Next-Gen HR: Flexibility, Self Leadership and Building Communities – 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 Rompetrol 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’ll delve into Gina’s insight on driving performance, building a culture of engagement and aligning HR with the company success.

Gina, you have a diverse background in HR, spanning roles from Specialist to Group Director across industries like tobacco and oil and gas. What are the top three pieces of advice you would give about a driving performance? Thank you, Nina. [00:02:00] Thank you for having me. It’s a pleasure having this conversation with you today.

Indeed, I’m working in the HR field for over 17 years and throughout my life as an HR professional, I have experienced various organizations, cultures, nationalities, different communities and cultures. And if I were to summarize, only a few because there are a lot, of course. Of essential aspects would be, of course, effective communication and deep listening skills. From my side it’s very important to constantly develop the communication skill within an organization, because at the end of the day, it highly contributes to building psychologically safe organization. And this is, I think, one of the base needs, of all the stuff, and also one of the base responsibilities when it comes to leadership.

It’s also of tremendous importance [00:03:00] to continuously cultivating the empathy, which is an important aspect when it comes to any relationship. And now specifically speaking about corporate relationship, business, professional relationship, and now I’m going slowly to the second element, second essential, as I call it, and this is related to trust and empowerment. It’s of the tremendous important to constantly cultivate trust.

Trust within your team and make sure that at the end of the day, your people, people in the team really feel that they are being valuable members of the team, which is, in fact, an element that is further fostering that psychologically safe environment that we are discussing about. And also empowering your team into dimensions, I would say. One would be related to actual task management and objectives achievement. [00:04:00] So you as a leader, you really believe that your team members will be able to deliver from the smallest task to the most important business objectives or complex program, organizational programs.

This is one dimension. And the other dimension is related to really empowering your team from the perspective of expressing their individuality and personality. Their own skills that in fact are making their own individual diverse mix and bring all that diversity into the team, which is at the end of the day, supporting the creativity within an organization.

And of course, because we are facing a lot of challenges and needs in the diversity and inclusion environment today is also supporting diversity and inclusion. The third, last but not least, is the one related to leadership of course. And here I’m referring [00:05:00] specifically to, leading by example. In my perspective, leading by example has also two dimensions.

One is related to, of course, to the strategy implementation. And you as a leader, you are responsible and involved, highly involved in reaching the company objectives. And the other perspective is a human perspective, which is as important as the strategic dimension. The one of really walking the talk in regards to caring and being there for your team. Taking care of others, or other people in the team, your internal clients, if you are HR or customers on the market and so on.

But most importantly, supporting your community and each individual in their own growth journey. And if I were to make, only one definition about the current leaders, would [00:06:00] be this one: being responsible for growing their people. You cannot expect as a leader for your team members to show empathy, to be good mentors and effective mentors and to really be engaged, also from the human perspective.

If you as a leader, you do not walk the talk. I couldn’t agree more, especially about the trust dimension. You know, I think it’s just such an important piece of the puzzle. Your LinkedIn background photo has an interesting quote. It says: we are the leaders we are waiting for. I loved it. It’s just so simple and resonated with me, especially as a millennial leader.

Now you just, mentioned, how do you define leadership, saying it’s a mix of strategy implementation and having the human perspective with emphasis of growing your people. Now, what would you say are the core qualities that define a great leader. [00:07:00] Thank you very much for spotting out my statement there on LinkedIn.

It’s important because that was in fact, my initial thought to spread out with as many, leaders and experts as possible. Leaders as yourself. Indeed, I started to think about that the concept of leadership, of course, it’s for HR people, it’s a constant analysis of the concept. And also I was talking to many people about what does it mean to be a good leader and which are the characteristics, which are the attributes that really make the difference.

And after analyzing the leaders that I have met throughout my life and also those I’ve read- I have realized that, indeed we are having a few good leaders around us. And sometimes I had the experience to ask some people if they could name a good leader and they could not name any person that has a true leadership skill.

So I think that we are facing [00:08:00] this scarcity, this lack of leaders, irrespective of the domain. And we hear refer also to the corporate world, to the political side and so on. And this triggers for us as HR professionals, an opportunity for growth, an opportunity to intervene and an opportunity to develop, to support the people who want to develop their leadership skills.

This combined with the mentality that always we are expecting somebody else to be the leader, somebody else to make the decision, somebody else to give us the line. We are always expecting. Or at least in many instances, we are waiting for the top management, senior leadership to give us the direction and the light.

And in fact, in reality, there are a lot of instances where we can become those people who are making decisions for ourselves and for the others. Even if we are not in formal [00:09:00] leadership positions, and the more we activate that self leadership component through which we are more conscious about personal and professional development.

We are more aware of our impact in the lives of the others, in their professional growth. The better we become as self leaders, let’s say. And in this way, we are actually diminishing that component of waiting for the others to go into action and to start actioning and start building and creating for ourselves.

And I’m here referring to, for example, your own professional development path. Because many organization nowadays, they are actually preparing, they are building these professional development paths for their employees. But at the end of the day, we are also responsible at least co-responsible to provide the feedback and to co-create [00:10:00] that development plan.

So I thought that listening also to the Gen Z and also to the predictions related to the next generations to come on the labor market, and here I’m referring specifically to Gen Alpha. For them, it will be even more important to activate this kind of self leadership and not waiting for the other generations to be their leaders.

On the other hand, I’m also a millennial leader and I can feel you in this regard. And this was exactly my objective, let’s say, to encourage other people to start doing some actions and investing more energy into their field of action, irrespective if they work in HR, finance, tech, engineering, and so on.

Because if we look on the current state of the humanity, of the planet, of the labor market, and all aspects which are important for the human beings. [00:11:00] In fact, there is a lot of room for improvement and growth. And here lies our opportunity as HR, as HR leaders, as business leaders, to intervene and be the leaders that we are waiting for.

Amazing. That’s so inspiring. Thank you. Thank you for emphasizing HR’s impact to help develop the leaders of the future and also activating the, as you say, self leadership component. You know, being proactive, this self consciousness that we have to work on about our own growth and the impact that we have on other people along the way.

Especially how important this is and will be for the Gen Z’s and Gen Alpha, as you mentioned. Now, last year, Rompetrol rebranded the 23 years, program “Together We Grow” Rompetrol traineeship. And that is a training program [00:12:00] for a 100 graduates in the tech field who aspire to build a career in the energy industry.

Can you tell us, how does this program foster leadership skills and recognize the emerging talent? And let’s say, what are your objectives about this initiative? Indeed, it’s a traditional program. It’s our flagship program. I would say for, 23 years. Now we are at the 24th edition and each year we are searching 100 talented, young people that, could join our organization as experts in the field of energy and, of course, future leaders in the organization. This is a program per se, but I want to mention a little bit that we are doing some preliminary steps supporting this platform. So, for over 20 years, the company is investing in education, and it’s investing in several areas of education. I [00:13:00] don’t know if you are aware, but the education system in Romania needs a lot of support from the private sector. This is a social reality that we are facing and many private companies are involved into the educational field. So, basically, we have long term partnership with the universities, especially with those related to the energy field, but also we have dual employment programs.

We have a practiceship. We have various events connecting with the students and with the fresh graduates in order to support them in experimenting. What does it mean to work in a refinery, to work in a gas station? And to understand if those jobs could be a potential fit for their future careers. And also we are investing a lot in their personal development.

So we’re organizing a lot of workshops, sessions, targeting not only their professional development, but also [00:14:00] their personal development. So each year, hundreds of people, if not over 1000 representatives of the young generations, they come to our premises and experiment, the different technology installations and so on. Or, we are going into their homes, meaning the universities or the high schools and basically, we are sharing our knowledge through our reputable experts that talk to them about different domains of activities, professions, and of course, try to attract them towards the energy field. I would say that, of course, the tech industry is a leading one, as we speak in our nowadays. Nevertheless, energy with the entire sustainability and ESG aspects and, also people’s sustainability elements is also in transition. Most of the companies are transitioning from traditional oil and gas company to energy companies. Now in [00:15:00] the “Together We Grow” program each year, we have around 100 young people coming to our company. For the duration of the program we train them, we engage them in various activities such as: training courses for personal development, then volunteering. With the support of our mentors who become their most important person, let’s say, in the company from the perspective. One perspective is related to the technical part to the functional mentoring.

Because some of these people, they are in their first jobs, so they do not have a previous experience. They have not met those technologies before or different installations or different processes. They have the chance to understand our company culture. And at the end of the program, they go through a test. Both on the technical side, but also on the human skill side. [00:16:00] And we select the best to be our future colleagues in the program. So as we speak now, many managers and top managers in the companies are coming from this traditional program, which is a sign that the program is doing well. That’s why, of course, it has this long history.

So, in a nutshell, in order to foster this leadership, it’s a big word to say leadership for somebody who is just starting their career. But it’s important to see good values. Values, which are coherent to our own company values, and then to see some beginning of character.

That’s why we involve them into volunteering to see what would be their project management skills. What will be their empathy level? How would they will select the specific social cause that they are contributing to? What would be the way that they are engaging various stakeholders and bring resources to support the [00:17:00] cause and so on?

Volunteering is a very good tool, in fact. And some of the students or graduates, they can even practice in volunteering leadership positions, either in their associations, which we also partner with, or various non governmental organizations. But once they are part of the program, they can start manifesting these skills through volunteering, through the relationship with their mentor, the relationship with their colleagues.

And also at this stage, as an initial mark of leadership for us, it’s very important to see in them that self leadership. And to see in them continuous improvement mindset, which is also very important for any generation at the end of the day. Thank you. You know, it just sounds like a very well developed, comprehensive program and it’s just no wonder that [00:18:00] it works for 24 years now. And it’s also an interesting perspective on how the private sector can support public education where we’re needed and identify emerging talent on the way.

So it sounds like a win win. Now moving on the conversation to employee engagement. You know, It’s a known fact that managers, leaders impact engagement and that’s not breaking news. You know, Gallup research indicates that leaders account for 70% of the difference in engagement scores across different business units.

What would you single out as let’s say top three most impactful behaviors that influence engagement in the team? Engagement, at least through my eyes, has become more and more difficult in the current workplace because of the constant dynamic between the business leaders and the employees. [00:19:00] Business leaders, on one hand, they are requesting constant productivity and higher and higher level of performance achievement. And on the other hand, especially after the pandemic, employees wanting more and more flexibilities, autonomy, empowerment, and so on. So in this dynamic, it’s getting more and more difficult to really engage people and keep them motivated to your mission and of course, company objective. So from practice, I’ve seen that the old recognition and appreciation tool is still functioning. And it’s an element that has been overly discussed, but at the end of the day, you know, it sits on the table close to the salary. And I think Daniel Pink had this metaphor in one of his book that: as long as the money issue is on the table, you cannot ask from people aspects which are above on the [00:20:00] pyramid of needs.

If the salary issue is on the table, then the salary issue must be solved. It’s the same with recognition and appreciation. You can provide the most comprehensive compensation package… as long as you as an individual leader to your team and specifically each individual in your team does not really appreciate their work and take time to do that.

Because in order to understand which type of appreciation works for each member of your team, you really need to know those people and to know those people means that you have invested time in actually listening, deep listening to them and knowing your people. Another element, which is again functioning in this respect is for employees to feel that you are actually caring about their growth, their own individual, personal and professional growth. And here [00:21:00] we people, we have this radar, we have this sensor telling us if our manager, our leader is caring about this aspect. So it’s an important element that many leaders do not take their time to actually care about it.

And also something which is emerging more and more. It’s not a new story, but it’s emerging more and more. Is related to the inclusive decision making process. So I have seen many instances and many workplace triggered by the exact fact that their managers were not giving them the bigger picture, were not explaining the reasons for a specific task, were not in fact leading in an inclusive manner.

And this is something that makes people hurt. Hurt in the the actual sense of being devalued. You as a professional, any of us as a professionals, we know and we have the [00:22:00] capacity to recognize because we are mature at the end of the day, to recognize when we are being valued. And, our managers are explaining that the bigger picture. At least, to the extent of the information that can be shared. And this is an important element that Gen Z and I’m pretty sure that Gen Alpha will also bring on the table because they want inclusive leaders, they want leaders to care, leaders to include them in the decision making process and not only in the implementation. And that is somehow changing the game versus other generations who just knew, they felt this, but they not necessarily address it. For cultural background, whatever reasons.

Thank you very much. So in today’s dynamic work environment, what we can summarize is that it’s becoming increasingly difficult to balance the demands for [00:23:00] constant productivity, as you say, versus the desire for a greater flexibility. So as you put it, what leaders should do is have a culture of recognition, deep listening, and this feeling that they hear, you know, genuine care.

Thank you for recognizing that recognition is definitely a crucial piece of the puzzle, to having employee engagement. Because as you say, yes, financial rewards are important, but they just don’t tell the whole story. Now, you mentioned also earlier that the second most impactful group that has highest impact on engagement is HR.

Now we hold considerable influence in shaping the culture and driving engagement. Drawing from your experience, can you perhaps share a story where HR made a visible impact of this culture transformation? [00:24:00] Yes, of course, there are many stories like that and before going into the story, I would like to highlight that there is a constant dynamic, I would say, if not debate between business leaders and HR when business leaders put on the fully transform on the shoulders of HR, this responsibility with the engagement.

And because of course, it’s understandable that they also have the pressure of the operational objectives and KPIs. Nevertheless, people management is not done only at the level of HR. HR is a partner, HR is a support, HR is a facilitator, but of course, you as a business owner. Manager as a business leader, you know best how to motivate your people because you know them better.

You spend the most time with them, not the HR. But indeed, especially after pandemic, I have seen this trend in which HR is starting to wear more and more hats. [00:25:00] Versus before the pandemic, so this comes also related to the constant demands of the, I don’t know, of the business world that is challenged by the business objectives, by the market, by the profits and so on.

But HR is more and more requested to have these various hats, sometimes psychotherapy, sometimes like a friend, sometimes like a coach, and even the hat of the people manager, the part from the business manager role which is responsible with growing the people. So this trend started when HR really took initiatives and accountability in regards to well being programs.

I’ve seen this in all the organizations I have worked with and the moment the HR people start to build effective well being and also mental support programs, people start to open up to feel more safe towards HR. And [00:26:00] when they see that all those programs that at the end of the day are dedicated to the people and their own well being and mental wellness, they started to open up a little bit.

Especially during the pandemic, and I’m not speaking only for my organization or from my perspective, but from the perspective of many HR people who, during the pandemic, grew their communication skills. It was based on the real need, and back then it was vaccination, testing, protecting health and so on, health and safety.

So we as HR professionals, we were challenged to communicate with people in a constant manner, throughout various channels and at a different intensity. And sometimes the conversations were not only purely professional, they went a lot on the personal side because people had personal situations that [00:27:00] they had to cope with and so on.

So this really helped the HR connect more with the people. And then the next step brought also as a wave after the pandemic, and this is an interesting times in HR that we are living now. Because after this, people started to request more on flexibility and you know that the HR community is talking a lot about this, that we are living the biggest transformation after the industrial era and so on.

But indeed, we are living this transformation in the sense that, now we can conceive and it’s a reality that people who are from home or work remotely or in a hybrid model and so on. And that’s okay. It’s embedded into the company’s policies and procedure. So, which means that the principles of the companies changed in order to accommodate, to foster this flexibility.

And also that people [00:28:00] started to be more attentive to their personal time. So all this dynamic has, of course, been raised by the Gen Z who, for example, would be half of the labor market in Romania. And I think across the globe in 5 years. Which is an important milestone in the context of requesting flexibility. We will not be able to come with the old conversation and respond to the new generation’s needs.

And in this way, we have somehow created this alliance between HR and people just through actual evolution of the labor market. On the other hand, if we are speaking about the dynamic, there is also a constant dynamic, with the productivity, and it’s a real issue that we have to balance between the expectations of the senior leadership and the needs of the employees.

The concrete [00:29:00] example is our platform, “Together We Grow”, which was launched in pandemic. And it includes all these, kind of initiatives like, taking care of the mental health of the people, introducing a customized hybrid model, introducing a platform for wellness and development, and many other interventions needed by the people in the new virtual digital world. So if I were to mention also about the HR transformation, I started to think on the next 5 year milestone because there are two important elements there. Not necessarily that I’m a fan of the split of people by generations, but it helped us in structuring our mind and processes as HR professionals.

So the milestone will be that Gen Z will become half of the pie of the workers. And Gen Alpha in 2028ish will join the labor force. It will be [00:30:00] very difficult, if not highly challenging for the HR professionals to accommodate the new world because there will be a transformation also in the percentage of gig workers.

There is a high number already high percentage of silent workers. So that wave of, quiet quitting. But also, for example, Gen Zs they will be also responsible in 5 years at least in Europe to respond for the ESG targets. As you know, we have this ESG regulation, this people chapter that is very important for HR professionals.

And we have started to embed it into our objectives elements, which are triggered by the people chapter, such as number of trainings per person, percentage of investment in the development programs, and so on. Diversity metrics, women in leadership and many [00:31:00] other, elements and, KPIs that we have to really take care about.

So another element that I would like to mention here, and I think I’m close to the end of the response for the question, is to further strengthen this alliance between HR together with the business leaders for both parties. To understand that it’s their role, also, in this world where our roles are getting more complex, at least, to become community builders.

And this is a new skill. This is a skill that is already visible as a need in the current work. World and also as a it is also a skill for the future. Building on community, understanding that we cannot use that old formula that we are a family. Although in one sense, I really appreciate this formula because people were saying [00:32:00] that we are a family here and they were trying to replicate to build the culture of a family.

But the reality is the fact that people wanted to transfer some, values from the family and replicate, cultivate them at the organizational level. But now we are discussing more and more about building communities. A community by definition means a group of people having common values and objectives.

Thank you, Gina. Community builder. Wow. That sounds very powerful. You know, I’d love to hear more about it, maybe in our next conversation and see how it evolves within your organization. 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 enjoy this episode, don’t forget to subscribe for more discussions with HR and leadership experts. Stay tuned for our next [00:33:00] episode where we’ll continue exploring the heartbeat of a healthy workplace.