Karen Hirota on growth
“My dream used to be that we would simply grow enough so we could invest to fuel the cycle of growth here in Brazil. With the acquisition of Mercúrio, my dream is coming true.”
“Dream big”
Karen Hirota is a young woman with big responsibilities. At 29, she was recently appointed to lead the human resources function for all TNT Express business across South America. Her task includes integrating the 6,500 employees of Mercúrio with the former TNT Express workforce of 250, as well as laying the HR groundwork for TNT’s expansion in countries including Argentina and Chile.
But don’t let Hirota’s age fool you. Even at her age, she’s already had more than 12 years’ experience in the human resources departments of some of the most successful multinationals operating in Brazil. And if you were to assume that her small stature and soft-spoken manner make her a bit of a pushover, you’d be wrong. Hirota is tough. She doesn’t back down from a challenge and she has been known to go head-to-head with her older peers at larger companies actively poaching TNT employees.
A big part of Hirota’s job is finding and keeping the right people at TNT. In a region where economic growth is eclipsing the supply of well-trained, qualified people, that’s no small task. But Hirota is undaunted. For one thing, she knows from personal experience that TNT offers something most companies in Brazil don’t—real opportunities for advancement. Many companies still bring in people from abroad and rarely give locals the chance to advance, especially into management roles.
“I’ve worked for other large companies, companies with a lot of resources, but they didn’t give their own people opportunities for growth like we do. I’m sure of that,” she says. Among the senior management team of TNT in Brazil, for instance, 90% came from within the organisation. “I don’t know of any other company in Brazil that gives employees that kind of opportunity.”
But developing managers from within is only part of the challenge. In the competitive marketplace, it’s also difficult to keep other employees as well, and the fact that TNT is known to have good employees often makes it a target for poaching. Many TNT drivers, for instance, after being trained and gaining a year of experience, are approached by competitors and offered pay packages that TNT just cannot match.
It’s a difficult dilemma, but Hirota combats it not with big measures, but with small gestures that emphasise the “human” in human resources. For instance, each employee is recognised on his or her birthday with a card and a handwritten note from a manager. “It’s a small action,” she says, “but there is a lot of power in simply treating people well and praising them for their good work.”
Other initiatives contribute to making TNT a place people want to stay. In 2007, for instance, 10 drivers from TNT in Brazil travelled to Europe to compete in the annual “TNT World Cup” that pits teams from various countries against one another in a friendly football competition. The Brazilians made all their football-loving colleagues proud when they brought home the gold. These sorts of personal incentives create a working environment worth more than money. Hirota proudly notes that in 2007, eight of the TNT drivers who were offered nearly double their annual salaries by the competition forfeited the money to stay with TNT. “They stayed because they love working for TNT,” she says. Now that’s powerful.