboration.

Market trends for SSC is to expand as more than 60% of the companies stated that they will increase operations and more than 90% stated that Romania is a good place for investment (source ABSL). In Michelin CBS we developed up to ~ 850 roles since our creation 10 years ago and we also have development plans.

To support business strategy, our role in HR is to focus on 4 main pillars related to Attract and retain talents, Talent performance and retention, Learning and development and Culture and climate.

The leadership, at the core of the company culture

Our leadership style is a derivate from our culture – we value results, but we take care to have a balance with the care for people. We believe in collective intelligence and collaboration, authenticity and self-awareness and we seek to have these qualities in each one of us, regardless of the role – leaders can be also informal.

The professional fulfilment It is not a role, a certain position in a specific company, is not about the number of years of experience or the award you have, but it is about:

• authenticity and teaching,to feel good with what you do; we often hear the saying “put on your manager hat on” or “now you put on your expert hat on”; I don’t believe in “hats” or in the advantage of the effort needed to change them. In the eyes of the beholder, you will still be a manager if you offer a very technical point of view, and you are allowed to be an expert in some topics even if you are a manager. You are still you; you do not need to change the way you talk or the way you relate to others, just be yourself and stay authentic!
• there is no greater reward than being asked to teach: it is a sign of recognition of your experience and expertise but also a sign of appreciation for your attitude. If we think about our teachers at school, many of us loved or disliked a certain discipline because we liked or disliked the professor and the way he/she behaved.

Words of inspiration for the new generations

I would advise the new generation to learn how to work with AI, how to challenge, to be curious and above all to have a client focus and design thinking mindset.

What we also see from recruitment is that we see less and less CV with people working for more than 2-3 years on the same role, especially at the beginning of their career. And changing is good if, only if you learn something new. At the beginning, you can choose from a large option of jobs on your level and for your future career to learn a bit of every domain. After all you will never be a successful CEO if you do not know a bit of finance, a bit of sales, marketing, operation and so on. And if you do not learn the basics while you are at the beginning of your career, you run into the risk of never learning, and in time you will realize that even if you thought you are quickly climbing the corporate ladder, you might not be able to reach the top.

So, I strongly encourage lateral moves especially at the beginning of the career, and if possible, in the same company for a while. If you remain in the same company, you will be able to put together pieces from different processes and departments, you might even discover that you are more prone to be a process expert or an operational excellence professional.  

The power words of 2024

Safe Space, feel emotional safe and included in the team, in the company, to feel at ease at work. We know that when an employee leaves the company for a better salary they might still return for the culture. But if they leave because of the culture, they will not return even with a better salary.

We had all the time a great safe space and transparency in the company; for example, we implemented for 3 years a transparent system of salary grids, job grading and comp-ratio. Each employee knows his job grade, his comp-ration and can see the job evaluation for the entire company including skills and competencies need for each job. Everything is hosted on an inhouse platform accessible to all employees.

In 2024 we focused on running Fearless Organization Scan workshops. We certified 2 colleagues from HR as trainers, and our plan is to run the workshop for 25% of the teams by end of Q3 2024 and re-apply the questionnaire and run a second team-personalized diagnostic to all of them by end of Q4 2024. This will allow us to create the best psychological safety environment for each one of us, allowing us to grow and further develop.