Today we have the pleasure of interviewing an experienced HR Leader who has faced and overcome various challenges in the field. With many years of experience, Minako shares her insights on some of the difficulties that HR professionals face and how they manage to overcome them.
Amy: Thank you for joining us today. Can you tell us a little about yourself and your experience in HR?
Minako: Thank you for having me. I have been in the HR industry for almost 20 years and have worked with various organisations across industries. My experience has exposed me to different challenges in HR, which have made me better equipped to handle different situations.
Amy: How did you get into HR originally?
Minako: I started my career as a teacher in Japan and later in the UK. I enjoyed working with very difficult students, and persistently helping them and teaching the subject until they fully understood the topics. The teaching experience was very rewarding and transferable to HR skills. When I look back, facing difficult students was more difficult than facing challenging employees at work, because there was no settlement option with those students. After being in the UK for a while I realised I wanted to try something different because as a teacher, you talk about the outside world but I had never worked outside of education.
For my second job, I had the opportunity to gain exposure to employment law including work permits and taxation. At that time, my boss sent me to take a course about UK employment laws. It was beyond my understanding because it was for employment solicitors, so I was very quiet all day during the seminar. But it was still a good experience and it got me interested in this field.
Fortunately, when I got my next job, part of that package was the opportunity to take my postgraduate CIPD course. And that was how I got into HR.
Once in HR I moved around some very different industries – from insurance to airlines. And that was quite a big change because insurance was very much based on recruitment and rewards. But when I joined Japan Airlines, the main thing was employee relations – teamwork and building relationships. The nature of HR completely changed.
I had an amazing couple of years in JAL. However, I wanted to do a different kind of job and moved to Mitsubishi. It had a different company structure from where I previously worked. I enjoyed working with HR peers in Europe to work on global projects.
Looking at my career up to that point, I worked with different people but mainly Japanese stakeholders. I felt I really needed to work outside a Japanese organisation to see different leadership styles and company cultures. With that, I decided to move to a non-Japanese company.
My first non-Japanese organisation was Meggitt in Hampshire. The biggest challenge for me was observing the culture in the organisationhow the people behaved and talked to each other. Japanese companies tend to work together, which was the more collectivism approach. On the other hand, British companies have people who express a variety of opinions, more individualism based. I was thinking about how I would be accepted in a non-Japanese environment. Fortunately, I felt accepted very well, actually and even received a massive bunch of flowers from union members when I finished the assignment with Meggitt. I had developed a great relationship with them. It was an excellent memory.
Amy: What challenges are you currently facing as an HR Leader?
Minako: I think one of the biggest challenges HR Leaders can face is managing company politics. How you can do what is right for the people and the organisation despite the politics. For example, you strive to reach a certain level in the organisation. And when you get into that better position, you run the risk of getting too comfortable, losing yourself and being too concerned about your ego, as driven by politics.
In my case, I try to listen to what the people are talking about. I talk to employees in general because I want to be a real authentic HR Director or CPO, so talking with just the senior leaders is not the solution. I always try to find the best way to approach a person when I find something that needs to be fixed. You can do the talk by encouraging someone to change his or her viewpoint, without directly criticising how the person works.
Amy: That’s an interesting approach. Can you elaborate more on how you deal with politics in the workplace?
Minako: I strive to always be honest with myself and be fair to people from all parts of the organisation. I really want to create an engaged, happy working environment with the goal for each employee to grow more, while developing leadership and executives.
To overcome politics, I create an environment where people feel comfortable expressing themselves. I encourage open communication and feedback, so that everyone can share their thoughts and concerns without fear of being judged or punished. This way, I can identify issues and address them promptly.
Amy: What advice would you give to aspiring HR professionals?
Minako: Being in HR means always finding that mutual point between the people’s side and the rules and procedures. You shouldn’t just focus on one or the other. That balance is very important.
People may show sympathy, but what we need are empathy and emotional intelligence. Especially in cases of redundancy in an organisation, that is not really the last stage of the situation. We might see each other again at one point so I try not to create a negative environment during the process. The people I met 15 years ago sometimes still contact me to ask for my help which I am happy to do. Or when I post an achievement on LinkedIn, someone who I made redundant years ago would like my post or say a nice comment and I feel comfortable about it.
Whatever you do, you must not forget that you are working with people. You have to be honest and you need to treat everybody with respect. And most importantly, you have to be constantly learning.
Minako joined Navis Consulting in February 2022. She is also a Member of the Virtual Advisory Board, which aims to connect senior professionals with CEOs of various industries to promote knowledge sharing and networking.
If you are interested in having a confidential conversation about your career or would like support in growing your team, please get in touch today.