Razvan Copoiu, Schneider Electric: Be persistent and never give up!

A business leader should be aware that employees remain one of the most valuable assets for a company and a critical factor for success nowadays, according to Razvan Copoiu, Vice President, Industry BU South & East Europe, Schneider Electric.

“Furthermore, they should be open and know what their people’s strengths and weaknesses are and try to allow each of them to leverage his/her strengths whenever possible. An employee who is happy, is an engaged employee by default,” he tells The Diplomat-Bucharest.

“Another crucial factor for employee engagement is a business leader who encourages ‘trial and error’ rather than punishing an initiative/project which was not very successful, because the chances of finding a truly good idea increases significantly when people feel they are free to communicate their proposals and ideas. Or, in a short saying: ‘Fail, but fail fast and learn out of it’. Last, but not least, openly recognizing the accomplishments of an employee – however big or small they are – puts another landmark in creating employee engagement.”

Razvan Copoiu thinks that employees who will be relevant for the future will be the ones who will adapt to the fast changes of the market environment and also best leverage their profoundly human skills, the ones that technology does not possess.

“I am thinking of emotional intelligence, critical thinking, empathy, the capacity to make quick decisions based on the data provided by the company’s business assets, and – most importantly – the willingness for continuous learning,” he explains. “Mastering these skills will most likely allow an employee to compete with the trend of machine learning and AI systems. For a company it should be mandatory to have employees with solid work ethics, because their traits and personalities will contribute to the attainment of the vision and goals of the organization.”

He also names some of the most important ones: integrity: to be honest, have strong moral principles and behave in a consistent manner; accountability: be the owner of your actions, take responsibility to drive the process; professionalism: be the best that you can be at any moment; teamwork: the power of many is much stronger than the power of one.

Razvan Copoiu also mentioned the milestone of its career, as it follows: “I had several important milestones in my career and here I will share one of them. In 2008, I was employed in the best company in the market at that time, in its segment. At that point, after a series of interesting events,  I have decided to take quite a challenge for a “corporate guy”, leaving the safe zone and starting to lead a start-up in renewables. We started with 2 people and one small office, we built 2 production lines and after a couple of years, we’ve reached an international coverage of 30 countries and projects of millions of euro. It was a great experience which helps me now to use the entrepreneurial learnings in my present corporate mission.”

According to Copoiu, “if you believe in what you are doing and you put your passion there, whatever you want, will happen. In both your personal and business life. Just be persistent and never give up!”