It is easy to gather a team, but difficult to motivate it to create added value for the company; therefore, motivating employees is currently one of the more challenging tasks for professionals in human resources departments. In this case, perks such as salary increases, days off, and bonuses do not help…
The approach is entirely different: the focus is on talents, their education, and building them into soloists who think innovatively and act collectively for the general welfare of the company, all under the guidance of the team leader. Building functional teams is part of the business strategy of Croatian companies, and how they create and motivate them is discussed by human resources department leaders.
Excellence is Built
At Ericsson Nikola Tesla, great attention is paid to recognizing and developing talents. Within Human Resources, talent management is conducted. Through this process, the company ensures the identification of the best talents, takes care of their professional development, as well as their motivation, engagement, and career advancement.
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—– Continuous talent development and innovative thinking are crucial for high-performing teams. We pay great attention to building excellence in teams as it significantly impacts project success and their results. Teams should consist of members whose competencies and abilities guarantee the delivery of desired results. It is also important to consider the relationships between team members and their collaboration. Established teams are often the most successful – emphasizes Željko Antolić, director of the Human Resources Management unit at Ericsson Nikola Tesla, adding that team competitiveness has a positive motivational effect, but success is ensured through collaboration.
– It is the organization’s task to recognize this, encourage it, and adjust roles within the team to maximize the potentials available – states Antolić, emphasizing that quality management of line or project leaders contributes to the fact that Ericsson Nikola Tesla teams are recognized within the global corporation for their innovation and excellence.
The Importance of Selection
At Pliva, building quality teams is a continuous process to which they pay much attention, believing that the key to its success lies in quality entry selection of candidates, continuous education, effective mentoring, and employee feedback.
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—– Hiring those who have the potential to fit in while simultaneously offering something new allows us to build effective and strong teams. Diversity, which we nurture as one of the key values in the international environment in which we operate, is also important in the selection process. We believe that in a workplace that encourages the contribution of every member, hiring diverse talents who think differently opens the door to innovative ideas and solutions – says Blagica Petrovac Šikić, senior director of Pliva’s Human Resources, highlighting the role of the IT talent development center within the Teva group.
They launched the IT Teva Academy, which gives students and young professionals the opportunity to educate themselves and work on projects worldwide, thus building their career paths.
– For the success of the team, its effectiveness, and the way it will develop, the person leading it plays an important role. Pliva pays special attention to selecting team leaders who possess professional competencies as well as team management competencies, and their education, knowledge expansion, and development of new skills are one of our priorities – emphasizes Petrovac Šikić, adding that in the past year, Pliva filled as much as 42 percent of open positions with internal candidates.
Clear Strategy
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—– Experience shows that recognizing and accepting diversity, while simultaneously encouraging connections based on shared values, greatly influences team building and empowerment. Every team member should feel that they can share their thoughts and thus participate in the direction the team is heading; feel that they can participate in decision-making, make mistakes, share challenges they face, seek help, but also celebrate personal and team successes with the team – lists Ines Vranješ Radovanović, director of Human Resources at Ingemark, who claims that an additional plus, from the perspective of the person leading the team, is the abandonment of complete control, sharing one’s knowledge, and encouraging the team to do so.
– If I had to shorten everything that remains to two words, they would be ‘authenticity and listening’ – emphasizes Vranješ Radovanović, asserting that when it comes to talents, there is a special emphasis on development and a clear career path, defined opportunities for career change/growth, and the prerequisites that an employee must meet to realize this.
– Merely residing in the talent pool without a clear strategy on what to do with the talents often results in being a nursery for talents – claims Vranješ Radovanović.
Diversity of Profiles
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—According to Ivan Skender, CEO for business transformation, human resources, and corporate communications A1 Hrvatska, the company believes that the diversity of people’s profiles, their knowledge, and skills is key to creating a quality team.
Therefore, on most of their projects, to ensure a variety of perspectives and alternative solutions to a problem, they work in flexible teams composed of individuals from different departments of the company. In addition to diversity, it is crucial to nurture a culture of learning and innovation, which is why the company insists on conducting workshops and training for all levels of employees.
– I believe that the mindset in which an employee takes the initiative to make everything they do better than before by learning new skills is crucial for the jobs of the future, for creating innovations and business growth. A1 Hrvatska is therefore intensively creating development programs, offering numerous training to employees, and encouraging them to learn.
Innovation is a particularly important aspect in our industry given the rapid advancement of the technologies we use, so we often have to develop entirely new approaches. That is why we encourage employees to fearlessly develop and present their ideas and share feedback with each other about the projects they are working on – says Skender.
Challenge for Managers
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—The executive director of the Human Resources Management Office at Hrvatska pošta Mario Bebić claims that building a team is one of the biggest challenges for managers.
– Transparent and two-way communication, setting clear goals, and, most importantly, feedback are key elements for team growth. Besides the manager or team leader, the company also plays a significant role, which can encourage employees to engage and bring them closer to the company’s goals in which they participate – concludes Bebić.
In this company, the development strategy ‘Pošta2022′ is highly focused on employees, and the best practices and experiences in human resources management have been applied. According to Bebić, they conducted research on employees’ perceptions of the current and target culture, and the employees themselves indicated the forms of behavior they see in the workplace and consider to be positive, constructive, and developmental.
