The Many Faces of Our #AilleronExperts

In our women’s series we welcome Karolina Strzelczyk, an HR professional and trainer by profession, and a doctor of social sciences in psychology by education. In her work she is passionate about the soft approach to management, professional positive psychology, and job crafting. For 16 years she has been supporting companies in Poland and around the world in setting and achieving their business goals, and for over a year she has been taking care of all things people-related at our company — and today she’ll share that broad and versatile experience with us. We’ll talk about growth and self-care, and we’ll get practical tips on how to stay offline. We invite you to this valuable conversation.

1. Karolina, you’re the Head of the People department at Ailleron. It’s a role with a lot of responsibility — you work with many people and different departments across the company. What do you do on a daily basis?

Good question. 😊 My role is very broad — in short, I could say I deal with everything related to employees at Ailleron. My main task is managing strategic matters connected with organizational culture, employee development, and the People and Culture strategy. I provide business advisory in the people area and handle change management. A big part of my work is also data and its analysis in the context of making strategic decisions and working with the management board.

I’m the leader of the People team, made up of talented women. Through their work and commitment they show every day what matters to them, initiating a whole range of projects aimed at building a healthily engaged culture.

The areas of my work are diverse. I’m active in recruitment, employer branding (candidate experience), employee onboarding, and development activities. I’m responsible for building employee experience. ESG topics are close to my heart — caring for employee wellbeing and corporate social responsibility. Together with the team, we’re also responsible for employee engagement activities and internal communication.

2. It’s clear that work is your passion — you always approach new challenges with commitment. Yet these are often delicate and difficult topics concerning employee matters, human matters. How do you cope in those harder moments? Does your background in psychology help you in such situations?

Oh yes, being Head of People is a demanding job. In my role I represent the interests of various parties: the management board, managers, employees, and my own team. My task is to bring these intentions together and create solutions that would combine the needs of all these groups. It’s not easy — often downright impossible — to meet everyone’s expectations, and that’s when you have to juggle and flexibly look for solutions.

3. One could venture to say you’re agile?

Oh yes, sometimes very much so. 😉 I knew quite early on that I like people and want to work with them (which doesn’t mean I never have moments of doubt), so the thought of studying psychology came to me naturally. Back when I was applying, psychology was hugely popular — more than 20 people were competing for every spot. That’s why I had a plan B in reserve: environmental science, in case I didn’t get into psychology. Luckily, plan B never went into effect. It was psychology that stole my heart. Even though I’ve been involved in psychology since 2003 (oh wow, that’s going to be 21 years now), I still have so much left to discover in it, and I’m drawing from it by the handful.

My background in psychology helps me enormously in my role and in life. Thanks to my education and experience as a psychologist, I’m aware of the mechanisms governing our behavior and motivation. I draw on this knowledge as early as the initial stage of recruitment. It tells me how to run recruitment processes and interviews. Many people find these meetings stressful and experience difficult emotions related to having to present themselves and be evaluated during recruitment. This is where psychology lends a helping hand, making it possible to break the ice during such conversations. It’s also valuable when designing training and development programs or managerial coaching. It’s precisely psychological skills in conflict management, problem solving, and building healthy relationships between employees that foster a positive atmosphere. At work we often face difficult tasks that may go beyond our area of specialization. Stress appears — stress that can paralyze, that doesn’t motivate, that burns us out. In my daily work I see how much effort it costs managers to run a team, to handle the daily grind and operational matters. I think that thanks to my psychological background I’m able to understand these mechanisms and be a real support for people who need it and come for it in harder moments. During my studies, as well as my PhD in psychology, a lot of attention was paid to psychometrics. Data analysis skills are also essential in my work.

4. As the People department, which we’re part of (so we know it firsthand), we care deeply about relationships within the company and try to build them on foundations such as mutual respect, cooperation, and trust. What is the basis for building good relationships in such a large organization, where so many people with all sorts of characters work? How do you and the team manage to do it?

I think there are many factors that influence good relationships. Let’s start with communication. What helps is a space where a person can say what they actually think and feel they will be heard. At the organizational level, this shows in regular team meetings or individual 1-on-1 conversations. Communication seems like a simple thing — we communicate all the time, everyone knows how to do it. And yet it’s precisely communication that very often causes the most misunderstandings. We often forget how much we differ from one another. What’s obvious to one person doesn’t have to be obvious to another. The fact that we hear A in someone’s words doesn’t mean at all that this person actually said A. For effective communication we need trust. Without it, there’s no way to build deeper relationships.

What also strengthens our relationships is expressing appreciation and recognition for someone’s efforts and achievements. They say a friend in need is a friend indeed. I think there’s a lot of truth in that, but another test of our relationships is how we handle other people’s successes. Are we able to appreciate someone’s work and commitment and say it out loud? It’s often easier to name and point out when someone does something wrong. And that matters too — talking about things and not “sweeping them under the rug,” but resolving the conflicts that come up.

Good relationships are also fostered by initiatives around mental and physical health — through them we promote a healthy lifestyle and cooperation. And of course we can’t forget about team-building and company events, which let employees get to know each other better.

Do we succeed at it? Our Aillerons would have to answer that. It’s worth remembering that as the People team we provide the tools, the opportunities, certain foundations. But it’s all of us — the whole Ailleron community — who build the company culture and shape the relationships we create.

5. Building relationships and clear communication fall into the sphere of soft skills. Yet training in this area, especially in such a highly technical environment, can be tricky. Why do you think taking care of this area of development is just as important as developing hard skills?

I believe it’s worth developing both technical and soft competencies. Metaphorically speaking, you can be a great driver — know when to shift into a higher gear, how to drive economically — and at the same time get frustrated behind the wheel, yelling at everyone, honking, and being rude. Is it possible? Of course it is, but is that really what we want? Is it worth it?

And it’s the same with the work of technical people. They need soft skills to communicate effectively, present their ideas, and convince others of their point of view. Creativity and critical thinking will definitely help in coming up with innovative ideas and ventures. Even if you’re a developer with great technical skills, you need to know how to organize your work and how to choose priorities and tasks. At work we’re rarely a lone island — we usually work in a group. Finding a compromise is often no easy art, like deciding whether it’s already a bug or still a feature. ;)

Another soft skill often sought on the job market is adaptability to change and flexibility. My observations from job interviews also show that technical people often struggle with presenting themselves and their skills, despite the talent and experience they have.

In my opinion, the more competencies we have “in our hat,” the better we can handle various situations in life. It’s often assumed that someone got an interesting job or some opportunity as a lucky coincidence. I believe a lucky break matters, but there’s something more important. Opportunity favors those who are prepared for it. As Jackson Brown wrote — “opportunity dances with those already on the dance floor.” It’s worth being prepared for different life scenarios. The fact that our professional or personal situation looks a certain way now doesn’t mean it will be the same in x years.

6. At Ailleron we put a lot of emphasis on employee development, including soft skills. Which initiatives at the company support this area?

Within Ailleron we have plenty of opportunities to develop our soft skills. The development programs we organize for our employees are a good occasion. We have several editions of the Ailleron Academy behind us. It’s our flagship development program, consisting of a series of workshops and follow-up sessions that address the business’s needs in the area of soft skills. Another development initiative is Power Up Camp, which is based on internal knowledge sharing. Additionally, once a month we prepare Look & learn development digests and Stay well digests on broadly understood mental health, which are a source of inspiration for self-development in various spheres of life. Our employees can also use 80 hours per year for development within working hours. Ailleron has development paths that define the purpose of a position, a role description, and the required experience, knowledge, and soft and technical skills. They serve as development signposts — for example, which areas are worth developing when the desire to change positions appears. Webinars organized as part of the annual wellbeing initiative are also a big dose of knowledge and inspiration. This several-month program is aimed at caring for both physical and mental wellbeing.

I think what’s important is that we emphasize a balanced approach. Development programs offer a chance for self-reflection, exchanging experiences, and safely testing new perspectives and tools. Whether an employee develops their competencies depends on whether they turn the acquired knowledge and inspiration into their work through trial and error. And that, in my opinion, is the hardest work each of us has to do. A training budget, a leader, and the People team’s initiatives can help us with this by stimulating our growth. But they can’t do that growth for us. I believe that if you’re not growing, you’re shrinking.

7. The People team cares just as much about employee wellbeing and keeping a balance between work and private life. Several editions of the #well-being challenge program have already taken place. In today’s hectic world, the ability to keep that balance is extremely important, but also very difficult. From your practice and experience, what lies at the foundation of effectively caring for your wellbeing?

Taking care of health in every aspect is very important. In theory, I think we’ve mastered this platitude to perfection. We courteously wish each other good health on many occasions. Asked what’s important in life, we loudly declare that health matters most. If you looked at practice, the situation is completely different. The natural follow-up would be to ask: what are you doing for your health? And this is where things get tricky, because often we don’t do much, and sometimes we even get into situations that harm us. Cognitive dissonance appears, which we try to drown out with a series of beliefs — for example, “you have to die of something” — to minimize the gap between our declarations and our behavior. Often crises, loss of health, or the illness of our loved ones or ourselves become a moment of pause. It gives us an impulse to reflect and re-evaluate our current lifestyle. Paradoxically, it can become a chance to change our relationships, our beliefs, our health.

Effectively caring for your wellbeing covers many areas. In my opinion, the common denominator of wellbeing is mindfulness. Checking in on what our needs are. Is what used to be important and good for us still in first place? Looking at what serves us and what takes away our health and energy. Often the solutions we reach for are meant to “solve” problems in the short term, while in the long term they contribute to deepening them — for example, reaching for alcohol or throwing ourselves into work to drown out loneliness or low self-esteem.

When caring for your wellbeing, it’s worth taking small steps — for example, a balanced diet. Regular daily physical activity is just as important. By caring for good-quality sleep, you care for your nervous system. The ability to cope in difficult situations and building mental resilience are also very important in a world of galloping change. Surrounding yourself with valuable relationships that you nurture and cultivate works “wonders” for our mental wellbeing. It’s also worth remembering regular medical check-ups, which make it possible to detect irregularities at an early stage and find solutions to potential health problems.

And here you could make a very long list of things that — whether started or stopped — could help in caring for wellbeing. From my perspective, it’s worth starting with things we’ll be able to fit into our daily schedule. That makes it easier to stick to the resolution and build a new healthy habit. How to do it? I recommend reaching for the book “Atomic Habits,” in which James Clear shows the mechanism of building lasting routines that can become our allies on our daily journey.

8. Do you think Ailleron is succeeding at this?

That’s a question for each of us. Through the People team’s activities, we create opportunities to take care of yourself. The idea behind the flagship #WELL-being program is caring for employee wellbeing. Every year the program is very popular. In the latest edition we could take advantage of, among other things, consultations with a dietitian, classes with a personal trainer, or sessions with a massage therapist. Webinars on various areas of health — for example, cancer prevention — attracted a lot of interest. When we examined the effects of the #Wellbeing Challenge activities, participants declared they had experienced real benefits, such as increased activity and energy, better mental and physical wellbeing, and a greater willingness to engage in their work duties. There are also joint trips to the mountains or bike rides. We focus on relationships, which is why we prepare initiatives that are an occasion to meet at the office. Appreciating the work of our colleagues is an important value at work for us.

Just as with development activities, in the area of caring for wellbeing each of us has our own work to do.

9. In my opinion, our current lifestyle and the kind of work we do at Ailleron — constantly sitting in front of a computer, staring at our phones — disturbs our wellbeing. We’re constantly in information-intake mode, overstimulated. What are your 3 tips for being offline? And why does it pay off?

I like the sports metaphor in which we can compare our life to a run. In this view, life is not a sprint but a marathon. To be able to run through life, it’s worth taking care of the quality of the run. The modern lifestyle, consumption, the urge to own things, and screen media steal a great deal of our energy. We live in an instant culture — we’re constantly bombarded with information and images, and we’re constantly hungry for them. This creates a sense of excess and overwhelm. There’s more and more talk about returning to our roots, to nature. Slow life is being promoted. In my view, these are very important matters that can help us regulate our emotions and function healthily.

My top 3 actions that help with a digital detox:

Not installing social media on your phone — it’s the phone we have at hand most often, and the temptation to take “just a quick look” is often strong, only for it to turn out we’ve spent 15 minutes staring at content that adds nothing to our lives.

Turning off notifications on your phone — a sound or a notification on the screen encourages us to reach for the phone because an email has just arrived. The absence of distractions can help in building deep work, which Carl Newport writes about (I highly recommend the book).

Planning the time you’ve reclaimed — we often complain that we have no time, and when we finally have it, we often don’t know what to do with it. Social media “prey” on our idle moments. Plan activities — for example, a walk or meeting up with a friend. Instead of staring at your phone, tablet, or computer, create an alternative way of delivering dopamine to your brain. Building and writing down islands of memories can help with this. Think about what memories you have from the past day. What happened in your life beyond the frantic daily grind? What’s worth remembering from that day? What did you do for yourself or for others? It’s exactly these moments that build the quality of our lives. It’s worth creating and noticing them.

10. You have a lot of experience working in the IT industry. What are your observations — has the “boldness” and confidence of women in this industry changed? What drives these changes?

Poland ranks very low in the European Union in terms of the percentage of women among IT specialists, according to research by the Economic Institute from November 2022. The largest percentage of women in IT work in testing, project management, or internal departments such as Marketing, UX, or People. The percentage of women at technical universities is certainly growing, but the majority of students in IT fields are still men. The existence of pay gaps between women and men in Poland, also in this industry, is undeniable.

What can help increase the number of women in the IT industry is education and awareness raising, fighting gender bias, concrete actions that will encourage women to grow in STEM fields, and mentoring and training programs.

Based on the No Fluff Jobs report “Women in IT 2023,” 81% of candidates from Poland who would like to start working in IT admit that finding a first job in the industry is difficult. I think we’re moving toward more inclusive work environments, but these are not quick changes. From my observations in one-on-one sessions — women more often than men face challenges around self-confidence and self-esteem. They analyze much more before deciding whether they could apply for a given position. They expect much more of themselves and often want to tick off every single requirement before deciding to take part in a recruitment process. This is partly connected with the upbringing model we grew up in. Of course, this is a generalization and doesn’t apply to all of us in this environment.

At Ailleron we promote women through, among other things, the #WomanPower in IT series, which showcases the stories of our colleagues. We want it to inspire other women.

11. There’s no denying that #WomanPower can be felt in our People team. Eight women make a strong team. 😊

Oh yes! 😊 8 women on one team definitely creates power. The power to act, to inspire each other with ideas, to share knowledge. It’s 8 different perspectives that come together into one coherent vision of real support for the company’s strategy and its employees. Thank you, Girls 💖