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Interview with Manuela Fonseca, user of People Performance International

by Human Resources

The human resources manager of Carclasse – distributor of car brands such as Mercedes-Benz, smart, Range Rover, Land Rover and Jaguar – talks about the evaluations and the People Performance International course of DISC Behavioral Analyst Certified by the International DISC Institute. It is a method for assessing people’s behaviour in a given environment, based on the theory developed by psychologist William Moulton Marston.

The evaluation owes its name to the fact that it shows that there are four basic traits of behavior in people: dominance (D, dominance), influence (I, influence), stability (S, steadiness) and conformity (C, conscientiousness).
Text: Writing “human” (with the support of Powercoaching)
 
What is your opinion about the capture and development of talent in companies?
The capture of talent depends fundamentally on the positioning of companies in the market, in society or in the community and before their employees. Companies should assume a real value proposition in their strategic axis, both for the talents they want to attract and for the talents they want to retain.


How can the “DISC” help your organization in recruitment processes?
As human resources manager, I apply the DISC in all recruitment and selection processes and in all assessments. The “DISC” has proven to be an indispensable tool in defining Carclasse’s “star” profiles and in hiring professionals with similar behavioral profiles.


It is certified in “DISC Behavioral Analysis” by INTERDISC. What are the advantages of this certification at a professional level?
The “DISC Certification” gave me the necessary skills to evaluate the behavioural profiles of employees and candidates in an autonomous way, considerably reducing the margin of error in recruitment processes. I am more confident with the choices of the professionals we have been hiring.

And at a personal level? 
On a personal level, it brought me more knowledge about my natural and job-oriented behaviour. It is a very powerful mirror. I can say that after the “DISC Certification” I redirected some focus of my attention.
 
“Manuela Fonseca is responsible for Carclasse’s human resources. With more than 20 years of existence, the company is one of the largest dealers and authorized Mercedes-Benz workshop in Portugal. As a result of the sustained evolution of the business, it is also a smart dealer and authorised workshop, Land Rover, Range Rover and Jaguar. It has known a remarkable development in the automotive sector in the last two decades, resulting from the sustained evolution of vehicle sales and after-sales service, whose quality and professionalism are widely recognized by customers.

Article appeared in the magazine Human of Portugal

Blurred soft of people meeting at table. business people talking in modern office. Generative AI.

The Undercover HR Director: Keys to Making HR a Strategic Partner in the Company

by Human Resources

There is a television program called Undercover Boss where the owner or a high executive of a company goes undercover in various positions within their own company to understand its operation. Regardless of the quality of the show, nothing would be more valuable for the company than for an HR Director to perform each role within the company, including customer and supplier experiences, for at least one full day.

The ultimate purpose would not only be to empathize with the worker (although that is also important) but to gain firsthand experience of what is promoting or hindering the company’s success from the human resources team, as well as a comprehensive understanding of the entire business process and its elements.

Keys to Making HR a Strategic Partner in the Company

The HR leader must deeply understand what the company needs, not necessarily what the company demands.

They must see beyond their own department and be capable of having a deep vision of the business that allows them to perfectly understand the connection between the company’s ultimate goal and its human capital.

In other words, it is not the company that sets the parameters for the human team that will lead it to success and HR’s role is to select it, but HR who designs the necessary human team in obvious synergy with the company to achieve its objectives.

They Need to Transition from Being an Organizer to a Strategist

An organizer arranges given elements to fulfill a function. A strategist organizes but also creates the necessary conditions to achieve victory with a vision focused on results.

Organizing involves minimal risk, and its outcomes are predictable and limited.

Strategy entails the risk of continuous decision-making, adaptation, and change, but its impact on results can be much greater.

The organizer often does not understand why they are asked to execute an action; they simply do it as part of the machinery.

The strategist decides which cogs are necessary, where, when, and how, and instructs the organizer. To fulfill this strategic key, it is necessary to have already met the key of understanding the company.

They Need to Design a Human Structure with Organic, Not Mechanical, Principles

We often refer to the company as a “machine”; I myself have talked about cogs. However, every company, including the most technological or mechanical ones we can imagine, ultimately depends on its human team, which is an organic and social system.

A mechanical system is closed, limited, and difficult to modify, transform, or adapt.

An organic system is symbiotic, adaptive, evolutionary, regenerative.

Designing the structure and each role with an organic foundation of operation is fundamental, but it will not be achieved without meeting the previous two keys.

To be a strategic partner, a significant part of the company’s success must rest on that partner; if it is not, or if it is not perceived that way, it is not strategic.

There will be HR managers who prefer to remain “personnel managers,” and there will be a generation of HR leaders who take on the risk, responsibility, and consequences of leading their companies to new heights of success with their strategic vision of their professional role.

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HR: From the Back of the Line to a Strategic Partner

by Human Resources

Telephone Conversation:

Me: “Good morning, I want to speak with the company’s human resources manager.”
Company: “Yes, one moment, I will connect you with the payroll department.”
Me: “We’re off to a bad start.”

We know that the world continues to change. It always has, but the speed at which it does now is dizzying. Companies face challenges they never had before. They still need results and productivity, but they are out of the game if they do not incorporate innovation, globalization, constant change, development, talent acquisition, and retention. On the other hand, professionals live in an uncertain, unstable, and insecure ecosystem, with great external pressure to be productive but great internal pressure to be happy and feel fulfilled.

However, every cloud has a silver lining, and this is the perfect breeding ground for the HR department which, despite the crisis, moves from being a mere personnel manager, dealing with payroll, vacations, and hiring, to a strategic partner that acts as a catalyst between the company’s needs and the state of the workforce.

The challenge for HR to become a strategic partner within the company is to put human hands and feet to “what we want to achieve” and “how we will do it,” which are the executive heart of the company, i.e., the sum of environmental analysis, values, strategies, goals, and action plans, etc. HR responds to “with whom” we will do it, “why” we will do it with them, and “how” we will measure it.

From this perspective, HR must help the company move from reactivity to proactivity. It must encourage and even demand that the company periodically review its heart, this strategic “what and how,” as the only way to keep human capital aligned with what is truly intended. It must communicate effectively through a concise plan to motivate human capital. It must have tools that assess, measure, and demonstrate that the policies it implements are helping achieve the goals.

As a strategic partner, it has two lines of action: vertical and cross-sectional. The vertical line includes designing the human fabric through job profiles with key indicators of contribution and talent, implementing result-oriented assessment processes, and ensuring a person-role fit through behavior profiles and plans to identify, develop, and retain talent. In its cross-sectional line are motivational communication, transformational leadership, facilitation of change, and a culture of constant development and feedback.

In this sense, the most effective methodologies and the most innovative talent assessments, combined with new technologies, are put at the service of HR departments to objectify their decision-making and give visibility to their contribution to the company. These tools, like the ones we provide, give a new dimension to selection processes, training plans, development and communication, talent management, and team analysis and management.

Companies that do not evolve their conception of viewing their team as staff or employees, in short as “human resources,” and not as professionals or values, or in other words as “human capital,” and utilize new tools, assessments, and technology, will be marked in the next decade. It is that clear.

Ignacio Rubio Guisasola