Sorina Donisa, CEO of APT Resources & Services: People that have the sense of belonging to an organization are more confident

The role of leadership in the current environment becomes paramount to inspire and motivate teams and companies to move forward. How are the CEOs and managers of large companies addressing aspects related to leadership and busines resilience within their industries and with the aim of reaching the business objectives for 2020 and 2021?

 We recently talked to Sorina Donisa, CEO of APT Resources & Services to find out the answers to actual aspects of business life and leadership today. 

I do believe the most useful leadership skill in the current changing work environment is empathy and understanding others.

Empathy is key because you must give your team the security it needs. The leader thus becomes the anchor of his team while maintaining the business focus and keeping the emotional balance under control.

Under the influence of social distancing, communication has become more important than ever. As a leader, you must encourage communication in all its forms written, online, telephone, scheduled or unscheduled. It is very important to keep and encourage this communication bridge because colleagues can help each other, and solutions can come from any of the team members.

Dealing with the ambiguity and adaptability are also essential skills nowadays.

It is critical to have a flexible and adaptable team because market demands have changed suddenly, from legislation to behavior of candidates and the way we deliver services. As a leader you must cope with change, shift gears comfortably, decide and act without having the total picture, and handle risk and uncertainty.

In these uncertain times it is important to keep the positive attitude. Fortunately, I don’t lack optimism and I managed to pass it on to my team this has increased the level of security and confidence that together, as a team, we can surpass any challenge.

Business goals can’t be reached without a strong team behind; therefore, I showed the team how much I trust them and I encouraged freedom of decision

Being an HR services company and offering temporary staff to our partners, for us, the purpose in these difficult times is to keep as many jobs as possible, to help employees maintain their jobs or help them find new ones. We have a sense of gratitude to our business partners who have shared the same mindset.

Business goals can’t be reached without a strong team behind; therefore, I showed the team how much I trust them and I encouraged freedom of decision. Although difficult, this period gave us the advantage of developing leadership skills not only at the level of team manager, but also at the level of team members. The most empowering mindset for us is “together we can do it”.  We have been shown once again that the trust you place in a person is one of the strongest motivating factors. That helped us succeed in the pandemic. At the group level, not only did we recovered the decrease in the number of jobs from the state of emergency, but we also had a substantial business increase in temporary work projects and human resources outsourcing projects.

This period has proved to be an opportunity for us, especially for growing the temporary staffing business line

It is not the first time we are face to face with the unknown. We already know that together we will succeed. But each of the team members or each of the business partners adds their own valuable contribution that brings us one step closer to achieving the goals. Let’s keep this in mind when we move to 2021.

Our focus has always been on people, both on our team and on our business partners and now we all feel that people make the difference. As a consequence, by taking care of our team, we make sure that our partners continue to receive consistent professional services and, moreover, support when needed.

This period has proved to be an opportunity for us, especially for growing the temporary staffing business line. In today’s business environment, the companies have less long-term predictability and visibility, therefore our expectation is that they will use temporary workforce and project-based jobs and thus address the need to reduce the risk associated with long-term commitments. We at APT need to assume the role of integrator of jobs on the Romanian market and make connections between the jobs that will close and the ones that open in such way that we keep as many active jobs as we can. More than ever we need to be the link between the candidates and any available jobs because the market is shifting rapidly from a candidate driven market to a company driven market.

Therefore, we expect that in 2021 we will deliver the business in the same climate of unpredictability as in 2020, but with more confidence that we do the right things to keep safe the employees, the candidates and the partners with whom we work.

Current concerns are highlighted by the following:

• Maintain the safety of our internal team and their loved ones, give them the certainty and the trust that they are safe and secure and they will continue to deliver great results not only in 2020, but also in the years to come;
• Create opportunities on the Romanian market for as many candidates as we can. Increase the number of temporary placements and help candidates and companies get over this difficult period;
• Digitalization! Increase even more the automatization of our processes, not only recruitment, but also the processes associated with the hiring and employee experience within the company;
• Have back-up and business continuity plans thus being able to change and update when it is necessary;

We are prepared to continue our journey in the same way we passed through 2020 and in comparison, with the beginning of pandemic, when we didn’t know what to expect, now we have a better understanding of what we are dealing with. Therefore, we expect that in 2021 we will deliver the business in the same climate of unpredictability as in 2020, but with more confidence that we do the right things to keep safe the employees, the candidates and the partners with whom we work.

We continued our digitalization journey by implementing a new recruitment tool which help us save the time of our recruiters and take over the pressure of deadlines.

Listening to the needs of our team and adapt the way we organize the processes and program depending on their input. Nowadays, many companies are organizing the work exclusively from home and we are lucky to still use our offices in total safety if we want.

We empower our people to do their best work, make sure that they are valued and create opportunities for all employees to grow. People that have the sense of belonging to an organization are more confident and by empowering them to do what they consider the best approach we will make them spend less time wondering if this is the best solution and get right into action, make the decision and