A board talk with Sandra Forster, CHRO

Ms Forster, you joined V-ZUG as Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO) at the end of 2020. What do you enjoy the most about this role?

V-ZUG is a traditional company with a strong brand – for me this is an essential foundation that promises great potential. I’m delighted to be a part of this team and to help design a future in which employees enjoy coming to work and remain committed to boosting the company’s success. What motivates me in particular is something that we all have in common:  we create products and services which provide a very concrete sense of purpose for both ourselves and our customers, and we have a strong passion for combining this purpose with great design and excellence.   

Since your arrival, HR has had a seat on the Executive Committee. What kind of opportunities and challenges has this opened up for the company? 

Today, topics such as corporate culture, change management, leadership and sustainability need to be taken into account in all aspects of the business. Various studies have indisputably demonstrated the positive impact these kinds of initiatives can have on business results. With the expertise and additional "people & culture" perspective gained, the Executive Committee can make its strategic decisions in a more nuanced manner and with an integrated view of the business and the normative framework conditions. An ongoing challenge here is how to demonstrate the direct and indirect benefit in a tangible way, for example via relevant key indicators or surveys.

What do you stand for personally and in your role as an Executive Committee member? In other words, what are your core values? 

In my view, teamwork, fairness and authenticity are particularly important values and are essential for establishing a strong culture of trust. Regardless of the situation, I try to treat each and every person I encounter with respect and genuine interest. This goes hand in hand with acting responsibly, which involves gathering feedback from others in order to learn and continuously improve.

How would your best friends describe you? 

As an approachable, dedicated and empathetic person with a great enthusiasm for working with others in pursuit of a goal. They would also say that I am very passionate and committed when it comes to promoting the issues I'm responsible for. And they’d say that experience has taught me to accept my weaknesses with humour and instead to focus on my strengths.

As Chief Human Resources Officer, you also represent an important part of our sustainability strategy. Employees form one of the four target visions in our materiality matrix. What ambitions in terms of sustainable development fall into this target vision? 

Regarding sustainability, one key issue is how to provide lifelong learning opportunities in a world that is constantly evolving. How can we design an ideal working environment that promotes curiosity as well as professional and personal development through the learning of new skills and varied perspectives? To achieve this, we need to create the right conditions to qualitatively promote transformational leadership and individual development so that we can all benefit from the diversity that exists within our company.

Is our company fit for the future in terms of our employees?

We are certainly on the right path. Concerning the question of which opportunities will open up as a result of increasing digitalization and in which areas, I think that our employees will also encounter new opportunities and new challenges. This journey will require the involvement of our managers and employees, yet our everyday operations also present a number of other challenges. This means that we risk not paying enough attention to the "fit for the future" aspect of the business at an early stage. To ensure that this does not happen, we have established a professional HR Business Partner team to stay in touch with developments and address current and future needs within the line. In general, I see great potential in interdisciplinary and innovative approaches such as SAFe, an agile way of working.

What about new talent? As a Swiss industrial company, will we be able to attract both today’s and tomorrow’s generations of professionals? 

In recent years, there has been a clear demographic trend indicating that we will see fewer younger workers and an increasing number of older employees in the future job market. This means that we need to focus even more on offering long-term, attractive jobs to skilled experts in our company. At the same time, we need to keep sight of another goal, which is creating an environment in which we can train apprentices or enhance our employees’ professional development while retaining the valuable experience of long-standing employees for the company in the long term.

At 22.2%, female representation at V-ZUG is relatively low. Although the proportion of women at executive level has grown to 20%, they are still clearly under-represented. How does the company plan to increase the proportion of women in the long term? 

In my view, our main priority is to create a culture in which women and men, older and younger employees, and employees of different nationalities and with different cultural backgrounds feel able to develop their full potential. It is important to be an attractive employer for all potential candidates, and to promote talent and ensure succession planning based on skills. However, we cannot ignore the fact that our industry tends to be dominated by technical professions, which still attract less interest from female employees. As a company with a strong brand image, we can work together with our female colleagues to help reduce these preconceptions by breaking down societal attitudes and stereotypes.

V-ZUG boasts many long-standing employees. We could even describe them as "true blue" – do you consider this to be a sustainable success story? 

There’s nothing better than knowing that your own employees are advocates of their work and of the products that the company manufactures or the services it provides. It symbolises a strong sense of corporate identity and I think that’s an important driver for future success. I look forward to doing my part to uphold this tradition – whether it is here in Switzerland or in our international markets. At the same time, our increasingly international presence enriches our DNA – our roots right here in Switzerland. If we can manage to preserve our essence while being open to new ideas, then we’ll succeed in offering a promising future to our employees.

About Sandra Forster 

Sandra Forster studied law and political science at the University of Zurich and holds an Executive MBA from the University of St. Gallen (HSG) and a Master of Advanced Studies in HR Management. As well as this, she has undertaken training in coaching, intervision and value creation. She is Chief Human Resources Officer at V-ZUG Ltd since December 2020. She draws on extensive experience in various leading HR functions and is a member of the Executive Committee. Among other roles, she has worked for six years as Head of Human Resources at both Hilti Switzerland and Rail Gourmet Holding AG.