Joerg Boder, Alliance UniChem
| Published date | 01 January 2006 |
| Pages | 6-6 |
| Date | 01 January 2006 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/14754390680000855 |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour |
Joerg Boder
is group HR director at Alliance
UniChem. His career in HR
began at Credit Suisse, followed by seven years as
executive director of HR at AT&T, before joining
PepsiCo,where he spent five years as HR vice
president in central Europe.
6Volume 5 Issue 2 January/February 2006
PRACTITIONER PROFILE
,
HR executives share their experience in human resources
Joerg Boder,
Alliance UniChem
D
uring his extensive 20-year HR
career at high-profile
multinational companies, Joerg
Boder has experienced plenty of
difficult mergers and acquisitions. As
Alliance UniChem’s (AU) group HR
director, he’s now participating in its
current merger with Boots, a
pharmaceutical retailer.
“I’ve always been involved in the most
difficult challenge HR can have,” he says.
“Change management excites me and
this merger is another great opportunity
to demonstrate and deploy what I’ve
learned about best practice in change.”
Spearheading new developments
Boder sees his mission as focusing on the
“Three Ps” – people, performance and
passion. Apart from the merger
implications for his six-strong central HR
team, in the short term they’re also
concentrating on a performance
management initiative. The “Centers of
Excellence” system, which is owned and
developed by the AU country HR teams,
is being rolled out.“Instead of creating
an ‘HR empire’ that dictates policies, I’ve
been using the talent I already have in
our HR people across the businesses to
roll out best practice.”
Another initiative Boder’s helped to
implement is the induction program,
which invites new recruits to meet the
major executive directors and function
heads, see presentations about the
business and take part in Q&A sessions
with the CEO.
Engaging staff at all levels
Boder knows that staff need to be
passionate about their work in order to
achieve results. “If people come to
work just for their salary then we’re
lost, because then we have a lot of
‘unemployeds’ on the payroll – they’re
not engaged.” To ensure employees are
engaged, his team created a set of
indicators to measure the quantitative
and qualitative engagement
“temperature,” which will be tested
over the next few years to prove there’s
development in the right direction.
Managing different markets
In a previous role at PepsiCo, Boder faced
the challenge of rolling out a process
change program in its European sales
forces. It was impossible to build a team
to train several thousand people about a
process change program within two
months, so he opted to introduce an e-
learning platform. “The risk and
investment was huge. I had to fight for
the money, took a big risk and put my
reputation on the line.” Fortunately, the
initiative was a major success and was
completed to schedule.
Boder’s persuasive passion enabled
him to get the management buy-in he
needed for the platform. “I identify
myself 150 percent with an initiative
and don’t give up quickly. If you
present something with passion and
you’re credible, then you can usually get
what you want.“ But, he says, the two
traits must go together. “In my case,
they’ve been a wonderful recipe for
making things work.”
Part of Boder’s role involves
reinforcing support for innovation. “I
love that all the HR teams I work with
across Europe are different,” he says. We
have big support for and acceptance of
multicultural thinking, right up to board
level. I often speak three or four
languages in the same meeting. Our
many nationalities are an invaluable
source of innovation.”
HR’s future hotspots
One challenge Boder faces is the
ongoing talent shortage. “It’s HR’s global
task to close the talent gap.” He also
feels strongly about the key skills
required of HR practitioners. “If you’re
afraid of change then you’re in the
wrong job.” He believes that “‘HR
manager’ is the wrong term. We should
be called ‘change managers’ or
‘organizational architects.’” According to
Boder, HR should “anticipate, manage
and drive change,” adding; “I eat change
for breakfast! Change is just another
word for opportunity.”
He believes HR as a function should
enable and not just support. “Change
management is the core of our function
now and is where HR should go. We
should take calculated risks, come out of
the office and show our faces. What’s the
best test to find out if you’re a strategic
HR manager? If a line manager asks you,
‘You’re not really from HR are you?’ it
means you’re becoming an enabler
rather than a support function.”
Alliance UniChem is a leading healthcare
distribution group. Its core businesses
are pharmaceutical wholesaling and
retail pharmacy. It’s a FTSE 100 company
with 33,000 employees, operating across
12 countries.
ALLIANCE UNICHEM
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