Ruxandra Lupsa, NXP Semiconductors: “The shift now is from HR being a manager to HR being a leader”

“We have been working a lot on growing the skill of assertiveness for years now. We shouldn’t be surprised by the assertiveness our employees are showing. We want leadership from them and they exhibit most of the skills required for being a leader,” Ruxandra Lupsa, Eastern Europe HR Director, NXP Semiconductors said during “Belonging at work conference” powered by The Diplomat-Bucharest.

“The shift now is from HR being a manager to HR being a leader as for all the other functions are well. From a manager to a leader there is a huge shift that we need to cover, but we are in a good place. Being a leader does not mean being mostly a therapist or an administrator, but a driver, a person who gets involved in strategies and that’s what we’re doing now. We need to offer our people the sense of belonging. We need to make them feel that they count, that their opinion matters. We need to listen to them.

We have employee engagement surveys, we listen to their voice, they need to see that we take into account what they are suggesting and apply the continuous improvement principles so that we come to the best workplace possible in the respective environment and conditions.

I’m representing an R&D center with mostly software developers and specialised IT experts. They are very assertive and most of the time they know what they want and how their work should like. Young generations explore a lot in the first years, but they have exceptionally good ideas which we should open to implement.

There is a saying that goes like this: ‘Teach an employee as if you want him to stay because if you don’t what happens if he stays?’

We have a leadership program and we are preparing our managers for the waves to come, because young generations need mentoring and coaching. The manager becomes more and more important. Onboarding the young generation is a great challenge. We are preparing and retaining our employees.

If you make your people happy and give them the sense of belonging, they will bring great people in. It’s very important to keep your people happy because they will bring more happy people in.

During the pandemic employees started to have a voice. They were telling what they want, what they expect. We need to listen to their voices.”

Click here for the event recording.