Episode #12
From the workbook of an HR Leader with Martijn
Almost arrested in the UN General Assembly for protesting. From there to 18 years fixing and transforming HR and Employee Experience functions inside private-equity-owned companies — including a big Swiss bank in the middle of being taken over by another one. And a very clear, very direct message: stop demanding a seat at the table, and start making yourself impossible not to invite. What a conversation! Welcome to another Employee Experience Labs podcast from the Munich Podcast studio. Employee Experience Labs Podcasts are about HR Tech, Employee Experience, Shared Service and other interesting topics around HR at the workplace. We continue our most successful season so far "From the Workbook of an HR Leader" where I am talking to experienced colleagues in our field about their daily working routine and what and how they are going about the various challenges they have to face each day. I am a tireless believer that we can all be better if we learn from each other, but there are not many opportunities to actually do that - yes, there are conferences, but how often can you attend one in a year? Yes, there are peer-to-peer connections, but how many do you manage to keep running? I am a firm believer that we can all do a better job if we learn from each other and so I am inviting seasoned HR experts from various fields and companies to tell us about their workday and how they go about the challenges of today. Today I am talking to Martijn Seijsener. Martijn never actually planned to end up in HR at all — he started out chasing a career in international development, interning at the UN, until a protest at the UN General Assembly became the moment he decided that path wasn't for him. He pivoted into human capital consulting, and for the last 18 years has been the person private-equity-owned companies call in to build, rebuild and transform their HR and Employee Experience functions from the ground up — most recently inside one of the biggest Swiss banks, right as it was being absorbed by another one. Martijn brings a refreshingly direct, self-described "rebel" lens to Employee Experience: why most EX leaders are only fluent in one of the three languages they actually need — the human, the economics and the end-to-end ownership — and why that's the real reason EX so often ends up as a nice little feature on top rather than a seat at the table. We went deep on cost to serve, on why HR needs to speak the language of finance to be taken seriously, and of course on AI — and why bolting AI onto a fragmented organization just scales the fragmentation faster. But why am I telling you everything already here and now — listen for yourself: Martijn Seijsener. Music by Bensound
