In the world of corporate leadership, those who embrace diverse career paths and prioritize a human-centric approach stand out as true visionaries. In this episode of AdvantageClub.ai’s Inspiring Leadership Podcast, we have the privilege of featuring İbrahim Cay, the HR Manager for  Klöckner Pentaplast MEIA in Turkey.

Smiti: Hi, everyone, and welcome to yet another episode of Inspiring Leaders and Leadership by AdvantageClub.ai. My name is Smiti, I’m one of the founders of AdvantageClub.ai, and I’m your host for today. Today, we have an amazing person with us. We have İbrahim  Çay, all the way joining us from Turkey, who manages HR for  Klöckner Pentaplast. Welcome İbrahim. It’s a pleasure to have you here. 

İbrahim: Thank you so much, Smiti, for your invitation, and I’m very pleased to join in and have a conversation with you. I’m very happy to share my experience. Thank you. 

Smiti: Thanks, İbrahim. So, let’s start a little bit by telling the audience about your background, what you do and your journey in HR. 

İbrahim: Sure, absolutely. My journey  started after university. To be honest, I wanted to work in the government as an officer and auditor.  At the end of my university time, I was preparing for the exam to become an auditor. Unfortunately, a devastating earthquake happened in my city 20 years ago.Because of that, all examinations were cancelled. So, I had to complete my military service, which is mandatory in our country. I had to go there, and I completed and came back and then started in a special marketplace as an accountant. 

So, my career started as an accountant at Lactalis, and that was my first experience. Lactalis is very famous in Europe; it produces milk and dairy products. I didn’t like accountant topics or accounting duties because I didn’t like the documentation. I wanted to get in touch with the people and work with them. The HR manager realized my enthusiasm, and then he offered me to work with him. Then, I accepted his offer right away and got transferred to the HR department, and my career started over there as an HR officer. 

I worked there for almost one year, and then I got promoted to another company, which is the holding company of the same company. It was an internal transfer. The second company was producing coke, and I was responsible for HR. I have worked there for almost six years, and I have gained a lot of experience. Then, I was transferred again to an internal company, and the name was Pharmamak. . However, in 2016, Klöckner  Pentaplast and  Pharmamak were accused and then merged. Right now, I am working there as a Human Resource manager. It was very exciting because Klöckner Pentaplast is very famous in the world’s plastic marketplace sector. Almost 6,000 employees work for this company, and I represent the Turkish site. 

Smiti: That’s great. And, it’s been almost 20 years since you’ve been in the industry, spending most of it in HR. And it’s been a very interesting journey. You started looking forward to a government job, but then I think the universe had different things and plans  for you. And then you moved to an accountant role, and then from accounts directly to HR. So I’m sure it would’ve been really challenging to move from various departments, learn new things over time. And,  we always say that challenges are the stepping stones to success. So how did you navigate challenges when the going gets tough? And any examples of failures that you’ve experienced,  and you’ve overcome, and what you’ve learned from it? 

İbrahim: Thank you. To go on this, I have had failure in my career, but I learned a lot of things from this failure. I believe that what doesn’t make you die will make you stronger. These things are the same with everything in life, I can say. 

Let’s take an example: in my second company, which is into coke production, I have worked there for almost six years, but there was no promotion for me and no exceptional salary increment.  I was working hard, and I was the only employee working in HR. But I realized that something had to be changed, and then I did an interview with myself. ” İbrahim, what is your lack of competencies?” And then I found that. This happened almost 11 or 12 years ago. I found three things. I have to increase my language skills. In addition, I have to increase my graduation level. And a little bit of self-confidence is what I need. Then, I started to change my life after this decision. I didn’t complain anywhere. Then, I made a critical decision to learn English, and I went to London for a while; I was off and, over time, I came back and applied to a university for a master’s degree. Then, I felt a little bit self-confident; I was transferred to another company with these competencies. I can say that. 

If you would like to change the world or if you would like to change the company, I believe that you have to change yourselves first. It’s very critical. All people are complaining about others, but we should look at ourselves. I convinced myself, as I mentioned before. I couldn’t get any promotion during that time, but I did interviews with myself, and I have changed my life and reached my dream. In my first year, I became a human resource specialist. Two years later, I became a human resources executive and, right now, an HR manager. Right now, I’m managing HR in the Middle East and Europe and, mostly, in Turkey. I’m very happy with the change in my life with my interview.  

Smiti: I love that concept of interviewing yourself, especially as HRs and who understand what you need from a candidate when you’re hiring them. It also gives you time to go back and self-reflect and think that, “If I was hiring myself, would I hire myself?” So the interview itself is a great anecdote and I think everyone should at least follow that and identify what challenges they can overcome to be more competent over time. So, I love that. Moving on to the next question, who has been your biggest supporter or mentor over the course of your career? 

İbrahim: To be honest, Mehdi is my biggest mentor. I can say I have three mentors, but the first and biggest mentor was my mom. My mom taught me to love people in general. I believe that if you work in the HR department and don’t like or love the people, it is not possible to achieve success. 

There is a lot of conflict. It will happen all the time, with someone else, and with some topics as well. But, when you come across this conflict, you can defeat all problems with the love of the people. For example,  when the conflict arises, you can say I’m not angry with him, even if he is angry with me and I’m trying to get in touch. If you get along with the goodwill, I have realized that all conflicts will give good results. This is the first and critical thing for me. And another one is my elder brother, who was a hard-working person. I grew up with his experiences and his love of working. 

My third mentor is my family; I can say this because my family, Midi, stayed that whole time trusting me. Sometimes, when I feel stuck, I think about my family, my wife, and my children. They say, “I am  trusting you all the time, Dad.” And then I restart again.  I can say that my family, my elder brother, and my mom are all my biggest mentors. So,  as a sum up, I learned to love from my mom and work hard in every condition from my elder brother and do something because there’s no one else who believes in you more than family.

Smiti: No, that’s absolutely true. And I always say that if your personal life is sorted, your professional life is also sorted. And it might not be the other way around, your professional life might not be sorted, but that will not affect your personal life that much. But having a family support is really, really important, especially if you wanna grow in your career so that you’re not worried about that part of the world and you can move forward and gain growth in your career. 

And, everything begins at home, so of course, if you are in a people-facing function like HR, you need to have love for the people. Otherwise, if you can’t empathize with them, you will never understand their problems, and you’ll never be able to come up with innovative solutions for that. 

So, you’re talking about people-facing functions like HRs or figuring out the challenges for the employees and then solving them over time; employee needs are also constantly changing today. What used to work yesterday does not work today. What works today might not work tomorrow. So, how do you think  HR leaders should approach this in terms of constantly changing employee needs? How can they address those challenges? 

İbrahim: Understood, the HR is very critical, department in a company because,  for example, you are hiring someone and then the person, the employee, who you hired, employee, is challenging the company, with his decision. It means that we have to be careful about hiring terms. 

So I have steps to find the correct candidate for my job .I have six steps, I can say. The first one, the employee candidate has to be a team player. If you are not a team player, it doesn’t matter who you are and where you are from. Where have you graduated from and what is your competence? It does not matter if you are not working with the team in line, it is not available for the company. 

Then the other one, the second one is, the candidate has to push and show leadership in the team. We have to find a team member and then, he or she has to show leadership in the team, because we need this competency and enthusiasm. The other one, the third one, is enthusiasm. If you love your job and if you have enough motivation for your job, which is we have to do your duties. Without it, it will not be easier to reach out to accomplish. Because of that, I believe that enthusiasm is very critical. The first time you can be successful, yes, but it’s not sustainable. 

The fourth has to be, and is very critical, is being ethical. You have to obey all rules and ethical rules. You have not to be affected by the people during your job. And you have to be in line with the social laws, rules are very critical. And the fifth thing is that one should be job oriented and also humanitarian. Not just job oriented alone but humanitarian, humanist as well. I would like to explain what I mean. 

For example, when I give a job to someone, and let’s say that he is so job oriented and he’s reached out his target, but he can  destroy around,  I don’t need things. I need results, but also good people, collective people. So that’s why I don’t want the jungle fighters. We need both, he has to be human, humanity and job oriented. I have combined this in the fifth act. 

The last one is added value. And added value is very critical because, for example, as a HR, we are doing social activities and then we are making  decisions. If this activity is not positively affecting PnL, it’s not necessary, we don’t need to do this, or if we hire someone, and if he can be successful & a member as well. But if the things which he has done are not affecting the profitability, then it is not necessary. Because of that, this last one, added value is critical, it has to be included in the characteristic for the candidates. If you achieve and build a team which includes these competencies, I believe that company will be very successful. I realized that and I experienced that. Right now, I am implanting these steps.

Smiti: That’s great. And just to summarize the six pointers which you mentioned are that the candidates need to be team players. They need to have the ability to work with the leadership and eventually evolve as a leader. They need to be enthusiastic or motivated towards their work. They need to be ethical, they need to be job oriented, humanitarian, and also need to add more value to the organization than what is just expected out of them, as a simple job. 

So when we talk about,  let’s focus on the enthusiasm and the motivation part of the six pointers. motivation or enthusiasm or belongingness towards an organization,  while of course before you join a company, you are automatically motivated. But once you join a company, things change.  So you also need the organization to support you, to encourage you, to motivate you, and retain you eventually.  What typically organizations do is they create employee recognition or engagement programs to drive a better employee experience. So any examples of how you have innovated recognition experience or engagement programs at Klöckner Pentaplast ? 

İbrahim: I can say that they hire the best or make employees who are hired are trained well. Otherwise, the first step we are doing is hearing the voice of the employees in Klöckner Pentaplast , we do this with yearly survey engagement. And then,  we collect their opinion regarding our job, methodologies, and what they want from their managers. And we are writing them, writing all the things, and we are collecting the datas, and also, especially the company’s support during the survey engagement process, which is very famous in the world. Then we are organizing workshop meetings with the employees for each shift and also the all white-collar employees as well as the blue-collar employees as well. 

Then we are discussing the results of the survey.  What was wrong? What can be an action plan to solve this problem? And we are defining the problem and all of the actions together. It’s very valuable.  We are asking the employee, we are asking the blue-collar employees, “So what is your expectation from us?” And then, when you ask the employee these things, the employee reflects the good things. I have experienced this a lot.  

Then, we are doing monthly meetings with the global HR managers, regarding our action plans. Then, two years later, we did the same survey engagement again. We are following up on what has happened, what has changed, what has still continued to be a problem. And then year by year, all problems can be solved.   but time is changing and all problems can be related at the same time. For example,  a problem can be the reason for this year, but in the next two years,  we may not have the same problem. So that’s why it is very critical to hear the voice of the employees. 

And also we continue to have open door meetings with them, line by line. And, we are doing industrial meetings with the union representatives to understand what is the problem. I would like to share my experiences. We are asking the employees during the industrial meetings, to tell us, what is your emotional problem? What do you want from us to make your job conditions better? They are suggesting to us, regarding the machine renewable, not individual demands. It’s very nice. It’s very critical and makes me happy. If you ask the people,  the employees, they are reflecting the good things. If you give one thing, they are giving back to you, two things. 

On the other hand, we don’t want to miss any social activities and celebrating days, for example, birthdays and, the World Woman Days, etc. Maybe I can say the last things, for this. We have created a training matrix and competencies matrix for the blue-collar employee especially. We have all the job titles and also what we need, the competencies in order to do this job. And we have related the employees according to this table, and then we see the requirement of the training. So when we complete the training terms, we are updating this table, and then we are learning together. We are growing the knowledge of the employees during this application. Maybe I can say that caring for them and well-being is very critical nowadays. We have passed the COVID-19 terms, and also in Turkey,  a big earthquake has happened.  We need a little bit of a well-being process.  We are catering to these topics as well. 

Smiti: I love that, and I like how you split this across four domains.  One is a 360-degree feedback, where you’re not just taking feedback from white collars but also listening to the blue collars, understanding their challenges, and devising your company strategies based what the employees are saying and not based what the management is deciding,  So it’s a very bottom-to-top process, which is great. Second around celebrations of moments that matter, so birthdays, anniversaries, Women’s Week, and all of those things, where, on those specific moments,  employees get the right touchpoints and they get recognitions or rewards or gifts or whatever to drive them to feel more belonged to the organization. I like the third part around training and learning, basically upskilling your employees and reskilling them, to ensure that the productivity increases, at the same time, they also feel that they’re getting more from the company itself. And of course, well-being, it’s the need of the hour. Unfortunately, we had this earthquake last month in Turkey. We spoke about it, 40,000 people died.  well-being is literally on top of everybody’s priority today. So what the organization does in cases of, such natural disasters or any mishaps, and how do you support your employees not just for now but also for going forward in the future?  It’s great that KP is working on all the four pillars of employee experience. It’s great to know that.
 

İbrahim: Thank you. 

Smiti: So just to wrap up,  the last question, is there any piece of advice you would like to give to HR leaders of tomorrow? 

İbrahim: I can say that, work hard and believe in yourself. If someone can change themselves, then they will be able to change the company. And then if you change the company, you will be a better valued person in the company. And, in my opinion, we need to follow all the trends, HR trends, HR stories, personal management,  to the HR management, HR human resources management. And then also, strategic HR management has been placed instead of the HR management. But right now, we are following all the analytic HR processes. And the trend is continuing from the past. And we have to have new guys to follow all the trends. 

And, I would like to say that the last thing is that HR people should be aware of the financial instrument of the company. Just a little bit, it can be enough. A lot of people can think that HR is not related to financial things, but I don’t think like this. HR can change  productivity, profit and losing numbers and dividends by having a little bit  of understanding of the balance sheet, then it will be effective if we are aware of these issues.

Smiti: That comes perfectly from you,  Having known accounts and having known HR, you just merge them both together. If, HR knows accounts and accounts knows HR, I mean, that’s amazing. So I love that mix which you did for both.

İbrahim: We have started with accounting and then we have finished with accounting. That’s all.  

Smiti: Yes, I think that’s how the world should function, ? Everything should start from P&L and everything should be structured around P&L, and everything should be targeted in that way. And everyone, if they work in that same direction with the same thought process of growing the company, I think it’ll just bring everyone on the same page. So I love that, and thank you. And with that we’re at the end of the podcast. Thank you so much, İbrahim, for your time today. It was amazing interacting with you. 

İbrahim: Yeah. 

Smiti: And, our hearts and our prayers to all the people of Turkey. And, for the ones who’ve lost others,  we hope we send all our prayers and wishes to them. And for the ones who are rebuilding their life,  we wish them all the best. So thank you İbrahim, for your time, and it was lovely interacting with you today. 

İbrahim: Thank you so much. My pleasure. Thank you.