Saint-Gobain HR director Menushka van der Westhuizen takes a trip down memory lane to reflect on where it all began. From joining Cadbury’s graduate programme after university to leading the people function in the tough manufacturing industry.
When Menushka graduated from the University of KwaZulu-Natal and entered into Cadbury’s graduate programme, she had no idea she was stepping into a people function on the cusp of change. The merging of human resources and technology meant working on spreadsheets, data, and analytics. She’s been hooked on the profession ever since.
“I knew right there that my passion lay in the compensation and benefits space, a perfect marriage between people and analytics,” Menushka adds. “The rest of my tenure with Cadbury was purely within compensation and benefits.” She went on to win the SARA (South African Rewards Association) practitioner of the year award in 2010 for her work done in this space.
A true specialist, as was the case when Menushka joined BCX and later Saint-Gobain, largely focusing on compensation and benefits. “I joined Saint-Gobain as a compensation and benefits specialist and HR business partner, and three years into that role, I was offered an international assignment to head up international mobility for the group in Paris,” she explains. “I had a new baby at the time, a few months old when I packed my entire family and moved to Paris. This was the period when I started to hone in on mobility as opposed to a core focus on compensation and benefits.”
The benefits of working abroad
Menushka explains that working overseas for three years was an incredible experience. She explains that the cultural immersion and personal growth that comes from an international assignment is unrivalled. She was able to interact with senior executives at the group level and learn from other global companies that operated in France. “I also created some interesting policies while I was there, one of them being virtual mobility,” she adds. “This was also around the time the Covid-19 pandemic hit, which put a damper on us because we couldn’t do as much travelling as a family. What made it worse was that we couldn’t even see our family back home for two years.”
When Menushka eventually returned to South Africa, she took up a head of HR role for Saint-Gobain’s African businesses across 12 countries and later became HR director for South Africa, looking after Saint-Gobain’s local operations and commercial teams.
She’s super excited about the new role, having it just 7 months. “I took up the role after a 6-month break and on the back of my maternity leave and a newborn child," she notes. “I felt a bit conflicted about having to leave the baby behind and start a new role.” However she is proud to work for a company that continues to value and accelerate the career progression of women, even through periods of maternity leave.
She’s kept quite busy in the last 7 months, having to manage promotions and fill vacant roles by recruiting both internally and externally. However, as of July this year, Menushka has a full HR team.
“I’m looking forward to growing the people agenda with my newly formed team for the remainder of the year and have even bigger plans for the start of the new one,” she points out.
Getting reacquainted with your people
Interestingly enough, things worked in reverse for Menushka, despite being a local herself. Menushka spent quite a bit of time working on the rest of Africa's portfolio and travelled extensively on the continent and abroad. As such, she had to get acquainted with her South African countrymates and colleagues in the new team.
“Even though I’ve been with Saint-Gobain for 10 years now, there’s always something new to learn about the company and its people every day. I still feel engaged with the company a decade later,” she says.
For Menushka, this is something that speaks volumes about how Saint-Gobain manages career progression and growth. “It’s one thing to talk about career development, but it’s an entirely exciting experience to be an example of it.”
In a nutshell, Saint-Gobain designs, manufactures, and distributes materials and services for the construction industry. ‘Making the world a better home’ is the company's purpose, which is fitting since the company produces products earmarked for home and office builds.
“Despite our heavy presence globally and on the continent, you wouldn’t be blamed for not being that familiar with our brand. However, some of our products could be hanging right above your head and you wouldn’t even know it. Your ceiling, for example, that’s probably a Saint-Gobain product,” Menushka points out.
If you’re curious, Saint-Gobain’s most recognisable products locally include Gyproc for ceilings, plasters and drywalls, Weber for grout and tiling, and Isover for thermal and acoustic insulation.
According to Menushka, the company has a vision of becoming the wolrdwide leader in light and sustainable construction.
Saint-Gobain isn’t a small company by any stretch of the imagination; they have a presence in more than 80 countries and have over 160,000 employees worldwide.
On the Sub-Saharan Africa front, Menushka is responsible for HR, where Saint-Gobain has the biggest presence, and that’s in South Africa.
The elephant in the ‘room’
Although it isn't said enough, the manufacturing and construction industries are very male-dominated. As a result, Menushka is playing her part in turning the tide in the manufacturing space.
“Two years back on International Women’s Day, Saint-Gobain launched a Women’s Committee, which is a vibrant and active committee of women colleagues in the company,” Menushka explains. “One of the biggest projects we completed as a committee was introducing nursing rooms across our various sites in Sub-Saharan Africa.”
“We have a young workforce of women who wanted to become mothers as they navigated the working world, and one of their biggest requests was for the company to provide a safe and clean space for mothers by way of nursing rooms, to still be able to fulfill their responsibilities as mothers even as they work on site,” she continues.
According to Menushka, the women’s committee relies heavily on feedback. “It’s important for the committee to keep its ear to the ground, listening to our women’s needs and providing them with a service which is tailored to the real needs of our women, such as the rolling out of PPE made for women across their sites.”
She goes on to explain that the recruiting of women at Saint-Gobain isn’t just a tick-box exercise; women are hired and promoted into strategic and impactful roles, such as plant managers.
“There’s something special about working with people,” Menushka reflects. “Our impact goes beyond our employees, we reach the families too!”
“How we treat our employees and the way they experience work, impacts how they go home at night and show up to their families. That’s HR making a difference – beyond the office.”
