Alexandru Leafa, Manager of Structured Content – Marketing Services, HP
- What was the most challenging thing your company, people, and you, personally, had to face in 2020?
Even though 2020 was a very challenging year on both personal and professional level, we all went through and out of it with amazing resilience and great results.
Me and my colleagues are very proud to say that our company is highly appreciated and that we have navigated through Covid-19 and 2020 with great results.
When talking about last years’ challenges, even though our company was prepared for working from home from a technical point of view, both me and my colleagues have still faced some inconveniences in what the perfect home office setup was concerned and on a personal level. Again, our employer stepped in and supported us in this process.
Most of us, like the majority of the globe’s population, have started to feel alone and we really missed socializing.
Our HP culture also teaches us that you always have to adapt, so, with time and patience we all grew to become stronger, overcame the missing amenities we had in our home workplace and we just got used to the new way of living: always online and with no direct human face to face interaction. Right now, our way of working grew to a new digital fun place.
- What pleasantly surprised you last year? / What are you grateful for?
I strongly believe that we are all very grateful for having the opportunity to learn more about team members, our families and friends.
I had no idea that a lot of them are so passionate about cooking, or that they travelled so much and they learned about new ways of cooking.
I also understood that the HP way somehow translates into their personal lives, as well: they are always thinking outside of the box and they are very open minded and they are always eager to learn more about different cultures.
We are all really appreciating the time spent together in the online meetings, as we found how much we need each other and we opened up and talked about our emotions, our worries and moments of joy.
We remembered how important is to act with kindness, and taking the time to listen to each other.
- What are your plans and expectations for 2021?
We are always eager to develop, so we have a very well defined growth strategy and the best way to executing it is by focusing on oversimplify the process and actively implement all the pillars.
After a challenging 2020, we expect 2021 to lighten the world with hope and with the new vaccine, and help us put in place are last year’s learnings: that situations can be managed and overcame with better discipline and understanding of one another.
We should also take into account how the other countries have managed the pandemic. I really believe we need to take a step back and also implement the others’ best practices.
Overall I expect 2021 to be our best year, a time filled with kindness and empathy and caring more about each other.
- What do you foresee it will be different this year and what impact it will have on our industry/Romania/your company/your people?
Romania can become a beacon for the world of Services, as we have all the knowledge and the proper people to do it, but we have to do it, as fast as we can. I see some abroad opportunity right now for expansion of Romanian companies and the people are the only ones that can come together to drive that. I foresee a year of moderate change in perception, with some pessimistic approaches to increasing our happiness and wow factor, but our East European charm will continue to exist.
2021 will be the proof that we can deliver even more. This is why we should become driven towards growing more talent and management skills.
I’ve seen some great programs that came out of 2020, with Public Speaking growing, more video on Social Media that spurred growth of platforms, big brands locally invested into bloggers and I can see that growing even more.
2021 will be the year of Social Media growth for Romania.
- What is your message for the ABSL community?
Dear community,
Please keep sharing, keep learning and be open minded to learning from small businesses and respect our elders.
I’ve read some great content from ABSL’s November’s Conference. It was really nice and it presented quality details that we can definitely learn from.
I can see this becoming stronger and getting more traction, and times do impose new ways of coming together and sharing, so I feel that now, as a community, it’s the perfect time to do it together.
- What could we do to grow stronger as a community?
We should get closer to start-ups mindsets, bring in powerful minds from outside our country to present what did it take to get to a higher level. Moreover, we can also talk about how to improve our schools and universities, as we have an ever growing need for better workforce.
- A message for ABSL or a suggestion.
Start focusing on mentoring youth to get to your community, nurture them to reach this level and always invite the students to all your meeting, conferences and workshops, so that they can network, and decide on what they can do to influence the future of our country, our work and the community they live in.