WABCO Global HR Leadership Conference

30 March 2017

My stay in Berlin at the Global Leadership Conference from WABCO Vehicle Control Systems was very exciting and a great experience. 17 global HR Leaders, being responsible for more than 12,000 employees in 39 countries, had a lot of interesting discussions about their day-to-day business challenges as well as their strategic focus.

After a short round of introduction in the morning, the Integrated Supply Chain (ISC) Leader refreshed everyone´s knowledge about the current situation of WABCO, their development within the last months and their experienced challenges. She furthermore, outlined the business objectives for the year 2017 and linked them to the global HR Key Performance Indicators. Her presentation was followed by a quick best practice sharing session, meaning that one best practice from each region was shared and explained.

After having heard a guest speaker talk about Wellbeing@Work, I had the opportunity to get to know a few of the leaders a bit better while having a business lunch together with them. Luckily I was able to talk to the HR Country Leader for India and asked him about things like the composition of the Indian workforce at WABCO (only 6% females) and about his approach for leading a relatively young, predominantly male and highly-qualified workforce. Moreover, I had the chance to talk to WABCO’s HR APAC Leader, who happily shared his views about recent developments in politics, society and in the Asian business environment. The change from a one-child policy to a two child-policy in China was emphasized by him and considered as one of the main reasons for change in terms of workforce leadership and employee engagement.

During the afternoon, I got to know a lot about the different interpretations of the HR Business Partner role within WABCO. The 15-minute coffee break after that was again a great opportunity to practice a little bit of networking, which I did by talking to the HR Country Leader of Poland as well as the HR Director for South America. The rest of the afternoon was even more exciting, because some of the most urgent HR problems, namely Absenteeism and Employee Engagement, were quite controversially discussed, which I could easily link to my current courses at the Business School.

Looking back at the day in Berlin I can honestly say that it helped me a lot to understand how those conferences/ workshops look like and how discussions are being conducted in such an international setting. Besides, I am very grateful that I had the chance to an insight into the way of thinking of many of the participating HR Leaders, especially looking at initiatives which focus on absenteeism reduction and employee engagement. I was genuinely surprised by the group’s openness towards my person and how willingly they shared information and experiences with me. Finally, I can say that this short and also a bit stressful trip was worth every minute and every effort, because I was able to expand my professional network with a group of very bright and influential people who might be helpful to boost my future career in the field of HR.

Tim Romotzki, MSc Human Resource Management. Find more information about Santander funding under Opportunities.