Tijana, what is your role in PepsiCo company and what are your responsibilities?
I am the Human Resources Senior Manager for West Balkans, Baltics and our franchise business in Central Europe and Greater Balkans area. This means that I am responsible for the overall human resources strategy across very diverse geographic regions and operating business models. It is a challenging, but very exciting and diverse job, which gives me plenty of opportunities to develop both my HR management knowledge and strategic management as such, but also to grow as a leader and as a human being. Working with people from over a dozen different and very diverse cultures is an enriching experience, from which I have benefited immensely.
PepsiCo is cutting edge when it comes to leadership and human resources practices, and I’m lucky enough to be at the source of this innovation. This is an exciting time for HR – now more than ever, we are facing rapid change in the way we work, recruit, develop and retain talent. The Fourth industrial revolution is permanently changing the world we live in, and our task is very complex – anticipating change and embracing it, rather than reacting to it.
You work in an international corporation. How do you implement the core company values to your regional operations?
A brilliant thing about our regional operations is that we are fully in tune with our company’s global values. Our vision is to be the global leader in convenient foods and beverages by winning with purpose. It reflects our ambition to win sustainably in the marketplace and accelerate our top line growth, whilst keeping our commitment to do good for the planet and our communities. This winning mentality, focused on growth as well as our care for our local community are a source of great pride for our people, and our region is recognized as one of the fastest growing and most agile in our global organization.
At PepsiCo, we recognize that supporting diversity and engagement is not only the right thing to do, it is the right thing to do for our business. This commitment is woven into our values and a vision that recognizes our company is strongest when we embrace the full spectrum of humanity, regardless of what we look like, where we come from or whom we love. That means both building a more diverse, more inclusive workplace, and promoting what we call courageous engagement in our company and the communities we serve. Each of us has a role to play in advancing this vision.
People are the face of every company. From the other side, the company has its own vision and values. Could you describe how your company develops employees through company values?
When recruiting and developing our people, we are very focused on shared purpose and shared values. We encourage and support certain leadership behaviours which we consider pivotal for our Winning with purpose strategic direction. All our leadership development programmes are built around our leadership excellence framework which is a sort of a blueprint of what a successful, inspiring and engaging leader in PepsiCo looks like. Our career journey takes an aspiring high potential through a complex and scientifically developed programme with the objective of creating a fully personalized development plan focused at growth opportunities.
Do you have any leadership development program in your company? Could you describe it in more details?
Our major leadership programme is based on our leadership excellence framework – which consists of 10 key competencies divided into 3 leadership imperatives – setting the agenda, taking others with you and doing it the right way. Our leadership development journey starts with a very sophisticated assessment process, which was seven years in the making before it saw the light of day. It is based on our Leadership potential blueprint and it measures various traits and capabilities – ranging from foundational, such as cognitive ablities and personality traits, growth dimensions – consisting of motivation and learning ability and style and, thirdly, the career dimensions – which take into account traditional leadership behaviours and technical skills of a leader. Using a multi method multi trait approach, we gather data from various sources and tools, based on which an employee receives a detailed report indicating both his or her strengths and development opportunities. We are very transparent about our leader development and we are proud to say that our methods have been confirmed and reconfirmed time and time again through application. Based on the assessment results, personal development plans are put in place targeting the specific needs of each leader individually. In addition to these very sophisticated programmes, we also offer over 10.000 online trainings at our PepsiCo University, completely accessible for all our people who want to explore and learn.
CSR and people development are really connected in many ways. How does your company incorporate the two?
Both globally and locally, one of our strategies is to become better by integrating our purpose agenda into our business strategy and doing even more for the planet and our people. We do this in many ways – by advancing farming practices to optimize crop yields, protect human rights, improve farmer livelihoods, and secure supply, by replenishing more water than we use in water-stressed areas, so we can assure business continuity, while positively contributing to our communities, by creating a circular economy for plastic that will fundamentally change the way the world interacts with our products and increasing the permissibility of our portfolio, reducing added sugars, sodium, and saturated fats and adding more positive ingredients. Linking to our people development strategies – we take our role of leader in the local communities very seriously and with a great sense of responsibilty. We work with local communities and relevant government bodies on projects related to obesity, sports in schools and we support a number of charities focused on helping children and underprivileged members of the society. We have a very strong Healthy living agenda in the company, educating our employees about nutrition, work-life balance, importance of preventative medical care and critical role of an active, healthy lifestyle for overall wellbeing and happiness. For two years in a row, we have been the winners of global Healthy living grants which enabled us to build and fully equip an infirmary in our plant in Backi Maglic in Serbia and provide medical examinations to all our employees in Bosnia and Herzegovina. We are very proud of the fact that in Serbia we are one of the few companies providing full salary to women on maternity leave regardless of the limits for subsidies set by the local legislation. We are constantly developing new campaigns and working on new ways on supporting our employees to live healthy, happy and productive lives.
If you could describe success in one sentence, what would it be?
Success means doing meaningful, challenging and innovative work with a team of brilliant, supportive and inspirational people, being balanced and grounded, loving and loved.
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