Kellogg Romania: Focusing on people during the pandemic

Kellogg Romania: Focusing on people during the pandemic

The past two years have been challenging for the global economy, starting with the swift onset of the pandemic and then with obstacles which derived, such as the perspective of inflation, the shortage in supply chains or the changing dynamics of the job market.

Nevertheless, Kellogg Europe has registered strong results, due to clear and intentional strategic decisions, focused on people culture and on the necessity to adapt to change.

The European Global Business Services (GBS) Centre in Bucharest was opened in 2014, handling streams such as Human Resources, Finance and Supply Chain processes for the European Kellogg business partners in over 20 countries.

Today, the efforts of the Kellogg GBS team in Bucharest are acknowledged as an integral part of the business, capable of strong performance and delivering consistent results.

Julie Ayres-Smith, Regional Center Lead for Kellogg Bucharest, explains how the global strategy of handling the pandemic and the company’s people culture generated impressive results in the past two years.

During the pandemic, most people who were searching for a new job have oriented themselves towards companies with a strong reputation on the market. How much did the employer branding component of Kellogg Romania mattered and what was the company’s strategy to improve the employer brand during this time?

In moments such as the pandemic, it was never clearer that at Kellogg’s everybody has a seat at the table. We continued to attract talent because we were swift to adapt and seamlessly switched to remote working in our Bucharest office.

Furthermore, our strong focus on equity, diversity and inclusion has made people feel trustful that here they will find a place where they are welcomed and where they can perform. That we why we consolidated our communication through digital channels and were comfortable to share more about us with the rest of the world.

At this point, it is clear for everyone that we are seeing an accelerated rhythm of the job market, across all regions, and Europe is no exception. That is why, more than ever, we appreciate bold conversations which need to happen for things to move down the right path. The challenges of the past two years have made us stronger because we remained consistent in our principles and these values also remain essential in retaining our people and attracting the relevant talent for our organization.

A very important component in building the employer brand is represented by the professional development and career growth programmes which are available in companies. Can you share with us some insights about similar programmes offered by Kellogg Bucharest? What are some of the other non-financial benefits offered to Kellogg Bucharest employees?

Kellogg Bucharest offers multiple career growth opportunities. Our people can switch between roles and streams, taking their career further, while having the opportunity to learn new things.

In terms of professional development, we offer a multitude of trainings on the job and access to digital learning platforms, such as LinkedIn Learning. Partnering with LinkedIn, both in terms of digital communication and training resources has proved to be a notable success.

Other non-financial benefits for our people include the Employee Assistance Programme which gives them access to mental and emotional health counseling and webinars, as well as a premium medical subscription, surgery and life insurance for all our employees.

At the start of the pandemic, a high number of employers and managers initially estimated that the performance of their employees will decrease while working from home. Nevertheless, in most cases, employees have demonstrated these theories to be wrong. Can you share with us how Kellogg Romania has managed employees working from home and why do you think their performance has remained high during the pandemic?

At the onset of the pandemic, we were quick to adapt and successfully switched to a remote working environment without missing a beat in terms of performance, work standards or accomplishments.

We are very proud of the way our people performed while working remotely. During the last 18 months we have learned that the trust we had in our people was rewarded and now we will implement a hybrid working model once all restrictions are lifted in Romania.

Even more, this hybrid working model is being implemented across the entire organization, globally, and is already active in some parts of Europe. It will give people the freedom to have a mix of working days from the office and some from home.

This will also mean that we plan to transform our Bucharest office into a more collaborative workspace, revolving around the principle of making people comfortable and productive while working together, in cross-functional teams.