The restructuring Petrom, the biggest company in the Romanian economy, has been undergoing in the past almost five years, is overseen by a former Unilever executive, who has been worked for Austria's OMV since 2000.
In 2004, OMV took Petrom, a company with over 50,000 employees, 2.1bn-euro turnover and 240m-euro losses, and drove it to 4.5bn-euro turnover, 277m-euro net income and almost 33,000 employees in 2008.
"Petrom's integration has certainly been the biggest adventure for OMV and the biggest challenge in my life as regards human resources. I've spent almost half my time in Romania since Petrom integration started (...),"Georg Horacek, Senior Vice President, Corporate Human Resources with OMV, who is in charge with Petrom integration in terms of human resources, told ZF in an interview.
For OMV, one of the biggest challenges in the early stages of integration was finding a common language with Romanian employees. "(...)Any integration tends to be highly difficult if one cannot talk face to face with people (...)," explains Horacek, who has been working for OMV since 2000 and has been in his current position since 2004.
Petrom, which now has over 23,000 employees fewer than at the moment it was taken over, continues its streamlining process, after having slashed 4,200 jobs in the first half. "(...) I am very satisfied with the way process development inside Petrom evolved. The change process is not over, yet, we haven't reached that point, yet, in some cases we've been too upbeat, but I believe we're going the right way," says Horacek, who adds that the integration process is huge given the size of the company, which is "bigger than a city" and the complexity of the business.
Although involved in one of the most complex restructuring processes, OMV continues to hire. This year, between 200 and 300 people will be hired at Petrom. Annual training investments at group level stand at 12m euros, with 50% being directed to Romania.
In the beginning, OMV had around 70 expats in Petrom, half of which were Austrians. Meanwhile, their number has risen. At present, around 40-50 Romanians work outside Romania with the group. In Petrom, around 250 people work in the HR department. As for the HR strategy, Horacek says it follows the business strategy.
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