"It is difficult to get well qualified people in the chemical industry," explains Miranda Aleman, HR Manager NL & UK at Huntsman. "The complexity in local and international laws and regulations, specifically when it comes to specific (technical) knowledge and experience with capital-intensive installations combined with the international playing field, demands a lot of the people we are looking for. So it's great to have Lodiers & Partners by your side to dive into that. They look beyond the surface at both the organisation and the people, and understand this challenge."
Huntsman is a global manufacturer of MDIs (polyurethanes), polymer resin systems, and other products. The semi-finished and finished products find their way to various industries, including construction, automotive, automation, robotics & engineering, and sports & leisure. The numerous applications can be found in all aspects of society, so their motto "Enriching Lives Through Innovation" certainly resonates with that. The company, which is still partly family-owned, has more than 9,000 employees and a global presence with 110 sites including 65 production facilities. In the Netherlands, the company is based in Rotterdam.
Miranda Aleman: "We are part of the chemical supply chain, and are in the middle of it. Our strategy is to move towards the end products. It's what you call 'going downstream' in the sector. We work with finished goods manufacturers on innovations within the sectors they serve. Because our products are also evolving, you can see that in some segments we are now supplying finished products ourselves. As a relatively small producer, we therefore manage to have a huge portfolio, from semi-finished products to finished products. We make a lot of different products that end up in a huge range of end products, that increases the complexity of the plants and of the business demand. This means that we are often looking for the most versatile people. Lodiers & Partners keeps us grounded by asking the questions from a different perspective."
With honesty, integrity, respect, and responsibility as core values, Miranda Aleman is always looking for employee engagement. "It's about engagement and creating a bond - something you always have to invest in. It is how I look at HR as a whole, whether it relates to organisational restructuring, employee development, and collective labour agreement negotiations. In the end, it is all about how you deal with people. How well you can convey the bigger picture. Working in HR means that you are an instrumental, operational and/or strategic partner of the Executive Board. For me, it has always been predominantly the latter. You must be able to work together at all levels - within the context of the organisation you work for, of course. You have to understand what the stakeholders want, but also understand the position of the works council. It is the trick to find the momentum to innovate. And it is crucial to get everyone engaged and on board in that bigger picture."
In the search for new people at board and management level Miranda works together with Lodiers & Partners. "I see a parallel in the way we are working. Robert Lodiers always looks further. He wants to know where we want to go as an organisation and about what the composition of the team is like. "
"What is also great is that we always keep in touch. Particularly in this line of work, trusting each other is much more important than the hard business side of things. I know what they stand for and how they work. Sometimes, we need staff who know all the ins and outs of the laws and regulations as well as the processes. And for other positions, you need people who have a broader view of everything. The chemical industry is quite conservative, with risk-averse management in general, which is good for safety aspects. But as an HR Manager, you sometimes have to push the limits and look at the dot on the horizon. The level of innovation is high, processes are automated, and we live and work in a rapidly changing world. Those developments and challenges are guiding in the hiring of tomorrow's management."
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