BR Interview | Zsuzsanna Toth, Vodafone Romania: A very important aspect for the GenZ is the sense of purpose in everything they do

In an era where attracting and retaining top talent is more competitive than ever, Vodafone Romania stands out with its innovative approaches and forward-thinking initiatives. Business Review sits down with Zsuzsanna Toth, HR Director at Vodafone Romania, to discuss how the company is emerging as an employer to watch in 2024 and beyond. Toth shares insights into Vodafone’s ongoing cultural transformation, its strategic focus on integrating AI, and the comprehensive talent programs designed to nurture and develop employees.

How does your company stand out as an employer to watch in 2024 and on the long run?

There are several initiatives we are building in Vodafone that we believe that have the power to grow our attractiveness to candidates and also the long tenure. The bigger context is that we have started a cultural transformation within the company and we are now in the process of fine tuning the behaviours that lead us to achieving our business and social goals, growing the engagement within our company and helping us attract and retain the right people for the organization. The buzzword these days in each company, in every industry is AI. As generative AI is integrated in our business operations, it is crucial that our employees are equipped with the necessary skills to leverage this technology effectively. This is a transformational moment and we think that by leveraging AI we empower our employees and grow our impact on our customers and the communities. We are partnering in this endeavour with the well-known MIT to create foundational learning for all people within the organization and to get them certified. What we also aim to contribute to our attractiveness on the labour market is the talent programs we are running for ensuring the pipeline for the executive committee and the extended leadership team. Also building on the pipeline of talents it’s our Discover program which provides young graduates the opportunity to experiment working for Vodafone in different departments. We also invested in our package of compensation and benefits. We also have a strong focus on our customer experience, and in this context we are running programs to bring the customer interaction to each employee and thus grow the quality of the customer service.

How does your company manage to maintain its status of a remarkable employer for the new generations of employees but also for your existing employees?

We are a company with around 2500 employees and very diverse demographics. For the Gen Z what we appreciate as very important also considering the internal surveys is to keep up and even anticipate trends, and Vodafone throughout its 27 history in Romania marked some important milestones for the local telecom industry like launching the first 3G, 4G and 5G services to mention only few. Now we are in the process of upskilling our employees with Gen AI learning toolkit in a transformational process also meant to bring simplicity of our way of working in general. As previously mentioned we pay a lot of attention to onboarding the right people and then ensure them a career path, tools to develop and access to mentorship and leadership programs. For that we have Grow with Vodafone, an artificial intelligence based platform where employees are suggested courses offered by Harvard, MIT, Skillsoft, available for free on the platform, depending on their career development wishes and the skills they want to improve. We have an average of 20 hours/employee of effective training through Grow with Vodafone.

A very important aspect for the GenZ is the sense of purpose in everything they do and again Vodafone since 1997 proved to be the trusted partner for building the Romania we all know today. I would also add that considering the diverse population we have in our shops, call centers, on the ground, the door to door teams we need to be flexible with the working time and appealing from the compensation and benefits point of view. Another important aspect for the GenZ is the workplace and in this regard we are made investments in renewing our offices in Timișoara and Cluj and also we are remodelling our stores network. Last but not least Gen Z rates high the ethical behaviour and corporate integrity and in this regard we have a clear Code of Conduct as we truly believe in an inclusive, safe and respectful workplace for everyone.