Catalina Magui, Societe Generale GSC: HR needs to accompany the business strategy and be a partner for it to succeed

The HR & recruitment industry, highly challenged for the past two years, is undergoing a fundamental and structural changing process, has earned and proved a major strategic role in the companies, with ambitious targets and objectives to be achieved. People engagement, DEI, digital transformation, the people-centric approach, the sensitive aspects of recruitment and the increasing personnel fluctuation are often mentioned in company reports and statements.

The new world of business, especially after the past two years, seem to become more people-centric and paying a great deal of attention to safety, healthy and well-being of employees. The workspace has tremendously changed and evolved to the benefit of companies and people altogether.

To better highlight the efforts and evolutions in achieving the assumed objectives of HR departments, Catalina Magui, HR Director, Societe Generale Global Solution Centre shared the company’s insights on the current status and vision of HR.

HR is obviously fronting this changing world and I would have to say that the biggest challenge in HR, currently, is represented by the shortage of talents in Romania.

Societe Generale Global Solution Centre has been facing an accelerated growth since its establishment in 2011, currently having over 2100 people, handling a very diverse services portfolio from support services, banking operations, project management and IT.

In 2021 we celebrated our 10th anniversary and we have also went through a rebranding process, going from an European service centre to a Global solution centre. This has been a significant step towards our growth and development as a Global organization, uniting teams from Romania and India under the same brand, marking therefore the maturity we have reached and the added value we can bring together for Societe Generale Group.

When referring to the external context, as all the organizations, nowadays we are seeing the impact of the global trends in the changing workforce, the need for agility in the business strategy, for innovation, and generally for facing rapid changes everywhere.

HR is obviously fronting this changing world and I would have to say that the biggest challenge in HR, currently, is represented by the shortage of talents in Romania. We all acknowledge the dynamism of the labour market in Romania lately, the big competition for talents especially on the type of profiles that we need in the outsourcing business service industry. While our business continues to grow, to develop towards more valued type of services, searching for niche profiles from the banking industry or IT, becomes more and more challenging.

A second challenge, still connected with the first one, is people retention. We all see that the pandemic made us all look differently at our lives and jobs. As an employer, we have to understand these new needs and this can be done through a continuous dialogue with the staff, partnering with the management team in order to offer our employees an exciting and enjoyable professional journey while working in Societe Generale Global Solution Centre. Therefore, we continue to consolidate our position as a top employer in Romania and since last year we have obtained the “Great Place to Work” (GPTW) certification, granted by the independent global authority Great Place to Work® Institute, after a careful assessment of the company’s organizational culture and work environment. It is important to maintain these standards and to continuously invest and develop our employees engagement programs, while constantly adapting to the new world.

HR needs to accompany the business strategy and be a partner for it to succeed

That’s why the HR strategy is driven by the priorities reflected from the business and the HR teams are working together with the management, to align with the priorities and deliver the level of support and solutions, according with the identified needs. We execute our strategy through business proximity, continuous dialogue, participation to the decision making process, providing the necessary data & supporting the leaders. In the same time, as I previously mentioned, we are very connected with what is happening on the employer market side. Given the challenges stated, especially regarding the talent acquisition, we need to re-think our business model, the staff mix, to identify or create new ways of sourcing in order to ensure a continuous pipeline and to redesign the strategic planning needs.

In 2022 we have a particular focus on wellbeing

We do have a strong foundation as for the employees engagement programs since we have continuously promoted and developed a people-centric culture while investing in a positive employee journey since the very beginning, offering a flexible working environment and diversified benefits.

In 2022 we have a particular focus on wellbeing, people’s individual continuous development through learning – reskilling, upskilling, collaboration with Societe Generale colleagues around the globe –  and new people engagement programs.

In more concrete lines, we wish to be there for our employees in all important stages of their professional journey: starting with the moment when somebody joins the company and benefits of a welcoming bonus and an exceptional onboarding process therefore ensuring the support to integrate better within the team and company, continuing with a generous package of free paid days and flexible schedule meant to offer an increased work-life balance, dedicated programs for new parents, specialized mental health support for more difficult periods and even a chatbot that is constantly checking the moral level of our colleagues.

We recognise and celebrate the results, the excellent people and teams’ performance through our Rewards & Recognitions programs along the year and we don’t miss the opportunities to have fun together, even while working in a remote manner.

Including DEI topics into our workforce is not only a topic of diversifying our talent pool, but it drives also innovation through bringing new perspectives on the table.

Any DEI approach should be based on the company’s reality and strategy – nothing is to be launched as a fad, but rather viewed as an opportunity to address real business needs, to contribute to the overall strategic objectives. This is what we do and DEI is a pillar for us to grow as a company in a sustainable manner.

Including DEI topics into our workforce is not only a topic of diversifying our talent pool, but it drives also innovation through bringing new perspectives on the table. It also offers to each and single one of our colleagues the possibility to reach their maximum potential: by creating the space for everybody to express themselves, we create the opportunity for all to thrive for more in terms of personal development.

In order to reach the status of this environment where everyone can be itself, one key component for us is to transform our leaders into supporters of DEI practices and programs, so that they can evangelize the same within the organization.

Amongst the aspects of key importance to us, I would mention:

•Gender diversity: currently our company has a 26% representativity of male colleagues. We want to continue to balance the organization from gender standpoint, ensuring in this manner diversity of opinions, different leadership and operating styles;

•Inclusion of persons differently abled : we strongly believe that there is no limitation of atypical persons, it’s the society that creates barriers for a person to perform certain activities. Societe Generale Global Solution Centre’s intention is to be that part of society that removes the barriers, opening the path for atypical persons to reach their full potential.

Work-life integration, probably not typically regarded as a DEI topic, however all of us have different instances/postures. Especially in the current context where more and more time is spent working in our homes, our instances cannot be divergent – what we want in Societe Generale Global Solution Centre is to help our colleagues to mix their “lives” in a manner beneficial for all parties.

For 2022 we do envision a growing attention on “how to” workshops around topics such as change management

2021 followed the same pattern in learning as 2020, with a focus on core skills stemmed from “how to manage effectively in a virtual environment”.  Our learners continued their learning journey with blended interventions such as virtual Trainer Lead workshops and digital self-study solutions to ensure consistent knowledge acquisition and effective practice. Our “Coaching 4 Learning” program suite proved to be successful as it combines effectively the managerial and leadership concepts with on-the-job practice allowing our colleagues to test their thinking on how to successful integrate these behaviours into daily routines. Second, we have put in place two development programs aiming at effectively supporting our organisational culture on developing people and helping them grow.

For 2022 we do envision a growing attention on “how to” workshops around topics such as change management – to effectively navigate these unpredicted economical, political and work environment changes- , coaching skills and career management to keep up with market’s workforce related challenges. All these programs help our workforce to keep abreast of organisational landscape changes and quickly adapt their personal strategies to lead effectively. Additionally, our mentoring programs are helping us grow future leaders ready to help us deliver exceptional business results.

The business operations are continuously digitally transformed

It’s true that digital is our new reality: it’s reflected not only in the personal space but in the business environment with similar intensity. Given that, digital transformation is not only pressuring the organizations as coming from the CEO or from the management boards (in order to reach a more efficient way to do business), but there is a constant and strong  pressure coming from the employees as well, them expecting like in any other areas of their life) things to be done easier, quicker, adapting fast to ever-changing needs.

Our HR mission is to ensure our employees’ expectations are met, hence two major axes have been defined within our strategy:

1.            Equipping the team with the right HR tools to help them take appropriate decisions, in their own rhythm, whenever they need to do that. The current paradigm is “I want it simple, I want it now”, hence self-service & fully customizable solutions is what we are focusing on. Some examples from the last period include:

a.            One single shop for employee lifecycle related aspects – this is how our intranet has been redesigned, as a comprehensive knowledge repository where everybody searches and accesses information instantly, in a simple manner, without any delays

b.            HR dashboards for our people managers. This is a project dear to us, started in 2021 and still continuing for the current year: through a single click, the managers of our teams can  have a holistic view of all HR aspects in their respective departments (demographics, how diverse their team is,  talent acquisition statistics, how team members are progressing on their learning plans, etc). People managers are our HR proxies “on the floor”, hence allowing them to see how the direct teams are performing, makes it easier for them to take necessary actions to help teams continuously develop.

c.            HR assistant chatbot implemented to dialogue constantly with our staff, to understand what is their level of engagement and to offer insights to managers & HR actors, so that improvements can be made in any step of the overall professional journey

2.            Preparing our colleagues for tomorrow – as technology advances at an accelerated pace, all of us need to be, first of all, open to learning new things, to developing new competencies. This flexibility mindset represents the foundation for adjusting to the future, hence is of outmost importance in our learning & development programs.

Secondly, we do offer our employees opportunities to become technological savvy (either through formal learning programs – we have a Big Data Academy, for example, in partnership with our colleagues from India, either through experiential learning – facilitated by practicing technical skills during projects or through initiatives launched by our Transformation/Innovation department).

The transformation of workplace

First of all, our current workplace is a hybrid one, hence two directions have been approached:

1.            The office space has been transformed to be used as a socializing and collaboration platform  (flex desks, recreational areas, specially designed collaborative areas for teams to gather while working on specific projects). We also took the opportunity to ensure our office space is fully accessible (as an example, an audit has been run to make sure the needs of specially abled colleagues are fulfilled) but also to make our building environmentally friendly (usage of green energy only, plastic items removal from our vending machines, transformed our processes to remove paper consumption or limit usage to absolutely mandatory activities)

2.            Home environment – taking care not only about colleagues having the right equipment (accessorizing to become fully mobile, distributing chairs/desks to existent staff requiring, providing new joiners with a start bonus to  purchase on their own necessary equipment at home), but also the appropriate collaborative tools (we have recently introduced Yammer, for example) and the right mindset to navigate in this complex and hybrid ecosystem (organizing workshops for manager, for example, to help them manage their teams remotely).

Building and maintain the“ belonging at work” feeling in the company’s culture

When it comes to the organisational culture, we consider ourselves extremely lucky to be a part of a large group with a very strong culture heritage, a mix of values, work ethics and people centricity.

We pay attention from the recruitment stage to the quality of people we bring into the company and we create a an inclusive & diverse work environment where they can feel well and engaged.

The team spirit has always been one of our core values. Our Rewards and Recognition programs are centered on team celebration and the idea of collaboration between teams, with projects opportunities in many Group entities, stimulating people connections around the world, exposing themselves to a large variety of topics and local cultures.

The employees do as well have a high level of sense of belonging to the Group as we have also seen from a survey that we have recently launched internally, meaning that the entire culture and values are greatly embraced.

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