BACKGROUND INFO
“In the age of remote/hybrid work and an extreme labor shortage, it is astonishingly challenging for even the best leaders to motivate their colleagues and teams. Leadership today must be totally different than it was just a few years ago.”
HumanField has been a significant player in the HR consultant market since 2006. In 2015, it took over the market-leading position amongst Hungarian headhunters. The office is located in the center of Budapest, from where it offers full domestic coverage all over Hungary. Its clients are drawn from every industry and from small local businesses to multinational giants.
WHAT DREW YOU TO HR AS A CAREER?
I know perfectly well that my answer is not “sexy,” but it is truthful: It was a total coincidence. As an economist and lawyer, before applying to HumanField, I never prepared for an HR career. In 2013, I knew that I wanted to change to something totally different, and I applied for many various open positions. To be honest, HumanField was the first company to give me an offer. I joined the firm as a junior consultant with five years of serious business experience. I knew from the very beginning that headhunting was what I had been looking for all the time. This profession needs incredibly diverse and complex abilities and soft skills. You need enormous empathy, passion, agility, creativity and proactivity. It is also crucial to have excellent analytical, organizational, communication, and, above all, motivational skills. It was love at first sight, and after almost 10 years, I still adore it. I believe that I could not gain such diversified knowledge anywhere else. I am grateful to our company’s founder and ex-managing director, who saw my potential and hired me.
OF WHICH PROFESSIONAL ACHIEVEMENTS ARE YOU MOST PROUD?
I am proud that I have been working with outstanding colleagues who are not only the best team ever but also are the best in their fields and respected by both clients and candidates. Employee turnover is remarkably high among HR agencies, but I have the privilege to have had all my team leaders on board for more than six years. My other greatest achievement as a leader is that I could transform the company from an almost unknown tiny recruitment agency to a Hungarian market leader with the highest prestige in executive search. During these years, we achieved revenue ten times higher than the year I joined. And it is very important to emphasize that we have to work much harder and better without a multinational background to acquire new clients.
IN AN EVER-TIGHTER LABOR MARKET THAT HAS ALL BUT FULL EMPLOYMENT, HOW DO YOU FIND NEW TALENT POOLS FOR YOUR CLIENTS?
From the employers’ point of view, the Hungarian labor market is in crisis, with fewer and fewer candidates in every sector. But I think in executive search, the focus is not on finding new talent pools but on how to reach and motivate the “old” talent pool. You have to be more attractive, proactive, flexible, and rapid. So, we put in the utmost effort to train our colleagues in their communication and motivation skills. It is not the technical background but the abilities and skills that make the difference. We have a unique and tailor-made approach to handling clients and candidates; our state-of-the-art know-how is continuously improved, and the whole team is trained internally and externally.
FINDING WORKFORCE ASIDE, WHAT ARE THE MOST SIGNIFICANT CHALLENGES FACING HR IN HUNGARY?
From what we see in the labor market, the behavior and attitude of employers and employees are simply not sustainable in the long term. The labor market is inordinately ruled by employees, and I believe that HR executives are the key to finding a solution to this problem. Indisputably, the pandemic and the labor shortage are the two main reasons for the rapid promotion of HR in the management of companies. In the past, we saw mainly operative HR; now, all successful companies need strategic HR, but unfortunately, not all organizations are prepared for that. The good news is that era of the bad boss is over. Companies managed by such bosses will not survive; they need true leaders more than ever. The bad news is that, on the other hand, in the age of remote/hybrid work and an extreme labor shortage, it is astonishingly challenging for even the best leaders to motivate their colleagues and teams. Leadership today must be totally different than it was just a few years ago.
