“Honest communication builds trust”

Back then, she thought it was her fault. “I kept asking myself what I was doing wrong.” It gnawed at her self-confidence. She tried to talk to her colleagues, but they were too afraid for their jobs to speak out. One day, however, Nathalie realized she was not the one getting things wrong. So she quit. “You should never deny your own values,” she says now. This period shaped the course of her personal life. “It taught me how terribly people can be treated. And I was determined to do better.”

Nathalie remained in HR. She has supervised staff development at GF Machining Solutions since 2012, working her way up from Assistant to the Head of HR in the division to Head of HR in Switzerland and finally to Head of HR for the entire division. In her current position, she is also responsible for driving the Culture Movement at GF. “Today, I see myself as a role model. If I want to encourage my colleagues to be part of the change, then it’s my job to exemplify our new values. Values aren’t just nice words printed on posters, after all. What matters is how we practice them in our daily lives.” The difficult period before she joined GF was particularly instrumental in showing her the importance of caring for one another. “‘Caring is about being part of a team.’ For me, that means giving the right feedback at the right time and in the right words, so that the person receiving it has the chance to improve,” says Nathalie. “Caring also means cultivating an environment in which people feel safe sharing their feelings, whether those are positive or negative. Honest communication builds trust.”

She advises colleagues who are dissatisfied with the way they are treated in their team to speak openly, but always respectfully, with other colleagues and supervisors. This prevents misunderstandings. She hopes no employee will ever have to leave the company for the reasons she left back then.