INTERVIEW Daniela Alexandru, Magna Exteriors Craiova: “One of the biggest challenges for this year is the adaption to HR processes using AI tools”

“One of the biggest challenges for this year is the adaption to HR processes using AI tools, and it’s not just finding the right AI Tool that makes our work more effective or data analysis, but it is about educating all employees to use more of these new systems, upskilling and building trust in new technologies. Continuous learning and development are essential to keep up with the rapid changes in technology, industry demands, and competitiveness,” Daniela Alexandru, HR Manager, Magna Exteriors Craiova told Automotive Today.

“A second challenge is to understand more Gen Z as now they represent an important part of the employee population and will represent more in the coming years. (…) We, as leaders in our organization, need to show empathy and see this as an opportunity to teach young people about adaptation mechanisms, and stress relief methods (wellbeing), and very importantly we must know how to communicate with them and teach them how to ask for help (to be able to raise the hand and say: “I am in difficulty, can you help me?” both on a personal and professional level, to overcome the fear of not appearing perfect in the eyes of others.”

What were the most significant HR achievements at Magna Exteriors Craiova in 2024? Could you share specific initiatives or programs implemented in 2024 that had a significant impact on employee satisfaction or retention?

We are proud to say that every year, we seek to run programs that keep our employees curious, involved, active, and engaged, not only for one year but as a long-term strategy.

At Magna Exteriors Craiova, we are focused on the continuous learning and development of the employees, creating a positive environment and a sustainable culture. We implemented various ambitious HR programs that helped us achieve our goals and become a “Best in Class” division.

To succeed we have to have motivated people, and we know this is not an easy path as people tend to pay attention to negative things, they have a negative bias, which is a defense mechanism people have, so for us, the management and HR Team it means we have to acknowledge that, use our magical tools in a long term strategy with investment and hard work, to obtain a transformational mindset for our employees, creating a lasting positive change.

The program with the most powerful and positive impact in the organization is our LEADERSHIP ACADEMY, an accelerator development program, tailored to develop our employees’ skills, structured in multiple modules and groups, to different management levels:

1. Team leader & Shift leader(newly promoted) – in this program, we focused on clarifying the leader’s role and training basic leadership skills, understanding the organizational culture and objectives, and transferring objectives to the team.
2. Existing Team leader & Shift leader, experienced ones – consolidating the role, training skills to motivate people and manage tense situations, and the importance of delegation.

In these programs, the classroom modules are very important, but even more impactful are the mini-sessions organized with 4 participants and the 1-1 coaching sessions for clarifying and practicing the introduced/discussed skills – where participants are put in the “driver’s seat” to find ideas on what self-motivation means, how to cope with failure or success, resilience, and persistence.

The 1-1 sessions and small team work sessions were a real success because people clarified and realized much faster what was expected of them and how to react in an unforeseen situation. Employees need to be put in the leader’s role (driver’s seat) because this brings personal fulfillment and is part of the success equation.

• Key positions – Training Program topic was about resilience skills – what resilience means and how it is perceived and experienced in the VUCA context, with so many disruptive factors and continuous changes. Participants practiced and learned basic skills in understanding the ingredients of trust and using those small things that keep us together, especially in challenging situations.
• Management level – The program’s topic was focused on how we, as managers, build resilient teams.

As I said, learning is a continuous process, and our Values represent the code by which we identify ourselves in the market.

Did the company implement any new technologies or systems to enhance HR processes in 2024?

Yes, the system we are now using is Workday, an integrated HR system that gives us:

1. visibility of all the HR processes
2. Fast reporting, data analysis & dashboards
3. Learning platform

Workday is a great tool, useful to strengthen our HR business landscape, enhance how we deliver value as strategic partners, and improve the day-to-day engagement with our employees.

It can improve decision-making at all levels, enhance the employee experience through an easy-to-use interface, a digitalized process helping the users, and empower managers with access to the right data at the right time.

What are the primary HR objectives or projects Magna Exteriors Craiova is focusing on for 2025?

There are 3 things we will continue to focus on, to maintain and mature our organizational culture:

1. Think Big Picture, meaning make employees not only think about their current position but broaden their thinking to consider, anticipate the challenges of the current year and long-term future, and consider what steps might help to reach the goals. This translates into giving employees a clear understanding of their career path and Reskilling.

In our division, developing such programs for employee Reskilling has multiple benefits: on the one hand, it gives employees the possibility to acquire new skills and face new roles in the organization, and on the other hand, it helps them in their career growth.

 Employees gain new skills that enhance their career prospects, job satisfaction, and job security.

• Development Goal as part of Performance Management.  

As part of the goals setting strategy, we must consider for each employee at least one development item to focus on during this year, the continuous learning and development of our employees is the key to having engaged, motivated, and loyal employees. By prioritizing employee development, every team member has the opportunity to expand their knowledge and achieve their full potential and we not only enhance individual skills and competencies but also drive overall organizational growth and success.

Investing in our employees’ professional growth ensures they remain adaptable and prepared for future challenges, ultimately leading to higher job satisfaction and retention rates.

• Turning flexibility & Agility into a core strategy

In a world where the main workforce transformation factors such as broadening digital access, geoeconomic fragmentation and geopolitical tensions, increasing cost of living due to a mixed perspective of inflation (disappearing of thousands of jobs and creating new kinds of jobs), or climate-change mitigation, it is necessary to adopt policies and programs that will enable our organization to seize opportunities and quickly react to changes: Flexible work arrangements, Continuous Learning & development, Cross-functional Team for Project Management, Digital Tools, Wellness or Sustainability programs. 

How does the company plan to address skills development and training in 2025?

As every year, as part of our continuous learning program “Leadership Academy”, we will focus on skills that not only meet the personal growth aspirations of employees but also align with the strategic objectives of the company. This dual focus ensures that employees feel motivated and an individual authentic contributor to the organization’s success. In the last years, we have already addressed topics like resilience, agility, effective communication, project management, lean philosophy, team leader concept, and more.

This year the focus is on Team Coaching at all levels, it all starts with the management team: we must invest time in understanding and improving interpersonal relationships, building trust, providing feedback, clarifying each other’s expectations and needs, and developing a common language. We continuously learn about HOW we are, work, and move forward as a team towards the future. Then we continue with the key positions in the organization and of course, with the shift and team leaders, it is crucial to strengthen their leadership skills because they represent the most important layer in our organization, they are the bonding agent for all the hierarchy layers.

Team coaching is essential for any team that wants to go beyond the superficial layers of interpersonal relationships, dig deeper, and discover new and agreed-upon methods to ensure a high degree of comfort in interactions. This process is even more important in a context where each individual has his own personality, beliefs, and assumptions.

The purpose of this year is to give a positive boost and energy to the team and create a champion mentality, at all levels.

What initiatives are planned to support diversity, equity, and inclusion within the organization in 2025?

Our strategy for maintaining and maturation of organizational culture involves increased attention to the theme of D&I: 2 years ago, we started a project with a dedicated team that aims to meet the needs of our employees and younger generations.

This topic can no longer be considered a simple box checked among the multitude of tasks of the HR department because it truly represents an advantage for our organization. Having diverse employees with a diversity of thoughts has numerous benefits like creativity and innovation, positive climate, performance (through authentic decisions and strong brand), or attracting and retaining talents.

For us the topic of diversity, equity, and inclusion represents an increasing consideration, understanding that to perform, stay at the top, and face the ever-growing challenges in this VUCA business environment and digital transformation, there is a need for a strong correlation between diversity of thought( through experiences, innovation, and perceptions) that directly and indirectly influence the organizational culture (common values, positive leadership, continuous learning, vision and strategy) ultimately influencing the external environment where through strong organizational culture, focus on people, trust and influencers you obtain positive and robust employer branding.

So in our project, to achieve the most concrete and authentic results, in addition to research, statistics, Equileap, and external feedback, we realized that the perspective of employees is needed, so we initiated a perception and feedback survey in Magna divisions, with the objectives of obtaining Magna Insights.

The survey results led to the conclusion that to build an authentic, mature, sustainable culture with a positive climate, 3 main directions are crucial to consider:

1. Involved leaders, to achieve involvement, leaders must understand “why” we do certain things, and make certain decisions, inspiring our leaders to adhere to the company’s values, through passion and involvement, thus increasing the success rate! To make significant progress toward a more diverse and inclusive work environment, we need to focus on the relationship between the leader and their people must be more than a professional one, I call it an “emotional contract” and for this kind of commitment, we must take into consideration some aspects of the leaders:    

– What kind of manager do we have in the team? (directive, coach, facilitator, delegation), consider situational leadership to improve team dynamics.

–Do we have leaders with empathy? How do we cultivate this? Developing skills such as mentoring and sponsorship are extremely important for employees’ career development. Empathetic leaders are also able to address inequities and promote inclusion within the organization.

– Could our leaders prioritize the psychological safety of employees?

Such leaders encourage employees to share ideas, take risks, provide feedback, and learn from failures. Psychological safety cultivates trust, innovation, creativity, involvement, and satisfaction, leading to mentoring opportunities for other leaders.

I also believe that agility is essential for leaders, to learn from experience and apply new methods and knowledge when we face new challenges. Agility is crucial for professional success. Developing learning agility can be a significant advantage for individual and company success.

Leaders with a high level of learning agility are five times more likely to remain highly engaged, and in these situations, companies have had a profit margin 25% higher than the competition.

• Organizational communication, The commitment of our leaders to transparent communication is essential, as it sets the tone for a culture that values openness and clear messages regarding our D&I objectives. By regularly evaluating their own biases, privileges, and blind spots and being willing to acknowledge mistakes and learn from feedback, leaders will constantly seek to become more inclusive contributors.

Improving organizational communication involves promoting diverse representation and celebrating diversity.

•  Gender balance in the recruitment flow.

 Inclusion happens when the organization has created a culture where everyone’s talents, skills, and perspectives are recognized and appreciated. Talent attraction, recruitment, and retention are strategic benefits of inclusion, as people will want to work for a company that makes them feel included, encouraged, and valued. To achieve a more diverse and innovative workforce, considering gender balance is a sustainable strategy that includes some actions: clarity in job descriptions, using diverse recruitment channels, training on Implicit Bias allowing fair treatment of all candidates, regardless of gender, through unbiased recruitment and inclusive job descriptions, a clear and transparent recruitment process, Work-Life Balance, Implementing Backup Plans and Succession Planning from diverse perspectives by identifying and promoting talents from diverse gender groups with specialized development programs, mentoring, and coaching for leadership succession.

Achieving the goal of having engaged leaders is not an easy path, but a long-term strategy and a continuous learning process to develop the skill set of leaders and make them real contributors with unique perspectives to the positive transformation of D&I.”

What are the biggest HR challenges Magna Exteriors Craiova anticipates facing in 2025?

I think one of the biggest challenges for this year is the adaption to HR processes using AI tools, and it’s not just finding the right AI Tool that makes our work more effective or data analysis, but it is about educating all employees to use more of these new systems, upskilling and building trust in new technologies. Continuous learning and development are essential to keep up with the rapid changes in technology, industry demands, and competitiveness.

A second challenge is to understand more Gen Z as now they represent an important part of the employee population and will represent more in the coming years.

When we entered the workforce, we didn’t know much about what was happening in the job market. While working, all we could do was to look and learn from others, gain experience, and advance in our careers. The new generation is obviously much more connected, thanks to the internet. What’s new is that they come to the workplace with skills that those already working do not have and from day one, they know how certain things work: technology, personal branding, and social media and they are aware of their work sense of value  (the sense of the value of work refers to the importance of finding meaning and purpose in professional activity) and this somehow blinds them to the fact that there are other things they need to learn at work.

 At the workplace, they feel entitled, and having some skills already, they enter the job market with an apparent sense of self-confidence, they want to skip stages and grow very quickly in the organization, without professional maturity, information is at their fingertips, they accept information as a general truth without questioning its veracity, without critical and analytical thinking. So not always this self-confidence is real, they might feel insecure and struggle with adaptation mechanisms (anxiety or depression), lacking those human skills.

So we, as leaders in our organization, need to show empathy and see this as an opportunity to teach young people about adaptation mechanisms, and stress relief methods (wellbeing), and very importantly we must know how to communicate with them and teach them how to ask for help (to be able to raise the hand and say: “I am in difficulty, can you help me?” both on a personal and professional level, to overcome the fear of not appearing perfect in the eyes of others.

The ideal workplace for Gen Z is the place where you can find: high tech, flexibility, dynamic environment, social responsibility (ethics, diversity, social causes), entrepreneurial spirit, competitiveness, collaboration, continuous learning programs, mentorship programs, digital communication (internally and externally) and we, as leaders, need to find solutions for answering as much as possible to all the Gen Z employees’ expectations.

The art of communication in leadership lies in gaining the trust of the people around us. Interpersonal relationships are the most valuable thing in this world, and our success is because we do things together, rely on each other, and build trust over time and in a balanced way.

How does the company plan to adapt to evolving labor market trends, such as remote work or digital transformation?

We know how important it is for employees to have flexibility in their work schedule, not only to choose between remote or office but also flexibility about when to start the working day and flexibility in offering frequent breaks. Being a production facility though it is hard to use remote work everywhere, we do use it, where possible, mainly to the support departments, but in production, we can use bank hours or employees as jolly, for time events of employees.

One of our main focuses regarding digital transformation is the

 4.0 Industry by implementing systems in production (Injection molding and paint areas) starting with getting live data about the process. Say this, we will have a very accurate view of the process steps and be able to improve much faster and be more efficient.

Digitalization provides us the basis to create new opportunities and ensure the most powerful business processes, to be the most attractive company for our customers. It is an enabler – a tool to support our processes, activities, and projects to reach our targets and it’s no end in itself – we must harmonize our digital solutions, with our corporate regulations/strategy, our customers’ requirements and law restrictions.

How does the HR team support innovation in an industry that is rapidly evolving, such as the automotive sector?

     By 2035, over 800 million jobs will be replaced by AI and automation, so the most sought-after skill will undoubtedly be creativity, as we can imagine, create and recreate in our imagination all kinds of thoughts, dreams and dare to think differently.

Creativity is our natural resource – renewable, unlimited, and unique to each of us. The question is, how do we use it? Do we view challenges through a creative lens? Do we unlock opportunities that only we can imagine? Do we approach problems through experimentation to find solutions? The future is not about working harder or being smarter than machines. It’s about outdoing them in creativity, using the power to think differently, and innovating.

At Magna, we have a lot of programs and contests to stimulate employees to generate, participate, and feel a true contributor to the business result with their unique way of thinking, programs such as the Improvement Ideas Program, Intern Innovation Challenge or Commitment to Sustainability for Product, Process and People (I am very proud to say that in People Category Magna Craiova has won two times, with sustainability innovative programs) but also educational programs that teach and helps employees to develop how to think, tools on how to solve problems: Operations Management Accelerator, Leadership Accelerate Program or Innovation Finance.

For example, this last program mentioned, Innovation Finance, is tailored specifically for Magna’s technical professionals in non-financial roles—such as engineers, scientists, technologists, program managers, project managers, and department heads in both design and manufacturing—who seek to deepen their understanding of the financial aspects of innovation. This course provides the knowledge and tools to communicate effectively with finance professionals, senior executives, and external stakeholders, such as customers and suppliers, within innovation-driven organizations.

Designed to bridge the gap between technical expertise and business acumen, Innovation Finance empowers participants with the essential financial knowledge and skills required to navigate and contribute to the financial decision-making process. The course covers key financial terms, concepts, and economic principles, as well as the sequence of business processes involved in managing and financing innovation, product development, and process improvement projects.

So, I’d challenge you a little bit by asking: are you questioning your thoughts, do you dig into your mind, are you curious enough to try new experiences, make mistakes, and learn from them, are you ready to explore multiple possibilities and think outside the box?

Then innovation is born.

Are there unique workforce demands or challenges that come with being part of a global company like Magna International?

Yes, being part of a global company, comes with some challenges like

navigating through the complex compliance requirements and consistency in policies or managing cultural dimensions where employees from different cultural backgrounds may have varying work styles, communication preferences, expectations, leadership styles, and collaboration so we need to adopt a flexible and inclusive approach.

But there are also big advantages of being part of a global company one of these being cross-cultural training and development programs for employees and also intensive and quick learning in the usage of  digital tools and strategies to maintain productivity, engagement, and team cohesion.

How does Magna Exteriors Craiova gather employee feedback and ensure their voices are heard when shaping HR policies?

As a defining and unique way of interacting with our employees, I could say that transparent communication is part of our fundamental values and defines our culture. So, we do not wait to collect any written feedback from our employees once a year, we use our Open Door Policy every day, and people can express their thoughts, concerns, ideas, or problems without feeling any pressure or fear of consequences, and they can talk to any person they wish, in a very transparent and honest way.

Still, our employees’ feedback is very important to us, it represents a continuous improvement tool, and their voice is heard in the entire organization, not only at the local level.

So, we do use the Employee Opinion Survey which is an annual survey conducted fully online and anonymously, measuring the engagement of our people using a state-of-the-art tool with scientific backing, it is a comprehensive survey with questions that have been designed using data science and psychology and intended to measure an employee’s connection to and investment in our organization. It’s designed to measure Employee Engagement, Health and Wellbeing, and Diversity & Inclusion, and includes questions based on fair treatment and compliance as well as one open-ended question.

The main goal is to understand employees’ perspectives, identify areas for improvement, and enhance engagement and retention; the feedback from our employees is crucial for our continuous development as a whole and for defining our middle-term strategy, so we appreciate the honest and transparent feedback that helps us in all these steps and achieve a greater purpose for our employees.

Do you plan to introduce new benefits, incentives, or rewards programs in 2025 to enhance employee satisfaction?

We already have a reach Comp & Ben policy, but people are always curious about the “new element” and trying new experiences, so for this year, a big focus is on the Recognition & Appreciation & Engagement programs like the Peer Recognition Program, Seniority Appreciation Day CSR Programs, Team Building events, Wellness Programs or Gamification & Friendly competition.

I would say none of these are new, just the way they are organized, the careful details and involvement of the HR Team as organizers and of the participants, always with enthusiasm and positive attitude; all this takes the employees to a higher stage of satisfaction.

Our culture means engaging and acting with positive leadership, and with that, we, as leaders, help people become better and help them grow.

Positive leadership focusing on strengths rather than weaknesses during conversations, optimism, sustainable changes, resilience, meaning, positive relations, and well-being offers a unique, authentic, and holistic pathway to motivation, retention, and loyalty of people, this approach not only helps people achieve their goals but also grows a deeper sense of fulfillment and joy, making the job journey of our employees a truly enriching experience, through personal and professional development.

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