Sebastien Tranchant on Leadership and the Future of HR

Please subscribe via the Podcast links above

• What does it take to navigate the complex landscape of modern human resources? 
• How can HR professionals foster a culture of innovation while ensuring a deep connection with their workforce? 
• And what lessons can we learn from leading HR experts to adapt to the rapid changes in today's corporate world? 

In this episode, we sit down with Sébastien Tranchant, an HR leader with a rich background spanning across various industries, including his transformative work at Toyota and Bridgestone. 

Today, he is EMEA Head of HR for Manufacturing, Quality and Labour Relations at Bridgestone. 

From his unexpected journey into the world of HR to his innovative approach to talent management and leadership,  Sébastien talks about the leadership principles that have helped him in his career to date. 

He also shares his expert insights on the evolving role of HR in embracing artificial intelligence, fostering a sense of community in remote work environments, and connecting with the aspirations of new generations.

Join us as we uncover the strategies that have made Sébastien an innovator in the HR field, shaping the future of work and the role of human resources in driving organizational success

And remember to follow us on our social media channels and share the podcast with colleagues and friends.

Links

Connect with Sébastien on LinkedIn

Follow

Leading People on LinkedIn

Leading People on X (Twitter)

Leading People on FaceBook

Connect with Gerry

Website

LinkedIn

Wide Circle

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to episode 52 of Leading People with me, gerry Murray. This episode is brought to you by Wide Circle, helping you make better talent decisions. To learn more, visit widecircleeu. That's W-I-D-E-C-I-R-C-L-E dot E-U. C-i-r-c-l-e dot E -U. What does it take to navigate the complex landscape of modern human resources? How can HR professionals foster a culture of innovation while ensuring a deep connection with their workforce, and what lessons can we learn from leading HR experts to adapt to the rapid changes in today's corporate world? In today's episode, we sit down with Sébastien Tranchant, an HR leader with a rich background spanning across various industries, including his transformative work at Toyota and Bridgestone. From his unexpected journey into the world of HR to his innovative approach to talent management and leadership, sébastien shares his insights into creating a dynamic and inclusive work environment. Join us as we uncover the strategies that have made Sébastien an innovator in the HR field, shaping the future of work and the role of human resources in driving organizational success. So, without further ado, let's hear what Sébastien has to say. Sébastien Tronchon, welcome to Leading People.

Speaker 2: 1:37

Well, thank you very much, Jerry, for inviting me. I'm very, very happy and excited to be there today with you.

Speaker 1: 1:46

Okay, so I think, up front full disclosure. You've been a client of ours for several years and I invited you on the podcast A because in this season of the podcast I'm inviting more leaders from organizations. And B, I've always been impressed by your approach to talent and leadership and, in particular, strategic vision and acumen along the way. But first so we're going to get all of that shortly, but first so our listeners get to know you better. Um, how did you get here to where you are today? What person or place or an event stands out and your journey was there like an epiphany moment and like you chose a career in HR. So perhaps just help our listeners get to know a little bit about you here before we get into the more specific HR topics. Yes, so now.

Speaker 2: 2:33

I'm working in HR since 15 years, but it was not an obvious choice for me. Hr was not my initial first choice. As a child, I and even as a young adult, I wanted to be first an Egyptologist, as I was passionate and learned a lot about it. But, as every young man or woman, I did a reality check with the labor market and what it can bring in terms of career and decided that some things need to be kept as a passion and some can bring you to a job. Then I started to study, having in mind and it has always been the way I wanted to drive my career to keep as many doors, as many opportunities open as possible. So I studied very open topics science, politics, economy, law and when time to get more specialized came, well, I was hesitating between very different areas public, hospital administration, journalism or already HR.

Speaker 2: 3:44

To be honest, I didn't start by HR but by public administration, especially in the health and hospital environment, and after the first training experience I discovered that public environment was not the best fit for me. As a way I think, as a way I behave. Public system is a bit too rigid for me in the sense of your influence on the system is very limited and I really wanted to have the capacity to influence my work environment and also the purpose of my future company. Then, with the support of some good mentors, I decided to choose HR, as it was for me a perfect function, fitting to who I am and to my aspiration to have an overall vision of where I work, so to understand from end to end what is the business, what is the purpose of the company, what are the different contributors, and also to work more on the human aspect of the project.

Speaker 1: 5:02

Enjoying the insights and inspiration. Make sure to catch every episode by subscribing to leading people on your favorite podcast platform, and please take a moment to rate us. Your feedback makes all the difference. Remember to follow us on our social media channels and join our linkedin group for more content and connection with like-minded professionals. Stay connected, stay informed and let's grow together. And you went to a very famous university, sciences Po, near Bordeaux, right? So it's quite a particularly for the world of politics and law and things like that. It's quite well known, so it would have been an interesting environment to be be exposed to as a young man yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 5:49

Well, when I was there, I was a bit having some doubts about what it can bring me as a value for the future, because it's lots about methodology and and structuring the brain to deal with unknown and complex topics. But then, a few years after, when I started to work, I understood that this methodology was gold. Comparing with others that did not receive, this methodology is really allowing me. I'm naturally very curious, I really want to learn things, but having this structure, this methodology, coming from Sciences Po, it really helps me to turn the curiosity and the wish, the will to learn, into solutions and actions.

Speaker 1: 6:40

Yeah, and actually that's a great point. That leads into my next question, which is so now, after what it must be 14 or 15 years or more as a HR professional, what are some of your biggest learnings in your career that you could share with our listeners out there?

Speaker 2: 7:00

I think I learned three really personal lessons from different companies I've worked with. First one is really related to the role of human resources within an organization. Second one is more personal and leadership style. I discovered this one company and I really appreciate it. And the other one is on the need. It's a personal need, but I think it can become a good advantage in a company to give rhythm to my career but also to everyone's career, so to have some career drumbeat for everyone.

Speaker 2: 7:42

So I learned my first lesson in my first company.

Speaker 2: 7:45

It was a consulting firm in Paris and I think, starting to work as an HR in a consulting firm, it's really a good way to consider HR as a business partner and not as a legal or rules-sayer function.

Speaker 2: 8:05

So in this firm, human Resources was seen as a direct contributor to sales, a creator of value. We were recruiting, indeed, consultants to build the customer for their services, but then, once they are there, we try to develop, to train them, to upskill them, for them to offer higher value-added services and then we can build them even higher. So it's really a direct HR contribution to the business and I think for a young guy of 24 years it's a really strong first experience that you understand that as a nature you are not there to read the labor law, the labor code, but you are there to partner with business leader and and to give a real contribution. So for me it I was not looking to work in in such um um consulting firm. I didn't I shouldn't say by default, but it was the best job I found at this moment as a first experience. But I think it was really the best possible experience to start.

Speaker 1: 9:16

And then you said you had three main things. So that was one of the first ones, I guess.

Speaker 2: 9:22

Yes, the second one. I um this second lesson in in toyota, so a very well-known japanese company, and this is all about a leadership style, and toyota has a very, very strong culture in all areas in manufacturing a culture, but also in the way they behave, and also they have their own leadership style. And I learned a wonderful way of behaving like an authentic leader in Toyota and I really fell in love with one word and I shared this word with all my teams since then. So it's a Japanese word, mendomi, and it's really powerful because it combines two different notions. The first one is being very demanding, setting high expectations, high standards, and the second notion is benevolence, caring, being kind, taking care of the others.

Speaker 2: 10:31

And the Japanese often explaining was treat your team members as you would treat your own family members, because with your kids, for example, you have strong ambitions for your kids, a strong expectation.

Speaker 2: 10:45

You have strong ambitions for your kids, a strong expectation. You are very demanding with them, you want them to have a good result at school, you want them to succeed in their career, you want them to be very happy, so you are really setting the bar very high, but at the same time, you take care of them, you develop them, you give them your own time, your listening and so on. Them, you give them your own time, your listening and so on. And in Toyota, in decision-making, when we were talking about people when we were doing some shop floor activities, this was really embedded into the culture and since then I really try to behave with this man-domi approach as a leader. So I try to challenge my own teammates to set expectations always higher, to encourage them to be in perpetual movement, constantly looking for new projects, new ideas. This is about setting high expectations, but at the same time, I try to take care of my team by creating a safe environment, being available for them whenever they need to give them some guidance and support. So this is the second one.

Speaker 1: 11:53

You made quite some good career progress at Toyota. If I'm not mistaken, you went into their manufacturing in the north of France. Is that right? Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2: 12:00

It was a really nice experience. I had the opportunity to do almost every HR job, from payroll, legal employee relations, but also all the talent scope of HR recruitment, talent acquisition, learning and development, but also HR system. So it was a really, really good learning environment.

Speaker 1: 12:29

And then you have a third, yes, a third. You said you had three.

Speaker 2: 12:33

And this one I didn't learn only in one single company, but I observed also in Toyota, but then in Bridgestone, currently today also, for me, to be happy at work, to progress, to give the best of yourself, you need to be in regular movements, to rotate and to regularly be assigned to new experiences, to face new challenges. And I'm really convinced, because I observed in many teams and leadership teams, that staying too long in the same position which can be the case sometimes in manufacturing environment, for example you can become toxic for the organization and also for yourself. So for me it's really you are not challenging enough the statu quo. You can be reluctant to change. Yeah, you are in too much time, too long time on your comfort zone.

Speaker 2: 13:36

So, on the contrary and I experienced that also in a company that encourage frequent rotation, for example, every three to four years, leaders need to rotate from one role to the other. It can generate many virtues. It can generate agility, versatility, more empowerment of people below the people rotating because you need to ensure that the knowledge stays in the area that you are living Retention, collaborating it's naturally breaking the silos. So for me that's very important and also for self-motivation. Every change of job, every change of assignment, even within the same company, is a new opportunity to get excited and take risk, just like when you sign a new employment contract, you are a bit nervous, but you are also very excited, and I think this is like in love you renews in mutual interest.

Speaker 1: 14:38

And I should say that I had the chance to change assignment very frequently in my different companies, every two years, and for me it's um, I feel young as it was my first day in the company right and and I think what, what you you highlight a lot, um is this idea that you're as a leader, you're preparing the next generation to take over from you, so it's part of your role is to make sure that you can move on and have people ready and capable to succeed. You isn't that right exactly?

Speaker 2: 15:09

by doing so. I think if you know, when you start an assignment, that you are there for two to three years, you need to build, you are forced to build a strong team with you to to strong, to strong versatility, polyvalence, to ensure that the system will remain robust. All your achievements will remain without you.

Speaker 1: 15:35

Yeah. So maybe just to give a bit more context now before we get into some other questions around HR and leadership. I first met you. You were finishing up as HR director I believe in, in in this big big plant that Bridgestone has in Spain and we were looking at who would you know. You had somebody in mind to take over and we were doing some assessments to to just help make sure that it all would go smoothly. And then you kind of went off the radar for a few months and then all of a sudden you popped up in a talent head of a talent center of excellence, which you kind of I think, almost created out of putting together different parts, and now you're moving on to a. You just moved on to a whole new role. So that's two, what two, two and a half years later, um, and I think you told me once that the talent job was an interesting one at the time because it came along and it was kind of, but you decided to take it. So maybe you could just also just highlight how you went from HR director in a manufacturing firm, you took this talent job and you actually started to shape things quite a lot, and how that's going the new role you're taking on now, how you're bringing that experience with you Coming up.

Speaker 1: 16:55

Next we delve into the future challenges HR professionals face in an ever-changing workplace. Sébastien shares his expert insights on the evolving role of HR in embracing artificial intelligence, fostering a sense of community in remote work environments and connecting with the aspirations of new generations. Stay with us as we explore innovative strategies for building a resilient and adaptive organizational culture.

Speaker 2: 17:26

As I mentioned with my first lesson, I consider HR as really a business partner for business leaders. It can be a plant manager, it can be another leader. So that's the reason why for me, HR VP, hr director types of role were obvious. So I really enjoy those roles in Spain, as you mentioned. But then I've been challenged to go out of my comfort zone for the Talent Center of Excellence for Bridgestone, emea, and indeed it was not an obvious choice for me. I started mentioning to my boss that it was not my cup of tea. I remember I told him. But then I learned a lot. It was a way to challenge myself also to better know the organization, to build an expertise also on the different talent components. So talent acquisition, learning and development, talent management. So, as of today, I think this is a new toolbox that I can bring on my new assignment as a MAI HR director for manufacturing and then to propose to come back stronger in the business with this toolbox to better support leaders.

Speaker 1: 19:05

So, for our listeners, we are going to come back, maybe towards the end. You did some very innovative things in the talent space which I'm sure people will be quite interested in learning about. But before we get there, so let's look at the. You know, this podcast is called Leading People and it's interviews with leading people about leading people. So, as a leading person, who's a leader? Uh, when you, when you look at hr, how does hr? You've had a lot of experience. Now, how does hr really best support leaders? You know, because leaders have, they're always in the front line trying to build the business, grow it, deliver value, etc. How can hr best support leaders?

Speaker 2: 19:50

to answer that one, I would like to use one leadership model. In different companies we use a different leadership model and we study it, we explore it, we compare them. But I really like the 5E model of leadership because for me this one really resonates for HR. It really resonates as a way HR can support a strong leadership culture and because it's super simple, with those five E's, it can be considered as the five keys on the same piano and we should, as an HR function, be able to articulate those five keys together to play in harmony our best partition for the organization. First one is Envision. It's about creating the future and I think their human resources is really supporting top leaders to ensure that, first, the human dimension is part of the organization project project, because an organization is a collective adventure but also that the company's vision is known and visible to everyone at all times. And this is about internal communication and all um, all the, the, the frameworks that allow to engage people around the vision. First e. Second e is about engage. So it's very. I think engagement nowadays is one of the main HR KPIs in most of the organizations, so it's an obvious one. But it's really about building relationship and collaboration to serve the vision. So, then, hr must help the organization to define the talent we need to implement the vision and, in particular, to recruit and train, develop leaders capable of motivating, but also individual contributors. We need to recruit them, to develop them, to be able to deploy the vision. Second E the third one is about empower and energizing. It depends on the version of the 5E, so I think, after once we find the leaders and the talent capable of deploying the vision, hr needs to work not only on people, but also on the surrounding environment environment, so we need to generate an exciting, positive and motivating employee experience, as well as we need to define and to build strong recognition mechanisms to ensure that people feel really empowered and energized to serve and to contribute to the vision.

Speaker 2: 22:29

The fourth E is about enabling, so building capacity, and for me, this one is very obvious and it's a fairly traditional role for human resources. I think the best way we can support leaders is not about doing training ourselves, building a training plan as an HR function, but it's really providing leaders with their own resource. They need to develop and grow their teammates, and I think our role also is to explain that 90% of development doesn't come from training sitting on the chair, but really come from on-the-job learning. Which leaders are best placed to define. It's not HR that should provide this on-the-job learning which leaders are best placed to define? It's not HR that should provide this on-the-job training. We can provide a learning structure, build a learning culture, but then to ask the leaders to enable the leaders to enable their own team.

Speaker 1: 23:27

It's interesting you say that because I had another lady on recently, um from another, actually a very large organization, also, interestingly, in the automotive sector. But she was also echoing what you said, that that you know as hr it's working alongside leaders, because leaders know what they need and it's hr has to be able to translate that into identifying resources for the leaders, but giving the leaders a sense that they can be supported.

Speaker 2: 23:55

Yeah, exactly and to finish with the fifth E, it's about executing, and I think we don't like this one so much because it looks like very operational, but it's very important. I think it's nice to have a vision to enable people, to energize people, but I think at one moment we have the duty to deliver impeccable execution of the basics of our function first, payroll, personal administration and so on. Without those there is nothing. And then to contribute fully, actively and proactively to the company strategy. And at the end, it's what I learned from my first lesson I mentioned earlier it's not to be a wholesaler but a real player of the, of the vision and of the business. And at the end, if I summarize those five E, this is again about MendoMe and this is really this work. This work structured me as a professional Vision. Execution is really setting the high level of expectation, being demanding and then engaging. Enabling. Empowering is the same as taking care of people. So it's really, again, I think we need to support our organization by making leaders behaving mandami.

Speaker 1: 25:19

Okay, and I know we've had some conversations about this execute aspect. I mean there are some people out there who've written books about this, including actually one of my former colleagues who became CEO of DHL Express, turned it around massively many 10, 15 years ago, made it very profitable, and he had this philosophy that basically all strategy is execution. I mean, otherwise it's just fluff. It's just you know, you have to be able to execute it for it to be actually a strategy. And another guest I interviewed the other day for the podcast is also a big advocate in his 12-week year methodology and his uncommon accountability. His recent book he's he's also a big advocate about. You know, it's all about executing and getting it done. But you also shared with me that you like jobs where you can see things happen. Yeah, exactly for me one key.

Speaker 2: 26:17

This is personal we there is no obligation to be all the same but for me, one key motivator is to be able to have an helicopter view, meaning that to behave like an helicopter, to be able to fly high to see the strategy, to contribute, to define the strategy, but also to land and to start executing and to see how the vision is being delivered on the shop floor. And I think it's also coming from my first experience in the consulting firm, but also in Toyota and in Bridgestone, where Genbutsu Genba it's. At one moment you need to go on the shop floor. You need to go on the floor to observe by yourself.

Speaker 1: 27:08

Yeah, yeah. So another topic I'm sure people are interested in out there is what are some of the big challenges for hr going forward? What do you see at the moment? You've had to deal with a lot. You get a lot of stuff coming at you in your job. What are some of the big challenges that you see for hr going forward?

Speaker 2: 27:29

well, I will again use the number three after three lessons, then five is.

Speaker 2: 27:36

And now back to three challenges, and so first one for me is the introduction of ai.

Speaker 2: 27:41

I know that everybody's it's super trending, but, um, this introduction of ai is so. Artificial intelligence is really offering many opportunities, but also creates a great deal of uncertainty. I think that, if I can draw a parallel, we are experiencing what the blue collars experienced decades ago with automation and robotization, but at this time we are talking about automation and robotization for white collar, for office jobs, and I think now we will question that some job will disappear, maybe some new jobs will appear serving those technologies. But now there is still a lot of uncertainties in the organization about what will be the governance around artificial intelligence, how we will control that this is fairly used in an ethical manner. So everybody recognizes that this is a tool full of potential, but I think we need to take care of the way it will be implemented. It will be used in our organization and, as always when we deal with big changes I would say almost disruption impacting the people working in our organization. Hr will have a key role to play in this transformation.

Speaker 1: 29:09

Yeah, yeah, and I mean it's not the first time we've seen new technologies. Although the pace of this technology is probably quite dramatic, it seems to me and I could be wrong that it's going to. It has the potential to enhance jobs, particularly in terms of productivity, and that In HR, it would be sad if human intervention was human judgment, was now eliminated. I mean, I'd be sad for not just HR but for maybe society in general if the robots or the AI took over. So I think what you're seeing with a lot of these tools is that human discernment is still and in fact, that is maybe the opportunity.

Speaker 1: 29:55

You know, chat gpt is the big talking point. This last while you know it gobble. You put rubbish in, you'll get rubbish out. People asking it a question. It god knows what you're going to get, but there is a skill, uh, in actually knowing how to get it to help you with something, and perhaps that's the future opportunity for people not to fight this. To start, like you said, you were a big learner to go out and try and find out how could it help me in my job. And then, of course, organizations have to probably set some boundaries and parameters around this, but it is an area with. It can go either way at the moment, isn't?

Speaker 2: 30:32

that right. Exactly, it should serve the productivity, as you mentioned, but it should allow us not only AI, but digitalization in general should allow us to allocate more time to human interaction and to build better employees' experience and so on. So definitely Okay. So you had three points.

Speaker 1: 30:56

The first one introduction of AI.

Speaker 2: 30:58

The second one is preserving the notion of work group, of working collectively. For me, with smart working, home working, it has become those two ways of working. Working from home, working remote, has become now obvious, almost an obligation if you want to attract talent. It's almost a basic element of the employment contract. But this raises many, many questions for me and it's really a personal concern I have as of today. A company is a vision and behind that vision lies a collective human adventure of a working group of people that will collaborate to deliver the vision and without meeting up, without forging face-to-face links, taking a coffee, celebrating an achievement, sitting together in a room to set the kickoff for the starting of the year, without all that it's complicated, to develop this sense of belonging, to belong to a collective adventure and to deliver those outstanding results.

Speaker 2: 32:03

For the time being, for me it's fine because companies are not too badly affected, because, since today, all the employees currently working on those companies were previously working when homeworking was not implemented. So the relations are there, so they are there behind. But now in some startups, some new companies, you sign your contract remotely, you're received by a driver, you receive an onboarding box. You open the onboarding box. You open the onboarding box, you have your laptop, a mug, some goodies and a welcome e-learning session and then you start collaborating, you start contributing without any human interaction. I'm a bit worried about that and I think I hope that in the coming weeks, months, years, we will set a good balance between home working and office working.

Speaker 1: 33:09

Yeah, and I had some guests on in the past who have been doing this for a long time and they've got some really good advice. So go check out some of the previous episodes. Just a little message for the listeners, and then there's a third.

Speaker 2: 33:24

Um, there's a third aspect you you said you wanted to mention the last one for me is that it's keeping the organization connected with new generations. For me it's a challenge for HR and I think the new generation and coming out of university they are not the same as the previous one. They have experienced COVID, they have seen their parents moving from office to home. Working permanent contract is not the alpha and omega of the professional life. So I think human resources must be, especially via talent acquisition function, the barometer of aspiration on the job market for the organization to better connect, to know who are those future talents growing up and to ensure that there will be a match between our current employees, our current leaders and their future teammates currently growing in the universities and on the labor market.

Speaker 1: 34:32

Okay, and on your own Okay. So now we've looked at the challenges. I mean, what's your personal vision for HR? What would you like? How would you like to see HR continue to evolve?

Speaker 2: 34:44

Well, I think in the past 15 years I observed different trends in HR and depending on the organization, they are more oriented in some trends than others. They are more oriented in some trends than others and also it depends on what is happening in the world around us. But first trend is an HR function really process and policies oriented Organization building strong HR system, robust processes, robust policies. Building strong HR system, robust processes, robust policies, supporting the leaders, the business and ensuring, through those process and policies, a reasonably good employee experience. The second trend is really full people-centric.

Speaker 2: 35:33

I think we saw that after COVID, but also a bit before. We saw emergence of topics such as well-being at work and we saw new and trending functions such as happiness, chief officer and so on. So for me that was a full and people-centric HR function. And third trend is more data-driven HR function using more and more data to understand the environment, a bit hiding also behind the data, to take decisions and to analyze situations. So this is a good way, definitely, of being better connected and speaking the same language as other business functions sales, supply chain and so on. But there is also a risk for me of losing the intuitive and empathetic aspect of the HR function.

Speaker 1: 36:28

It's a bit like the connection to AI, if you just rely on AI to do everything for you.

Speaker 2: 36:32

Yes, but also just to assess a situation with lots of human-related aspects, just doing an Excel table and trying to compare I don't know for example, a Polish situation with a Spanish situation, just with data, knowing that the culture is different and so on. So, just to avoid to be fully data-driven, only data-driven. And the latest trend is the one we already discussed a lot it's digitalization. Indeed, it brings efficiency, but it can also create distance and depersonalization of the company and, associated with smart working. For me, this is a risk. So, as a consequence, my vision of HR for the future is really a fair balance between those four trends. I would say my vision is an HR function that is solid in its fundamentals, the basics of the processes and policies, but provides solutions for the business, using data and also using digital technologies, only to improve the employee experience, keeping in mind that some proximity is more than ever required, for example, to engage and energize people.

Speaker 1: 37:51

Yeah, and I guess that brings me to probably the final topic, because a lot of what you've just said can come together because we worked together on this one, which you had this strategy around, um integrating several tools into your main hrm system, and maybe just briefly outline what was the purpose in doing that and what challenges were you trying to address and what business benefits were you trying to achieve, because you mentioned words like efficiency, uh, candidate experience perhaps, and of course, your, your bridgestone has become a top employer, so that's, that's great now for them, but just explain what your vision was and that some of the tools you um decided to to bring into that workflow and how it's benefiting the organization.

Speaker 2: 38:38

yeah, so, um, we a few years ago and we studied what we want to do with the talent acquisition function. What were the challenge we were facing? So we we knew that we had to. If we want to attract more and to speed efficiency of the recruitment process, we need to switch from a reactive sourcing to a proactive sourcing mindset for all our recruiters. We knew also that diversity was a challenge, that we wanted to have a bias-free recruitment process. So, all together, we work from our current ATS so Application Tracking System, our recruitment module in SuccessFactor, to mention it. So we decided to say, okay, let's build an end-to-end automated recruitment process. And again, it's not about just digitalizing. For digitalization it was really also an opportunity to make the recruiter job easier for them to focus on where they can bring added value.

Speaker 2: 39:59

So what we did? We built an ecosystem of technology around our SuccessFactor recruitment module, so connecting it with LinkedIn Learning and BIMRI as a CRM to do some proactive sourcing. We integrate Harrison Assessment to this recruitment system to ensure that we have data-driven and bias-free automated screening. It was a gain of time for the recruiters, but also a strong input to take smart decisions about which candidates to push to the next step. Also we're integrating with AI interview scheduling to save some time from the recruiter to play the Tetris with very busy interviewers. And also we get the digital signature for the contract, having in mind that also we injected some net promoter score to measure the candidate experience. So through all this ecosystem of technology, we integrate with our I would say basic block of technology with success factor. I think we speed up the recruitment process. Now, with a recent assessment, we are more data-driven, more objective and providing insights to the hiring manager at different stages of the process and at the end we are proactively sourcing, so we are engaging with candidates before having needs.

Speaker 1: 41:44

Yeah, so you've integrated Beamery, doing a lot of that proactive activity, then the LinkedIn aspect, and then everybody now has the opportunity to get an objective assessment through Harrison Assessments. Then you can schedule and then, finally, for the people who make it to the final round and who get offered a job, you have digitalized the document signing, so an end-to-end process, and you won an award for it. I believe, yes, so that must have felt great.

Speaker 2: 42:12

Yeah, we submitted this project to our Bridgestone Awards and we won a bronze award for this project and we were very proud of it Globally.

Speaker 1: 42:27

Yes, that's quite an achievement, because there must be hundreds of IT projects running in a company that size and people submitting their achievements, so congratulations. I think that was, after all that work, it was something important to get that recognition. So, coming to the end, okay, what's next for Sebastian?

Speaker 2: 42:52

Well, as you know, I explained to you that I really like to face new challenges every two to three years, so I just changed the first of January 24. So for now, I will focus on my new role of MAI HR Director for Manufacturing, quality and Labor Relations, and my plate is really full. So I'm excited for this new role and I will try to build a strong connection with my business leaders and to improve the employee experience in this scope.

Speaker 1: 43:37

Okay, so there might be listeners out there who would like to connect with you and get in touch. How can people get in touch with you, sebastian? Is LinkedIn a good?

Speaker 2: 43:46

place to start. The best way is my LinkedIn profile.

Speaker 1: 43:50

Okay, and mention the podcast when you contact them so we know how many of you actually reached out to them. So we'll put some links in the show notes. Sebastian Tranchchon, thanks for sharing your insights, tips and wisdom with our listeners. You're welcome, Jerry. Thank you very much. Coming up in the next episode of Leading People.

Speaker 3: 44:12

We have a very different view of accountability, and that's what makes it uncommon is that I think most people think about accountability and certainly experience accountability as negative consequences. Most of the places you hear accountability spoken about is in a situation where someone's done something wrong and someone in authority is going to punish them his best-selling author, brian Moran, will discuss his latest book, uncommon Accountability, which challenges conventional views on accountability in both our professional and personal lives.

Speaker 1: 44:48

He argues that embracing accountability can unlock new levels of freedom. How can greater accountability enhance your life and work? Join us to find out Until next time.