First step into "my new journey"...

They say that every journey begins – or continues – with a single step.

I’m taking such a step today. I’m excited to tell you about it because it’s not just a journey that I’m taking by myself. It’s part of a journey that all of us – me, my colleagues, and you, our current, past, and future clients – are taking together.

Today, after 12 years, I’m marking my last day at LHH, and moving to a new position at Talent Solutions, one of 3 business units of our parent company, The Adecco Group. At Talent Solutions, I’ll be serving as Head of Strategic Solutions and Innovations.

My experience and my many interactions with all of you tell me that today’s rapidly transforming workplace, we all urgently need innovative approaches the workforce, that enable lifelong and sustainable employability for individuals and empower organizations to optimize their workforces.

Let me tell you a little about how I hope to work with you to bring them about and help you address your most pressing challenges.

Strategic Solutions & Innovation is a natural evolution from years of experience at LHH working with enterprise clients to transform entire workforces, improving the effectiveness of leaders and teams, or simply helping one person succeed in their career, to being able to broaden our approach through the wider capabilities of The Adecco Group, from advisory, diagnostics and analytics, training, up- and reskilling to career transition, flexible and permanent placement.

I’m entering this journey – as are all of us at LHH and The Adecco Group – to serve you better.

Your world is changing, and to meet your changing needs, so are we

We’re making these changes because the world of work, and the way people relate to work are changing. You face a world of constant transformation, and you must manage everything differently – including your workforce. We are evolving to help you do that.

In the past, even in the very recent past, it was possible for organizations to take a traditional approach only – hiring, developing, and firing. Often, that happened in separate, siloed functions or departments. Sometimes this led to strange and unhelpful outcomes. Many of you have had such experiences: For example, a department that lays off workers for economic reasons, and another, at the same time or soon after, that must hire – including some of the same workers. Such things happened because no one in the process – neither you nor your consultants – was organized to get an overview of how the workforce could, and should, support strategy.

This reactive approach was perhaps never adequate. It certainly is no longer – not in an environment where every day brings business risk and opportunity, and where every decision, including workforce decisions, needs to be taken with the organization’s overarching strategy and business performance clearly in view.

Today, to meet that need, effective solutions must bring together multiple disciplines. We must be one team with the right skills and capabilities to enable you to execute on strategy and achieve your goals through your workforce.

We’ll help you address your biggest, most strategic challenges

That’s why through my new role you will have multidisciplinary teams to advise, design and coordinate delivery of integrated services through the most comprehensive portfolio of HR solutions in the industry.

We will reach across geographic and functional boundaries – because your challenges no longer know these boundaries. And with our combined resources, we will serve organizations like yours that are rethinking their workforce and looking for innovative approaches that drive business results and put people at the core.

We know how to do this and how to break new ground – we have done it already, working together with you. For example, our Employment Bridge program illustrates where we have the potential to go. For clients facing the financial and human cost of furloughs under the immense pressure of COVID, we were able to create a solution, by drawing on the best career guidance from LHH and employment opportunities from across The Adecco Group, to match talent to temporary opportunities at other organizations, with staff coming back to their original organization when business ramps up.

We have the resources and the organizational structure to deliver innovative, integrated, strategic problem-solving solutions like this – at scale.

Our mission, and mine: Make the future work for everyone

It is tremendously exciting to help bring all of us together to help you meet these challenges and seize new opportunities. It’s our mission – and my personal passion as well.

My passion is to help transform work and make it something fundamentally good for society by supporting the people who do it.

Organizations have the potential to do so much good, but also so much harm. Too often, people relate to work in terms of harm. In so many religious traditions, paradise is a place where everyone is eating grapes, and no one works. We even say, “working like hell.” 

I don’t want my kids to think they’ll spend most of their lives in hell.

My mission is to help paint a new, different picture of work.

Obviously, we must work; here on Earth there is no possibility of eternal grapes. Nor is endless rest desirable – not with so many problems to solve, and with so many people needing a sense of purpose. So, what I see is vast potential - the potential for work to be a powerful source of good. Big workforce decisions can benefit society, the environment and how we live.

I love to work. I want to work. Like all of you, I want to hit my KPIs. And when I do that, I want to know that I am producing a good outcome for society.

When I think about this, I think about The Adecco Group’s purpose – “Make the future work for everyone.” That’s a wonderful double meaning, isn’t it? Of course, it means that we are helping create new jobs and new employment – future work. It also means we are building a better future – a future that works for everyone, where work is pleasant and rewarding and makes a positive difference. And this is better for you and your organizations as well, because it is a path that leads to sustainable success. When work is rewarding, organizations attract the best talent, have the best societal impact, and generate lasting customer loyalty. It is a virtuous circle.

Let’s share the journey

I am lucky – because my job is to help create that future work. And I know from my own experience how meaningful that can be.

For example, I know, because I’ve lived it, how important and how transformative a supportive culture can be. Consider diversity and inclusion: As a Brazilian transplanted to Switzerland, I know what it is to be the person who makes an organization more diverse by being… well… different!

And I know that work-life balance is more than a catchphrase because I’ve lived that, too. My husband gave up a job he loved, to travel with me to Switzerland. That wasn’t easy, but in this case again, the support of LHH made it possible for us to find our way in a new environment. And even before that, I was pregnant twice and both times, while on maternity leave, I was promoted.

That is who we are at LHH and The Adecco Group – an organization that understands that culture is no accident. It’s the direct result of everyone’s leadership, our small and big actions every day. And that’s what we – and I – aim to bring to you. I truly believe that we – including you, our clients – are #bettertogether. I’ve been beating that for a long time, and one I’ll continue to beat in my new role.