Magazine: What I don’t have, you bring to the table

On 5 September the members of Trade Marketing Club and POPAI Hungary Association gathered in the BKIK building. The event’s title was ‘X, Y, Z in a different way: How can we bring out the best in each other?’

Zsuzsanna Hermann
editor-in-chief of Trade magazin

Zsuzsanna Hermann, editor-in-chief of Trade magazin and the club’s co-founder welcomed participants and gave the floor to Ildikó Kátai, general secretary of the association and the club’s co-founder. She told that we know many things about the different generations, but we still need to find the keys to them.

Mónika Vörös
regional HR manager
Unilever

Mónika Vörös, regional HR manager of Unilever was the first speaker. She used the company’s global workforce management strategy as an example to introduce those principles that ensure: different generations cooperate efficiently at the workplace, and at the same time the individuals are also successful. Her personal experience is that the stereotypes about the different generations aren’t true. There are general trends, but individual motivation and behaviour are the decisive factors. Ms Vörös believes that the management of a company plays a key role in solving the problems that occur when different generations need to work together.

The regional HR manager is of the opinion that a continuous dialogue can be of very big help in managing generations. Each generation has its own value and Unilever runs many programmes that ensure age diversity at the workplace, e.g. reverse and classic mentoring. Ms Vörös mentioned the 80-20 percent work system: in 80 percent of their work time employees do the things required by their own position, while the remaining 20 percent is spent with gathering experience in other fields at the company. Unilever also gives the opportunity to employees to participate in one-day workshops, where they can analyse their own career, and share the most important stories and motivations with the employer. Another important area is training: Unilever organises in-house training programmes for workers, so that they learn all the new things that that can help them stay at the company if their old position is discontinued.

Krisztina Bedy
managing director
Avantgarde Group PR Agency

Krisztina Bedy, managing director of Avantgarde Group PR Agency analysed the differences between Generation Y and Z, with the help of popular social media personalities from both generations. Her experience is that one can learn just as much from the young generation as from more experienced colleagues. Those who belong to Generation Y are the driving force of the consumer society, who mainly buy based on recommendations. They like to communicate via e-mail and Messenger, but despite having lots of information, their knowledge is rather superficial. They can be reached best with images and sounds. As for the members of Generation Z, Ms Bedy called them ‘internet gurus’. They live in the virtual world and social media. They use Instagram and YouTube, but they read news on Facebook, too. They are more conscious than Generation Y, but are rather easy to convince to buy online. The managing director highlighted the fact that the problem of generational differences is very much present in brand communication too. Her two guests, Boldzer from Generation Z and László Schönekker from Generation Y talked about how to communicate effectively on Instagram and YouTube.

After the presentations an award ceremony followed: the Hungarian winner of the student category of the Shop! Global Awards in Chicago received her trophy: Eszter Regina Gaál won with an interactive display that she had prepared for Essity’s designer competition. She was assisted in her work by András Varga, a professor at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics.

Réka Forgách
brandmanager
Essity Zewa

After the ceremony Réka Forgách, Zewa brand manager of Essity – she mentored the design project – told the story of the Zewa Designer Competition and the cooperation with the university. She told that the topic of the project was toilet wet wipes and the mission was to make using these moist toilet tissues as common in households as classic toilet paper use is. With the new displays designed as part of the competition, the company’s objective was efficient in-store communication. There were really exciting solutions, from which the jury found Ms Gaál’s to be the best, which also won in Chicago. She briefly introduced the work phases and talked about the lots of help competition participants got from Essity and the university.

Ildikó Havasiné Kátai
secretary general of
POPAI Hungary Society

Finally Ildikó Havasiné Kátai announced the POPAI Student Design Awards competition, which is sponsored by Essity Hungary; the details can be found at popai.hu. //