Stefanie Glanzmann is the Group Talent Acquisition Lead at Zur Rose Group in Thurgau, Switzerland. She was previously the Head of Talent Acquisition Manager at Hilti Group and led the Graduate Program at Syngenta Crop Protection. Stefanie started her career at Novartis in Basel.

How do you approach work in a fast-growing and changing environment? What is the biggest change that you’ve adapted to?

Pretty much all the environments I’ve been in in the past five years have had superfast training. Zur Rose was the fastest changing one, because we acquired a lot of companies before I joined. So, while I was joining the company, there was this big cultural change.

I try to connect with people as fast as possible, getting to know them, understanding what their views and needs are. People always work with you when they see a value in that, so I’m trying to add some value if possible. I’m trying to win them over, which sometimes I’m successful with and sometimes not as much.

The other one is being open to change. In my current job, there are still a few people that are not willing to work with us as a team and who feel like we’re not adding any value. At some point, you just have to accept it.

You try to win them over, you’re trying to convince them that what you’re actually doing is making their life a lot easier, which it is, but some people just don’t want to change - and you cannot force them to.

Something from the past - it wasn’t that much of a change - was moving from Basel to Liechtenstein. I was still living in Switzerland, but working in Liechtenstein, and I was going to completely different environments, from pharmaceutical to construction. They were completely different people, which was very overwhelming; they were super nice, but it was such a different vibe in that rural area than it was here, so there was really a big cultural change.

Being an expat, do you have to connect quicker and in a different way than in your home country?

I wouldn’t think of myself as an expat, because it was just ships crossing the border every day when I was still living in Switzerland, and I just went to Liechtenstein to work. I almost felt like an expat in my own country, because sometimes Switzerland is super traditional and people don’t really move so much.

Think back to the best manager you’ve worked for. What did you like about their style and how has it influenced you?

Actually, that was my first manager at Hilti. He was Chairman Head of HR back then, really quite a character.

If we can use stereotypes, he was a super Chairman - super straightforward, a tough one, but so knowledgeable. At the same time, he was not necessarily empathetic, because that was not his strength, but he really taught me a lot of business and management skills.

He was the most open person I have ever met. He gave me some constructive feedback, and challenged me in my thinking and my leadership skills, so I learnt a lot from him.

I’m trying to be similar to him, in term of understanding business needs and how to translate it into our work. I’m not trying to be as direct as he was, because sometimes - at first - he was a bit too much, but I’m trying to give people constructive feedback. I’m not good at looking at people running into the wrong direction.

In HR, you always have to show that you add some value, because people think that you don’t. I had a conversation about that with a friend on Sunday - he’s a director at PwC Legal and he said: “I have to ask you, I only see you as a service provider, you only cost us money, what’s your value?” And we are very good friends!

A few years ago, I would have taken it as really offensive, but then I realised a lot of HR people are probably not adding value, so it’s a fair question, and you have to add value as a corporate function. It’s the combination of the employees and their needs, but then you also have to fulfil a business need and make that happen in a positive way.

Now, I see how vast the HR functions are, so I understand where people are coming from.

What struggles have you overcome since taking ownership of your career?

I started my career when I was 15. I finished school when I was 15 - that was too young, at least for me, to think about it.

I was struggling about what to do overall. In Switzerland, we have a dual system, so you don’t need to study; you can join a profession, and I went down that road and I worked for a bit. But then, I realised that I wanted more, so I decided to go back to school.

My first struggle was to decide what I actually want and, at 15, I was a baby - I didn’t know anything. I went back to school and that was really good. I did something I actually really liked and then I started my professional career over there.

I had people in my life who didn’t really believe in me. When I was still at school, I had a boyfriend, and I was struggling with studying and he was like, “You can always quit, it doesn’t matter,” which wasn’t helpful, so that didn’t work out.

Then, I started struggling because I always looked younger than I actually was, and people always thought I was the intern. When I had my first leadership role, people referred to me as if I was the intern. There were a lot of struggles around not being taken seriously.

Back then, I took it very personally. There was also another career change for me when I was in Syngenta, someone once told me, when I was managing a graduate programme, “That’s actually as far as you can get.” That was super hard for me to hear, but then I was like, you know what, you’re not telling me what I can and cannot do, so I changed company and started over again, and that was really good.

I’m trying to prove that I can do more than people would think. I’m really ambitious and that is just something that is inside me, I guess.

You’ve said that you didn’t really have an idol to begin with, but later on you found it in your grandmother’s sister. How did she inspire you in being who you are today?

I did not really realise it back then, but I was looking up to her for a very long time - she was not the typical role model you had back then.

She was one of the first doctors in Switzerland. She was the only female in the family who wasn’t married, didn’t have kids, who was independent, who was working and living in the US, had a super fancy car, and who was living that lifestyle.

Back then, I didn’t actually realise how cool I thought she was, because it did not fit in with that general role model. I always looked up to her, but I only realised it when I really started to reflect on what inspired me. I realised that she was a big part of that – the independent career woman.

How do you approach building strong relationships in your network?

What I’m trying to do is build a personal relationship, at least with the people I have to work with closely. There’s no like secret recipe behind it, but I think it’s just to listen to people, because when you actually start listening to people and you talk to them, you let them speak, you get to know a lot about them.

There’s a lot of people who, when you talk, they’re not listening or they don’t really care about what you’re saying, so people are super surprised when you listen to them, and you remember three days later what you discussed. Sometimes, you do it a bit more on a personal level, like going out for coffee, but I think it always serves whenever possible to meet in person. So, you go for lunch, you go for a drink after work and I think that’s it - it’s not extraordinary.

I’m not always easy to handle as a manager, because I like to self-reflect. I can be super tough, even when I am not trying to be. What I’m trying to do now is draw a realistic picture of myself, but sometimes it’s a bit difficult.

There are a few things about all of us that we don’t like about ourselves - you have to accept it’s part of you, but you’re working on it, and you never really get rid of it. For me, it’s being that pragmatic, tough person; it’s something I like, but also something I have to watch out for, as it could be overwhelming for people.

What advice would you share with someone fighting impostor syndrome?

What helps is to think about the past two or three years and about what you have achieved. It’s making yourself aware of where you were three years ago, what has changed, and what you achieved - where you pushed the change or drove the change, or what impact you had on the change.

That makes you aware, because sometimes you forget what you’ve achieved and then you feel like you didn’t do anything or own everything. It helps to reflect on what you have achieved and where you are.

Did you experience that at the start of your career or do you still have it now?

I still experience it right now. Now that I’m looking for new jobs, I think: Do I really fit the profile? Can I live up to their expectations? Then I have to say, “I did it twice already and I did it successfully.”

Look back and try to make a list of your achievements, and try to see the knowledge and what you learnt out of it. That helps you to understand that you have grown as a person. It’s recognising your own growth and seeing where you were back then, seeing what steps you took and so on. For me, it has a lot to do with reflection and appreciating all of what you’ve done.

I reflect quite a lot, in particular about myself: How I have done something? How could I do it differently? Do I need to do it differently? Do I need to worry about something? I think that’s a really important step in developing your own personality. But you have to be very careful with overdoing it, because you’ll become insecure, as you are telling yourself you could do better, and then you’re getting into the impostor syndrome, so do it very carefully.

Also, what helps is talking to other people; get their views. Not necessarily asking them how they perceive you, but have conversations with your team on what you have achieved and so on. I think that helps, too.

I try to prevent other people - also in my team - from getting into the same situation, as we need to highlight and celebrate achievements. I have one person in my team, who is now employed by a new team lead, and she has come so far.

Still, she feels insecure sometimes, and I have to talk to her and let her know what she has achieved, and we have to celebrate that with the people surrounding you. We all have feelings and we all get frustrated; sometimes your anger and frustration gets the best out of you. It’s happened to me a few times, but then you move on.

How important are mentors to you and do you currently have a mentor?

Right now I do not have one, but I used to have one. When I was at Hilti, there’s a network in Switzerland which is called Advance. It is a female leadership network and Hilti was part of it, and their goal is to empower females in leadership positions, in any area.

When you are a member of that programme, you have someone who is a mentor, but you can also nominate a mentee. They nominated me, which was super cool, so I got to work with a really great lady whose name is Natalie Zihlmann, and she was the Head of HR for Randstad in Switzerland, and now she’s the Head of HR Business Partners for a big insurance company. She is super cool and she’s very much like me. She helped me reflect a lot and also define that impostor syndrome.

At that point, I was insecure and she helped me get back on my feet and say, “You know what, it doesn’t matter what they think.” She gave me a lot of very good tips and I’m grateful for having had her in my life, particularly at a time where it was super difficult for me. That was the best that could have happened to me to be fair.

How can someone stand out in the interview process to show their potential?

We probably have a less formal approach in interviewing. What I do not believe in is having these firm interviews where you ask typical questions and you’re trying to put stress on people.  

I think the conversation like we’re having now will get the best out of people. I am just trying to understand what people are about; their base and their experiences, and trying to see what I can read out of it, which is sometimes not easy.

I think a lot of people have more potential than they actually think and they need to have the right environment to be successful. That’s probably the key - if you’re not successful in one company, it doesn’t mean that you’re not going to be successful in another one. Maybe it’s just not the right environment for you.

Also, as a manager, you need to have the guts to tell people that this is not what you should be doing. Sometimes, it’s just not working and you have to be tough with them, too.

When you let people be themselves, that’s the only way you can read or see what they’re capable of, because you don’t want to have the answers by the book.

What did you achieve in 2022 that you were proud of and what are your goals to achieve in 2023?

In 2022, what I’m super proud of is, we built a functional Talent Acquisition cross-segment team at Zur Rose Group. We had people in Spain, in the Netherlands, in Switzerland, in Germany, and we are working as a team. To get there was super tough, but that’s something which I’m proud of.

It sounds sad now, but what I’m trying to achieve is to separate the team again - not to separate it because that is what we have to do, but to separate it in a way which is comfortable for everyone and still leaves two workable teams. That is because, basically, even though they are leaving us, they still need to be in a good working mode with the rest of the team. So, if we can achieve a really nice, smooth split, which does not leave any hard feelings, I think then we did a good job on that.

We are having a meeting to make a list of the tasks that we need to do, to make them aware of what’s going to happen, what their workload is going to be, and to engage with them and make them aware. That is because, currently, we don’t have the awareness of what it will mean for the different teams.

I am worried; we’ve put another balance sheet into building the team and we finally made it work, and now the task is to separate again, so it’s super difficult. I have some really good people in the team now - I don’t want to lose them. We will have to say goodbye to a few people, also.

What was the last thing that made you smile?

What really made me happy was today, for lunch - now that I’m living back in the area, I’m very close to my family again, and my family is all super close. I have a sister with two boys that are eight and ten. My brother, his wife and his kid, who is like six months, all meet for lunch on Wednesday, and I hadn’t seen them because of my vacation and their vacation.

I was standing in front of my parents’ house and one of my nephews came running to me with open arms, “I miss you so much, I’m so happy to see you,” and that just made my day. That was super nice and really made me happy. The thing with children is they are genuine, they are just real; he was just so happy to see me and I was happy to see him.

Thank you to Stefanie for speaking to Lauren Eagar, Senior Consultant in our Finance & Accountancy recruitment division in Switzerland. 

Views and opinions contained within our Executive Interviews are those of the interviewee and not views shared by EMEA Recruitment.