HR-Talk with Sylvie Nicol & Lena Lindemann

Thank you, Lena. Thank you very much for having me. My pleasure to be there with you today. I'm actually, as you said, a member of the management board of Henkel. I'm responsible for human resources, as well as for infrastructure services and for corporate sustainability. And I have the pleasure to be in that role for a bit more than four years, but much longer time with Henkel, close to 28 years actually.

Exactly. Actually, maybe to complement or to give you the perspective from a different angle, our workforce goes from 18 years old to 82 years old, because we're a global company and in some countries you can work beyond 65 or 67 years old. So we have actually the same challenges, certainly because of our footprint, some countries which might be slightly different than what we experience in Europe.

Oh wow, there are multiple challenges. First of all, I think having multiple generations under one roof creates the obligation for HR and for leaders to be very mindful of the differences, differences in expectations, expectations in life and expectations at work. And that creates for us also fantastic opportunities, I would say, to benefit from the huge diversity of these generations, which we are trying daily to do, for example tandems or mentoring or giving a voice to new generations or trying to make sure that senior generations also feel represented and have a voice in the company. Yeah, for me another challenge is the risk of losing knowledge. I think with such a great amount of people entering into retirement within the next years, there is a risk of losing institutional knowledge here. So I think we also have the challenge of providing formats to keep the knowledge, be it by passing it on to the next generation, but also by using new technologies. And I think we'll come to this later. I see a big support also in generative AI for this knowledge transfer.

Yeah, that's true. And one important factor for us is strategic workforce planning here, to have a closer look on what exactly are the skills and the amount of people and skills that we need in the upcoming years, to be able to better plan also how we secure the knowledge passing to the next generation or to some knowledge sharing platform. So I think that's a big topic, or will be also a big topic here for us.

Yes, actually I see a big openness, sometimes even a desperate wanting to pass it on. And they feel that, oh, I'm leaving in six months or 12 months, and there's nobody yet who I can pass it on to. So yes, I see openness, and so we as an employer need to have answers also for this, and we're working on this.

Um, also yeah, we feel the same. And we are doing multiple, let's say, experiences, you could also call them pilots maybe. To name one, we have started what we call a New Generation Leadership Circle. This is a group of employees from new generations who are mirroring our executive committees, and they have the difficult task to challenge us and especially to make us aware of our blind spots. Because sometimes, you know, the leadership groups are more or less of the same generation, which is not necessarily Gen Z, and we have blind spots definitely. So they help us in surfacing the blind spots. It's difficult because for sure we all come from different perspectives, but once you found a way, you get really interesting insights. I don't know if you have maybe similar formats.

Exactly. And when you start looking at what actually some generations have in common, you find more than what you see. And maybe the example I can quote is topics related to flexible working conditions or topics related to mental health. They were brought by Gen Z, but when we start talking and engaging with the workforce, we see that they are important across generations. So that's also nice to look at what generations have in common and not only what makes them different.

And I think it's a good way to think about it, phases of life, because work is not an isolated thing. Work is part of your life obviously, and being mindful of where people stand in their life, in their development, in their family, I think is also a good way for us as HR professionals to be much aware of what's important for them.

Yeah, I was certainly speaking here also a bit from personal experience. Indeed, having experienced moments in my life, for example, where I was not mobile because my three kids were extremely young, and I thought it was not really the right moment, where the company Henkel was very respectful of that. And at the moment where I was in a different phase of my life, other opportunities were coming that I could catch. And I believe if you have this ability to listen to these phases of life and to adapt as much as you can, and as much as it's a win-win because sometimes it cannot work, sometimes you can make it work, then you get the best for the employee and for the employer.

Yeah, maybe building on what you said, I was just reflecting because I was talking about my own experience when having kids. I had kids at, I would say, early stage of my life, 27. But I also see colleagues having kids today at 45 or 46 years old. So it's certainly the same phase of life, but not the same age. So I also find that interesting for us as HR to reflect on that. But the moment and what happens in your life at this moment is certainly the same sort of experience, while 20 years of age difference. And also different opportunities with regard to how jobs change due to technological changes, the openness also to learn new jobs and to develop is also different from former times. So my experience is that people are much more open also to learn and to build up their skills, and that's also not limited to a certain period in career. I think there was a time where there was a certain fear of what you didn't know. And today we are certainly getting a bit more casual with not knowing, because anywhere, especially with digital, it's going so fast you can never know it all. You need to accept that you have knowledge gaps, and we become certainly a bit more open on accepting, okay, we need to get back to training, we need to learn new things, which certainly for leaders at times has been difficult to acknowledge that they didn't know something. Today the world is different. All of us, we always have something where we need to learn.

Well, it's a very challenging question which is everywhere. And I also try to put my arms around it. And the more I think about it, the more I think first it's not the El Dorado. It's not like it's going to solve everything and all challenges we have. But it's certainly a fantastic opportunity, as long as we go step by step. We don't go too fast in thinking it's going to solve everything and we need to adopt extremely fast on everything. On the other hand, I'm really convinced that there is no way to escape. Some people still think, oh maybe no, there is no way to escape. It's like I always compare that to when we had our first computers, because I've been living that period. First computer, you need to use it every day, there was no way out. No, AI is there, it will be there even more. We need to adopt it. I think I've been reading somewhere that the time we will invest into AI will be 10% in designing, 20% in technologies, and 70% in supporting people and process change. And I tend to believe that where the biggest change will come. So no job in the future will go without a touch of AI, but it's not that it will completely change everything we do today, at least for HR.

Yeah, it sometimes also takes the fear of it, because everybody's always looking for new colleagues to take some of the work. And maybe we just look at AI as one of these new colleagues that helps us and makes our life easier. And you would certainly not leave a new colleague alone. You would certainly coach and get to know and understand and also put your perspective on the relationship. And I think with AI it's the same. You cannot just let it go. You need to learn it, to work with it, to also find your way. Certainly, and as long as it's very exciting, I think we also have the responsibility as leaders to structure it, to put a certain governance around it, because there are for sure ethical challenges as well, especially I think with HR related data, so people related data. So we also have this responsibility to make sure that we do it the right way, so that it does not create fear in the organization.

So we have been starting what we call a playground for a certain number of employees who are sort of piloting certain tools which are really leveraging AI, like Copilot for organizing meetings and writing notes, summary minutes, etc., to get acquainted. On the other hand, we in HR, like for the business actually it's the same approach, we have defined business cases where we believe there is really an opportunity to accelerate, to create impact as fast as possible. And we work very closely with our digital organization, and they drive us through these business cases. So for HR, we have for sure identified opportunities in recruitment, but also in learning big time, to be faster in creating the learnings that we need, to bring these things together, to make them accessible for employees. I think recruitment and learning are the two biggest, fastest impact topics that we can have. But we for sure see also a lot of opportunity in skills management, open job marketplace, which will certainly come as well.

Yeah, we follow pretty similar approach, I would say. In the first step, it's about getting familiarized, playing. I actually like the idea of a playground, but for everyone to kind of see and explore the opportunities on a more general basis. But then it's about use cases and trying to find the potential where we can use it. And that differs from the different businesses and also the different functions. And we're trying also in HR to explore where we can use it and get the support and also for more productivity and efficiency. I think we already have a lot of ideas, but we need to train and see how it develops. But when you bring it into your day-to-day, which I also try to do, navigating with it and also playing with it somehow with ChatGPT, it's amazing and sometimes also scary, I have to confess. So you need to feel it and to experience it to be able to navigate with it. Also if you hear what students, kids in my case, can do with it, it's also an invitation to guide.

Definitely. Skills is a big topic for you?

I see we have the same concerns, even if we are in different industries. Actually, skills is also a topic for us. So we are building up our skills database first to know where we are, what skills do we have in the company, with the purpose to create this talent marketplace going forward. And in parallel, exactly as you say, trying to project ourselves in the future: what are the skills that will be needed and where will be the scarcity, and how do we deal with it, and where do we build the future skills? Exactly. And more and more, we also go where the skills are. So we've been opening, for example, a digital hub in India, fantastic skills place for digital skills. We have opened our HR experience center in Asia, because for us that was really a key place where we felt there are interesting skills for this business. Or developed a new engineering hub in Spain, in Montornès, where we have a big factory, because that's where we have some skills that we really need. So more and more we go where the skills are, but we need to make sure that they travel afterwards and that we can also sometimes bring them where we need them in the future. So that would be one of the big stakes of the future for us.

There's also certainly a political component to it, because as you said demography, but also in some countries governments and education systems have been pushing what we experience in China, for example, is that we will certainly be confronted with scarcity of production workers, production workforce, because there was a clear push to bring everybody to university. And then working in factories in the future for this group of people who have been developed and educated in university is not necessarily fitting. So that is something for us definitely to address going forward, because we will continue to manufacture, that's in the essence of what we do. So it's sometimes about demography, about education system, so from one country to another very different situation when it comes to skills management obviously.

Yeah, it's a broad question. So I would certainly say that change is here to stay. We are surrounded by high speed of change between technologies, workforce expectations, sometimes also political instability, and that certainly will be with us for the years to come. Therefore, I think our responsibility as HR is to make sure that the culture of the company is permanently adapting to this need for change, and that we develop thoughtful leaders, and we manage to keep a very engaged workforce.

Yeah, you see me smiling because busy agenda is daily life. So it's a big and permanent fight to make sure that you create enough space in the agenda to be able to think, to reflect, to take care of your team, and not spending your entire time in meetings. And actually, that's one of the big things I'm doing with my close team weekly, to really clean the agenda and prepare and make sure that I'm participating in the right things, and what I can delegate I delegate. But that's not easy, especially for certain in my generation who has been used to be in each and everything. It's a learning journey to let go.

I think we could go on forever, Sylvie. It was a pleasure having you as a first guest in my HR Talk. I really enjoyed the discussion and sharing our experiences. And I think there's a bright future ahead of us. I think our function is so important, and we won't get bored, definitely not.