Ruxandra Lupsa, NXP Semiconductors: “We are educating our managers to be more responsive and get closer to their people”

“R&D and software development implies reskilling and upskilling all the time. In our industry we are evolving faster than we ever thought. We let our employees tell us what they want to do and just offer them the opportunity to do that. Internal moves and career progression involve reskilling and upskilling. We are doing this since ever and we will continue to do it even at a faster pace. There are different needs due to the new projects or new technologies that are being adopted at a very fast pace,” Ruxandra Lupsa, Eastern Europe HR Director, NXP Semiconductors said during People Empowering Business Forum organized by The Diplomat-Bucharest.

“Employees want to see their career progression, and this comes from two directions. We ask them to reskill or upskill or they come and ask us the same. There are a lot of colleagues asking for that. We offer them the possibility to learn at their own pace on a e-learning platform. We offer certifications at reasonable low costs. Around 40 percent of our employees opted for various courses of learning foreign language. This creates a habit of learning, of getting new and improved skills. It also creates satisfying experiences for the employees.

We are educating our managers to be more responsive and get closer to their people. We have shifted from the performance appraisal one time per year to having permanent both-way feedback. We need to keep our employees very close and understand which are their needs and expectations. Most of the issues come from the disconnection between the expectations and what they get from the company. They sometimes don’t feel like they have a voice or maybe the proper forum to address their requests, so we are educating managers to build closer relationships and we create opportunities for employees to say what they really want.

A part of the headcount is formed of non-Romanian employees, and the local legislation is not friendly with bringing colleagues from Asia, for example. We wanted to transfer people from India to Romania. It takes too long, six to nine months and in the current context with the war in Ukraine it takes even longer. We cannot afford to wait, it’s not an industry where you can wait six, nine or 12 months for an employee to be transferred. That’s one of the challenges we are facing. But we have colleagues from the Netherlands, UK, Czech Republic etc.”

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