Essity cares about process improvements and streamlining to make things as efficient and easy as possible

Essity is a leading hygiene and health company globally, but they still make sure to allow for opportunity and growth internally, before giving opportunities externally. Their focus is on managing a healthy work/life balance while still being leaders and pioneers in their field.

Could you tell me what you do at Essity and what your job title entails?

My title is Employer Attractiveness and Talent Acquisition Manager. I’m responsible for all recruitment in North America, that's the United States and Canada, for all corporate and Sales positions. The Employer Attractiveness side of my role has to do with the employer brand, ensuring we’re attracting the right target audience and looking for the best ways of recruiting for that talent, as well as advertising and campaigning internally and externally to attract the best talent. I also sit on the global EATA Center of Excellence Team, where we look for recruitment process improvements in terms of better ways of working and streamlining processes to the EATA Managers and then finally to their teams in various countries.

In addition to that, I ensure line managers are appropriately trained in Recruitment Excellence, as well as the Leadership Assessment for candidate interviewing. I train our managers before we go into any recruitment, then review only the top qualified candidates with the Managers. We use these tools to make the best hiring decisions.

How did you end up in this position and do you enjoy it?

I’m approaching thirty years in Talent Acquisition and Recruiting, which is a long time in the industry. I have a Business Degree and about nine or ten different HR certifications. I started from the very bottom and worked my way to where I am today. I was recruited out of my last company and introduced to Essity, and the more I spoke with the people here in HR and EATA the more I came to value Essity and what we stand for, as well as our beliefs and behaviors.

I’ve been with Essity for three years and I love what I do. I have a huge oversight and I love my Team, they are probably one of the best teams I’ve had the pleasure of managing. I also love working with our HR North America team, they’re a great group of collaborators and stakeholders as well as colleagues. We share ideas and even the workload sometimes! It can be challenging, but anything that’s easy isn’t worth doing.

Do you feel like Essity is a place where you can grow in your career?

One of the great things about my role is that I get to see internal movement. Whether it’s replacing someone who’s left or been promoted, or whether we’ve created a new position. We allow internal candidates to apply first and grow their career before we look externally. So, there is always opportunity for growth, whether lateral, a promotion or even a switch to a different business unit.

In that I think there are certain roles that are aligned with career growth, specifically promotions. For instance, you can go from an HR Manager to an HR Director, or other various roles and movements too.

How do you see your role as a leader?

I was once told long ago that there’s a difference between being a Manager and being a Leader. A Manager is successful at managing people, projects, expectations etc., but a Leader is someone who people really want to follow. Someone who can be in a servitude role as well as leading by inspiring. I strive to be that great Leader beyond simply being a good Manager.

Do you think Essity provides a sustainable working life?

We are certainly in unprecedented times, so we’ve been forced into a new way of balancing our lives both at work and at home. Managers do their best to do pulse checks with their teams, checking in to see how everyone is doing and ensuring the job is getting done but people are not overworking at the same time. Recruitment has a high workload right now, but I always want my team to know I’m here to support them.

Essity overall does everything we can as a company to ensure work-life balance and we take great strides to offer as much as we can to ensure a fair benefit structure. The senior leaders also care deeply about employees and check in to make sure people are taking care of themselves.

Is there anything else that characterizes the leadership at Essity?

Each manager has their own style, but everyone does their best to embrace our core values and beliefs and behaviors. Collaboration is important and so is Commitment. Our managers do their very best to encourage their teams to be open to collaborating, as well as committed to pursuing excellence with courage.

Writer: Gabrielle Akal

Interviewee information:
Name: Erika Broadwater
Title: Employer Attractiveness and Acquisition Manager
Education: Bachelors Degree in Business Management
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