Radical openness as a path to success and several other innovative approaches within business will be presented to us by the executive ex director of Profesia, Mrs. Ivanka Molnarova.
In addition to leading an international company, Ivanka Molnárova is actively involved in people development and psychology. She helps with building healthy working conditions not only in Slovakia, but also within foreign companies.
Le Globless: Ivanka, for more than 25 years you have been bringing technology to the world of HR in Central Europe. How did you grow from being the first online portal offering job opportunities in Slovakia, to an important international technology company?
Ivanka Molnarova: I have been working with the project since 2001, actually ever since the beginning when we began to build our business, marketing and company strategy. I was the first salesperson who started selling the company services to clients. The company had a vision to become the most powerful job search portal in Slovakia.
Based on the market demand, new products related to job search were created, and they were gradually added to the company’s portfolio.
The founders were three men from UI42 who made websites. The Profesia website was born in 2000, when
the company was also created. The American Investment Fund joined the company in 2001. Subsequently, the company changed owners, as we were bought by the English company TMJT. Ten years ago the company was bought by Alma media Finland, a company that has global, grandiose plans. The new company showed confidence in me and gave us freedom in managing the company and developing products.
“Since we summarize a lot of data and offer various products in various countries of the world, the next goal of the company is to connect this flow of information and make it more global.”
Now we are in the process of change and transformation. We are globalizing and corporatizing. My personal goal is still to maintain our values which are very specific and important.
Le Globless: Which product do you rate as the most interesting and at the same time the best for new investors to enter into the market?
Ivanka Molnarova: One of the most interesting projects is Paylap. It serves to summarize data. This data, such as salaries, market research, availability of workforce in Slovakia and Europe, is a very useful tool for determining the company’s corporate policy.
Subsequently, we can compare salaries and individual conditions throughout Europe. Comparing salaries and costs in individual EU countries is very important, as well as monitoring the quality and available workforce in the countries or regions. This information allows investors to save time and money during the necessary market research when establishing a company policy.
We regularly prepare complete analysis for investors, as well as labor market research, such as:
– Survey of salary costs
– Costs of experts in the given sector and in individual regions or countries
– The differences and availability of the work force
We have huge amounts of data that we verify.
“If you hire a skilled person with experience and excellent proven results, he can increase your income a hundredfold. That’s because he knows how to move in the field and take the correct decisions. However, it is all about the leader at the head of the company, who chooses the right people to whom he entrusts the work and authority. At the same time, he shares the company plans and confidential information with them. And that simply doesn’t work without having trust. “
Le Globless: Which international players did you help with the stabilization in Slovakia?
Ivanka Molnarova: With globalization and the market opening up to new investors, it is necessary to understand new cultures and to be open to the diversity of cultures, whether it is China, India, Korea, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait or other countries of the GCC, or European investors whose differences are more subtle.
We have worked with a number of international players from full recruitment to sub-tasks. It is important to be open to different cultures and to prepare the management to change the entire company culture.
A shining example of a company that came from abroad and does its work brilliantly is for exampleT-system from Germany (Microsoft), which also builds schools and educates. Many companies provide a lot of education and create a lot of jobs, such as IBM and DELL. They are corporations, but they bring a positive approach to employees. Another example is Volkswagen, Peugeot, Land Rover and Hyundai.
Le Globless: What is most important to you in building a successful team?
Ivanka Molnarova: Trust, respect and support.
“My goal is to build radical openness in people, because people easily lose their authenticity and they want to be someone else, forgetting that they are unique when they are themselves.”
In our company, honesty and radical openness comes first. We train and listen to our people. I like to talk to the employees and to respect their uniqueness.
We deal with the following questions:
- How to give feedback?
- How to listen?
- How to respond to criticism or a different opinion?
I tell them not to be afraid to give feedback, not to be afraid to voice their opinion and not to be afraid to make mistakes. Mistakes are very important when it comes to the internet and the technological process. Mistakes are the areas where we learn most.
Mistakes are welcome, we just have to talk about them and learn from them so they don’t happen again. Our values as well as innovation and focus on technology and bringing innovation in every direction is also important. Every one of us can have an innovative mind, so that we think about what to improve while working, instead of performing the work mechanically. These are our values which we build. Even with 130 people we constantly build a home-like environment. For me as a leader, it is important to retain the human factor, and people are my first priority.
“When employing people, we give them absolute trust and respect. That is why we manage to build a very good team and make great achievements. “
Le Globless: In your private life, you have been working on people development and psychology for several years. How is a healthy psyche related to the leader of today’s world?
Ivanka Molnarova: I enjoy developing talent and promoting healthy thinking. The overall problem with society is that we have stopped being authentic. Subsequently, there are many psychopaths in leadership positions.
We are born as authentic beings who copy our parents and are shaped by our environment. During adolescence, we learn how to survive in the system and to obtain certain benefits, and thus we become like actors in a theater play. Every one of us becomes an actor who behaves differently in the workplace, within the family and with friends. We want to like the environment in which we are located. This is perfectionism from which we must wake up.
“Sometimes we live such an illusory reality that we believe it. We identify with false ideas about ourselves. An awakening and a contact with real values is necessary. “
The endless efforts to create an illusory bubble and to convince those around us that we are someone else only leads to depression and psychological problems. People who are self-absorbed like this can’t stand authentic people around them, because their presence bothers them. They are afraid that their lie will be revealed and their fragile egocentric bubble will burst. This is a fear of possible detection.
The answer is humility and sincerity, honesty with oneself. Fear is always a bad counselor and we always make a lot of bad decisions through fear. And we cause a lot of pain around us.
,,Behind the fear there is always a wounded boy or a girl hiding, whose egocentric or arrogant behavior or pretense is only a protective mechanism.” I. Molnarova
LE GLOBLESS: “Leaders are conscious, authentic people. Leaders are themselves and their authenticity attracts crowds.
They do not judge, but look at people with humility. They see reality clearly and they realize their power. They are free themselves and give freedom and trust to the team and key partners.”
No games or pretense works when being authentic, and when we are authentic, we are free. Then we will be able to change the world. Because we believe that everything is possible.
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