Value-Driven Leadership: Blueprint for HR Success – Gina Cruceru

[00:00:00] Welcome to another episode of the People Pulse podcast. Today, we are thrilled to have Gina Cruceru as our speaker. Gina is a famous HR professional recognized as a leader of distinction in 2023, finalist of the HR of the year award and winner of the HR manager of the year 2023 by the diplomat. Her childhood dream was to become a writer and she cultivated this passion for reading and writing throughout the years. 

Nowadays, she’s a group HR Director of Rome Petrol KMG international company in the energy sector with a robust background in the retail oil and gas and energy industries. Gina brings over 17 years of HR experience and is recognized for her expertise in people management, leadership, consulting, performance and rewards, executive search, graduate recruitment and employer branding. [00:01:00] Her focus lies in nurturing communities and leaders, empowering new generations of professionals, and fostering a culture of continuous decision making. She firmly believes in mission driven motivation and a leadership style characterized by care and respect, delivering tangible results for both people and organizations. 

A frequent speaker of HR conferences and podcasts across Europe, Gina is celebrated for her strong communication abilities, attention to detail and strong professionalism. Today we delve into Gina’s insight on driving performance, building a culture of engagement and aligning HR with the company success. 

Thank you, Nena. Thank you for having me. It’s a pleasure having this conversation with you today. Can you perhaps share a story about how you managed to get high level leaders who usually have very different priorities involved in an [00:02:00] HR initiative or a project and what was the outcome of it? It’s a constant challenge. 

I’ve seen it in several organizations coming from various people. What is important at any stage of the conversation in any organization, irrespective of the geography and other elements, is to always bridge on the values field. Because at the end of the day, what connects people is their values. Not necessarily similar values, but values that put together, work together, and can really bring results for the respective community. 

And for us as HR professionals, it’s of tremendous importance to have a good, strong partnership relationship with the business leaders in order for them to understand that we can support them in reaching their business objectives. And that [00:03:00] we, at the end of the day, our mission there, our role, was specifically designed to support them in growing the business and obtaining results for all the stakeholders and shareholders. So in reality, in practice, we encounter a lot of situations when the business is prioritized versus people in the larger sense. Nevertheless, the conversation should always be put back on its origins, which is the values. And the fact that any result in the company is gained through people and through people contribution. 

And this awareness is important, not only from the perspective of the business, but from the personal perspective of that person. Because once you as a leader, you are aware that it’s your own responsibility. And this in fact is how you become a leader. When you actually realize that it’s [00:04:00] your art and responsibility of growing people. 

And whenever you’re not involving people, whenever you are not taking all parties into account into your decision making process, then you fall from grace. If I can say so. You’re not the good leader anymore. And although this leadership word, it’s a big word in reality is built by small bridges like this one. 

Whenever you’re not taking your people into account in your decision making process, you’re not a good leader in that specific point. And that it’s also okay to request from people productivity results, high figures, and so on. But at the end of the day, to build for yourself this sustainable people mindset. Because especially in our current world, where we all know, working in HR, working in recruitment, in [00:05:00] talent acquisition, employer branding, the talent market is scarce. 

And we know that we are competing on same geographies for the same people, and there is a lot of competition, you know, and once you really walk the talk in growing those people and understanding that it’s also your personal mission to transfer your profession to the people coming from the other generation, you are not making the story about yourself anymore, and it becomes a bigger story. And I’ve noticed in my entire career of working with people that people really like to work in bigger stories, stories that are bigger than themselves. So this is something that I personally use connecting business leaders with the mission of growing people and contributing to humanity at the end of the day. 

And also another element, which I’ve used in practice and I’ve seen [00:06:00] also in other companies – make business leaders aware they are large and in charge, but not only from the perspective of the business asset cash and so on. They are large and in charge with the people in their team, they are under their responsibilities. And this is something that cannot be outsourced, cannot be replaced by technology, or it can be up to some extent. 

And now I’m thinking that if we do not manage to make this leap, this mindset transformation. How then, we will be able to manage hybrid teams for example. I’m just inventing this concept. I don’t know if it exists, but most probably in 5 to 10 years, we’ll be in the position to work with real people and AI. 

In the same time. AI team members. Why not? Interesting prediction. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. And you know, not making the story about yourself. The story goes [00:07:00] beyond. It’s just so powerful. Thank you. Thank you for that. So Gina, it’s inspiring to see HR taking part in sustainability initiatives. Could you share how you integrate sustainability initiatives into the overall HR strategy and how you measure their effectiveness? 

Specifically, what metrics, tools, or feedback mechanisms have you found most valuable in assessing long term impact? Yes, sure. So we as HR professionals, we are aware that in order for our practices to be valid, relevant for the next years and for the long term as well, it’s important to align them with the company strategy. And now sustainability is a big part of the company strategy. So it is only logical to link the people sustainability part with the overall strategy of company sustainability and growth. And when I mean [00:08:00] sustainability, I’m not only referring in the sense of metrics from ESG and people chapter and all those elements here, which are important also from the macro level and also at the organizational level. But I’m also referring to making our HR practices and let’s say designing them so that we are still relevant to the people coming to join us in the next years. Because for sure, with the entire technological advancements, as well as with the attribute of the people, there will be a lot of transformations needed in terms of HR processes. 

And maybe for us as HR professionals, to be sustainable on the long term and our practices, people practices to be sustainable, they will have to undergo various transformation. And I’m thinking specifically here on the development side. Maybe our in class trainings [00:09:00] for three to five days, traditional programs will have to be evolved, which in fact is happening already. 

Maybe our onboardings, which are lengthy and include a lot of actors, especially now in the flexible work and gig work and temps and short term contracts and so on, will have to be adjusted. So I would say that beyond the metrics that we have introduced in our objectives, we need to be also sustainable from our people practices perspective. 

At the end of the day. Thank you so much. That was very inspiring. Now, your experience in HR system transformations, Gina is impressive. Leading the move to a new HRIS at Rompetrol and also participating in a similar [00:10:00] project back in 2007 at Philip Morris provides a unique perspective. Drawing on these experiences, 

what are the three key takeaways you gained about effective change management, particularly its impact on employees and candidates? This is a good insight. Thank you very much. So indeed, I have worked with HRIS systems since the moment when SAP was on premises up to date when we have SAP SuccessFactors. But I have also worked with other HRIS and there is no debate about the help that they can bring to the HR team. 

So I’m specifically referring here that for example, the worst feedback that we received as a department throughout my career was not necessarily related to, I don’t know, the quality of a development program, or the quality [00:11:00] of a mentoring session, the quality of a performance program, and so on. It was related to the data quality. 

So there is something like an unsaid, unwritten rule, or even written in some books, in fact. The data in the system must be clear and accurate and up to date and so on. And this is indeed also a challenge because it depends also on the people to provide that data. Nevertheless, whenever I had these major migrations or HR transformation that included technological transformation, let’s say- an HRIS transformation. It was all the time important to maintain the data as accurate as possible and to really rely on that data. Especially when it comes to top management, senior management who are using those dashboards for decision making processes. 

It’s not only data, in fact, it’s gold. Gold information [00:12:00] based for decision making process. The second element, I already mentioned it before, and for me, it was a game changer indeed. The candidate relationship part where the system is really sending notification, automatic notification, customized notification to both candidates, hiring manager, recruiter, and all the parties involved. That for me helped a lot in terms of that professional anxiety. I really wanted to have everybody receiving their answers and being constantly communicated. At the end of the day, being ethical in my approach towards the recruitment. And this is a real challenge that many recruiters face as far as I know. 

And the third element, it’s also linked with what AI can bring, to HR and to any domain related to the fact that there is some base work, volume of work, let’s say, that can be done by gen AI and so on. With specific precision, I would say, and [00:13:00] that can further be used by the HR professionals as a basis for their own creations. For their own work. And for us, at HR to focus on more advanced, more involved, I would say practices. And here I’m playing a little bit the future is role. And I mentioning that maybe we, as a HR professionals in 5 years, we’ll have to rename our jobs. From training specialist into development coach or from onboarding specialist into onboarding coach, or there might be some position like people AI moderator or people AI, I don’t know, mediator. 

That’s very interesting. It’s interesting. In the HR community in Romania, we have a program, and I’m also engaged into this program. It’s a four side program by which we create, let’s say, together through our individual and collective input, the [00:14:00] future that might happen in 5 to 10 years from now. And it’s quite a challenging intellectual exercise, but I’m more and more, you know, aware of the fact that the future is somehow already here. 

So if somebody would have told me back in 2020, that there might be a position named people, AI moderator, I would have looked, okay?! Now I really believe that we are close to that. Indeed. And if I can summarize, so you’re saying reliable data, the candidate relationship and what AI can bring to the table for HR. 

And the point that you made about the quality of data was incredibly insightful. Because it’s just a reminder on the importance of, you know, it’s not just about having a lot of data, but having the right data to draw meaningful conclusions. Now, you tapped into my [00:15:00] final question for today, seeing what the future might look like. 

You said having onboarding coach roles or emphasizing here the value of coaching in HR, the people AI moderator. Now, what is another bold prediction that you can make for HR in the next 5 years? You know, I’m also curious how HR will evolve, how our roles will evolve. But for sure, what is clear for me at this stage is that whatever took us here won’t get us there somehow. 

Yes, quoting famous author. The future of HR… as we were discussing earlier, will be about building communities. Has to remain about building communities, especially because of the technological advancement. And people understand in the business field. And not only they understand that we have to keep this component of togetherness. 

Something has to keep us [00:16:00] together in order to deliver the results and each person to achieve their individual mission, organizational mission, and so on. Then the concept of employee experience management and all the focus of the organizations and company representatives to create a positive employee experience throughout the employee life cycle from recruitment to offboarding. 

Now, I would migrate this concept into employee energy management. And I’m here referring specifically to the fact that we have a lot of things to do. There is a lot of technology in our hands, a lot of information in our minds, and the entire wave of need for focusing on mental health and so on. So in all this context, people will still need to navigate and will still need to choose how to wisely and effectively invest their energy. Because there are [00:17:00] constant distractions and we know that we are already living this life where we have constant distractions. 

So that’s why in order not to spend, to misuse our energy, we might reach into the situation of having somebody, someone supporting us in managing our energy. Or if we do it by ourselves, then we will have to be aware that in order to focus on other objectives, or whatever is your selected lifestyle, you need to focus on your own energy management. 

And the other element that I would of course introduce is related to people putting focus on their values. And this is something that is triggering transformations in the field of HR as well. I have seen on social media, many videos and the posts and comments related to the overall [00:18:00] dissatisfaction with the current situation in the companies and with the relationship and with the fact that companies do not necessarily take care about the values of the person. 

Then throughout the recruitment process, we collect a lot of data related to candidates values. Then we understand that the people are now questioning the companies about their sustainability actions, not only words, actions and so on. So, in this context, evolving our HR practices so that we are still relevant to the people who are now aware that they are designers of their own future. They’re creator of their own future. 

We are discussing now with candidates who understand that investing in their education will bring them higher positions in the future. And people who are not [00:19:00] expecting this investment necessarily from the company, like in the past. People who understand that their mental and physical health is their responsibilities and being fit, it’s important for them in order to have energy to achieve their results and objectives for the long term. 

And with this kind of people, we need to redesign our people practices. Thank you very much, Gina. I believe we can wrap up our conversation on the note that, as you say, whatever took us here, won’t get us there. And we should be the designers of our own future. That’s so inspiring. I believe we have just unlocked another heartbeat of the workplace together. 

I hope that our listeners found your advice as inspiring and actionable as I did. And to all our listeners, if you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe [00:20:00] for more discussions with HR and leadership experts. Stay tuned for our next episode, where we’ll continue exploring the heartbeat of a healthy workplace.