Marjolein van Eck is the HR Director IBM Northern Europe at IBM in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. She has worked for IBM for 17 years, having joined as an HR Transformation Consultant, and then rotated in a variety of global and European HR specialist and generalist roles.

What excites you about working for IBM?

For me, it is twofold: first, the company itself and then second, what it means for me personally in terms of career growth.

IBM, as a company and the business we are in, excites me a lot. We're always at the forefront of technology and we’re doing such cool, new and innovative stuff that it's very exciting to be working here.

I have a very technical background myself (Master of Science degree) and I’ve always been intrigued by technology, but - more so - the people that work in this business keep inspiring me and I enjoy being around them. It’s the people that make the culture and we often hear that back from when they join – or, unfortunately, when they leave, as well. The culture is the first thing that people really call out.

Secondly, it’s the HR profession at IBM, which is very mature. In many ways, IBM is leading in the HR space - and not just because of the technology aspects, which is obviously well adopted in our daily work. Whenever I read an article about HR trends or other research, we often already implemented it. And, personally, from a career perspective, I've always been given the opportunities to grow and develop.

How would you describe the culture?

Our culture is very collaborative, supportive and kind. Most people would never say, “That's not my job.” People are always there to help and, because we're so internationally organised, I can pretty much call anybody around the globe if I have a question or need advice.

We, of course, need to navigate the matrix, but the informal organization is also very strong. Culture is about belonging, and I feel that I belong and matter in this organization.

I'm curious to hear about what IBM does in terms of wellbeing and mental health, which is high on the agenda for HR functions these days.

It's definitely becoming more prominent on the agenda than it's ever been before - because of COVID and the aftermath, obviously - but I can say that, for IBM, it was already high on the agenda before we had COVID; it was easy for us to rely on the structures that we had.

Our strategy is primarily focused on prevention. But we, of course, also have many programs and policies in place to support employees when they are in need, from employee assistance programs to individual counselling – all tailored toward the specific health issue.

But, as said, our primary focus is to avoid people needing these services, and that means we drive a lot of investments and efforts toward prevention. This is embedded in our HR strategy, but we also have a separate Health and Safety organisation driving this agenda - anything from education, to programs, to teaching people how to manage work life. We even have training around sleep and nutrition. We go quite far in those offerings – but also leave it up to the people whether they think it's beneficial for themselves.

We have many local programs, but sometimes also need local country variation. Where in the US, for example, an app could be a good solution, that may not work well on the other side of the pond. Here, for example, we offer health checks to our teams - a separate, completely safe institution runs that for us and it’s completely voluntary to participate. There’s clearly a lot of investment in this area and we focus on physical, mental, but also financial, health.

We really see it as part of our overall Diversity, Equity & Inclusion agenda, and invest a lot in advocacy and allyship around this. We are a very open organisation in that sense. We not only embrace different cultures, make sure that people feel included, but also drive an open dialogue about any type of diversity or wellbeing topic. We want to ensure people not only feel supported to discuss these topics in the workplace, but also know how to find their way to the services provided.

I would say that COVID helped us bring the human factor more prominently, making this more okay than it already was. I personally like that and am happy to see the progression.

What would you say your biggest challenges will be over the coming 12 months?

Interestingly enough, my role has just changed. I was looking after the Northern European region - the eight countries there - but now I'm also looking after Central Eastern Europe. So, a lot more countries, with completely new cultures and people priorities.

In supporting the business, my biggest challenge is how to bring all those countries, different perspectives, people and profiles together in one new market that needs to operate as one engine to drive business. From an overall HR perspective, our agenda - like many other companies - is centred around organisational health, and the attraction and retention of critical skills.

The dynamics, especially in the IT industry, are quite fierce, so attracting talent, working on your employer branding are key, but we're a company that has people working for us longer than the average five years, so that says something about the culture, as well as our career progression and reskilling opportunities.

Within IBM, the skill demand is continuously changing. So, for us, retention is naturally focused around skill development and ensuring there is continuous career growth, besides rewarding and recognition of our key talent. I think I am a personal example of how this worked, as I’ve had three different careers almost - there is really a value proposition there.

You’ve been with IBM for some time and had lots of evolution in what you've done. Is there something that stands out as a personal career highlight?

The moves between roles have been my critical career milestones. I started in consulting, then moved to more specialist HR, and now I’m in a more generalist role, so those were really anchor points.

During all roles I’ve had my key defining moments – but if I would need to call out one, it’s the recognition I received for a large-scale program I designed and rolled out across the entire company. This gave me a ticket to our special Best of IBM celebration in the Caribbean.

Sometimes, there are moments in your career when all the stars align and you're on a roll. I always look back at that with a smile.

If you were to go back and offer your younger self some career advice, what would it be?

I actually have a younger self in my house, my 12-year-old daughter! So, it would probably be the same as what I am trying to teach my children.

What I have found in my career at this point is that there's more stability, which comes with experience. Stability at work means you don't get too stressed anymore about certain situations - you stay in control of the situation and analyse it differently.

Early in my career, I remember that I sometimes would completely freeze or panic at work, or feel totally out of control and have sleepless nights for a week over something small. At a certain point, you will reach that stability and you will know how to shape things, make problems smaller, simpler, think around issues and create solutions, and don't get stressed as much.

It is definitely a skill. I am trying to figure out how I can help my children develop it, partly through role modelling and guiding them through their challenges. Overall, I feel their generation seems more mature, mentally, perhaps due to the world they are more exposed to today, than we were when growing up.

You talked about IBM being at the forefront of digital HR transformation, which is something that's happening at quite a pace. How do you see that changing the HR discipline in the future?

Quite a lot. If you would have told me, ten years ago, that I would be in this job or that it would suit my skills, I wouldn't have believed it. But, because of the transformation of the HR profession, I'm now a good fit, because of the technical background, but also the analytical capabilities and consultative mindset. I am now able to apply these skillsets in my daily work. Within IBM, I can even develop them further. For example, our analytics practices go far beyond a standard dashboard; we apply predicative analytics and even AI [artificial intelligence] now in many of our HR processes.

By being able to advise the business - not just giving them a dashboard to say, your attrition is going up or down, but by actually bringing in the correlation and doing some predictive analytics to advise and drive better business outcomes - also requires different skillsets from an HR professional. I see a very accelerated path right now with analytics, but also the use of AI. It’s a self-learning mechanism, so it takes away a lot of the more operational work from us and makes the employee experience better, which elevates the HR profession from an experience standpoint, but also allows me to do the more value-added work for the business.

It’s fun and it's cutting edge - if you're speaking to your digital twin online and you see an HR partner that can help the business, from assignments to promotions - you name it - it's really interesting. Sometimes, I feel we’re already living in the future.

There’s sometimes discussion about whether there will even be a need for the HR function when the technology transformation is going so fast. Yes, our roles are changing, but pivoting towards using technology to drive even better business outcomes. It is not about replacing people, but doing work differently. It’s a transformation of the way we run HR.

What's the best compliment you've ever received?

That's a personal one. Reflecting on my father (who passed away a few months ago), the best compliments came from him. You can get compliments in the business all the time.

For me, there's also a difference between a compliment and feedback. But, he used to say that I'm a hard worker, dedicated and I always have a solution for everything. I'm always very genuine and switched on, but he would always say, when there's an issue, she would immediately come up with a solution - I think of that quite often. Compliments have more value when they come from those that know you best.

Do you have a favourite quote? If so, what is it and why does it resonate with you?

I'm not a quote person, but I had this sign from Albert Einstein, which said: “I have no special talents, but I'm just passionately curious.” It resonated with me.

Over the years, as it stood there, I started to think about what's behind that, because I'm always talking about EQ [emotional intelligence] versus IQ [intelligence quotient]. Yes, I have the IQ, but what made me successful is my EQ and my perseverance. Both have helped me to be where I am today. It's the ability to influence, bring people together - the human aspect - and constantly learning and being eager to jump into new things. That is what really stands out.  And it's always that perseverance that keeps me going. Behind me [the room Marjolein is being interviewed in], there is a sign from a song called Soldier On. It means, just keep going.

So, it's more the story behind it than the quote itself that really resonated with me. Over the past couple of years, during COVID, you read more about that skill and how to deal with AI taking over IQ. Your learning ability and those skills become more important, and I often smile and think, well that’s just normal human behaviour.

You also read about companies that are selecting people more on the basis of what they could learn, rather than what they already know. We used to have cultures in companies where you always had to be in the know - but you are not always in the know. As an HR Director, there are so many topics coming in. Daring to be transparent is sometimes saying, “I don’t know and I need to find out, but I will find out and then I will come back with the proper advice.” That is okay and has been quite a change.

Thank you to Marjolein for speaking to Katie Insley, Associate Director in our HR recruitment team in the Netherlands.

Views and opinions contained within our Executive Interviews are those of the interviewee and not views shared by EMEA Recruitment.