“Careers Don’t Just Happen”

“If we want to remain com­pet­i­tive in the future, as a com­pa­ny we need to change con­tin­u­ous­ly — that starts with our orga­ni­za­tion­al cul­ture, but ulti­mate­ly encom­pass­es each indi­vid­ual,” says Sylvie Nicol, Man­age­ment Board mem­ber respon­si­ble for HR at Henkel, a Ger­man con­sumer and indus­tri­al goods com­pa­ny. There’s no doubt in this top manager’s mind that per­son­nel mat­ters will play a key role in the company’s trans­for­ma­tion. She notes that nobody at Henkel can avoid change. But at the same time, nobody needs to fear it — because far-reach­ing changes will have pos­i­tive con­se­quences and make every­one more equipped for the future.

Since trans­fer­ring to Henkel’s head­quar­ters in the west­ern Ger­man city of Düs­sel­dorf in 2013, she has worked in human resources, first in what was the Beau­ty Care unit. She draws on valu­able lead­er­ship expe­ri­ence in mar­ket­ing, brand devel­op­ment, and sales man­age­ment — an area that tends to be dri­ven by num­bers. It stands to rea­son, then, that she is now also in charge of infra­struc­ture and sustainability.

In Nicol’s very first year on the Man­age­ment Board in 2019, the com­pa­ny’s Lead­er­ship Com­mit­ments have been intro­duced to all regions. Before this trans­for­ma­tion could extend into all parts of the globe, how­ev­er, the man­age­ment team was already inten­sive­ly work­ing on the cul­tur­al trans­for­ma­tion. As Nicol recent­ly explained in an inter­view with the HR jour­nal Per­son­alführung, “You can’t achieve that type of trans­for­ma­tion with Pow­er­Point pre­sen­ta­tions, video mes­sages, or poster cam­paigns alone.” She relies instead on pow­ers of per­sua­sion. “You need gen­uine exchange in work­shops, dis­cus­sions, and train­ing ses­sions: in other words, a non-stop focus on communication.”

At Henkel, an icon­ic fam­i­ly busi­ness in the con­sumer goods and adhe­sives indus­try, inno­v­a­tive spir­its inter­act with struc­tures and tra­di­tions that have devel­oped over decades in both Ger­many and abroad. And have brought com­mer­cial suc­cess. In 2026, Henkel will cel­e­brate its 150th anniver­sary. In 2023, the group post­ed oper­a­tional earn­ings of 2.6 bil­lion euros, some­what dimin­ished by the sale of its Russ­ian busi­ness and plants and the loss of that mar­ket. A brief look back: founder and mer­chant Fritz Henkel began pur­su­ing his pas­sion for chem­istry in Aachen, a Ger­man city near the bor­der with Bel­gium. Two years later, in 1878, he began exper­i­ment­ing with deter­gents in Düs­sel­dorf. Henkel’s bleach­ing soda was the company’s first best­seller. It was fol­lowed by brands such as Per­sil (laun­dry deter­gent, 1907), Ata (scour­ing pow­der, 1920), and Pril (dish­wash­ing liq­uid, 1951). In addi­tion to its con­sumer goods sec­tor that includes the Schwarzkopf hair­care brand acquired in 1995, the fam­i­ly-owned cor­po­ra­tion also runs an indus­try busi­ness with adhe­sives, sealants, and coat­ings. These con­sumer brands, along with Pritt (1969), Pat­tex (1956), and Ponal (1979, water­tight wood glue), enjoy excel­lent long-stand­ing rep­u­ta­tions among tar­get groups rang­ing from con­sumers to customers.

In 2023, the company’s approx­i­mate­ly 48,000 employ­ees from 124 dif­fer­ent nations brought in sales of 21.5 bil­lion euros in 79 coun­tries — down from 2022, but up from 2021. Sales have increased over­all since 2005, not con­tin­u­ous­ly but with fluc­tu­a­tions due to over­ar­ch­ing eco­nom­ic and polit­i­cal developments.

So why, are fun­da­men­tal changes on the agen­da right now? For one thing, there is a need to counter the ris­ing share of cheap prod­ucts on mar­kets world­wide. Top man­ag­er Nicol is aware that cul­tur­al changes require time, espe­cial­ly in large orga­ni­za­tions. Despite that, change is “unavoid­able.” In the HR expert’s words, “I’ve been with the com­pa­ny for over 25 years, and like many of my col­leagues, I’m see­ing the progress.” She spends most of her time look­ing ahead. The company’s glob­al ini­tia­tive ACT, which stands for Accel­er­ate Cul­tur­al Trans­for­ma­tion, entered its sec­ond stage in 2024, with a focus on fos­ter­ing a cul­ture of feed­back. It’s not a mat­ter of intro­duc­ing a new tool but of chang­ing human behav­ior. “We must acknowl­edge and respect that not every­one wants to change,” she says. In open dia­logue and con­crete action, how­ev­er, the teams espe­cial­ly need to estab­lish what they iden­ti­fy with in their work.

Per­son­nel man­agers draw up effi­cien­cy plans that stream­line process­es while also moti­vat­ing employ­ees. One exam­ple is Har­Money, a project designed to inte­grate the company’s 150 dif­fer­ent pay­roll and time man­age­ment sys­tems in dif­fer­ent parts of the world. “It sounds quite tech­ni­cal — and it is,” remarks Nicol. “But we’re aim­ing to stream­line and trans­form how we man­age HR glob­al­ly at Henkel.” Launched in the large US mar­ket, the project was then extend­ed to other plants and offices. Nicol is con­vinced that “with each suc­cess­ful roll­out, we are mov­ing clos­er to a more uni­fied and effi­cient HR ecosys­tem, fos­ter­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion, and ensur­ing the corporation’s readi­ness for the future.”

In early 2023, the pre­vi­ous­ly sep­a­rate Beau­ty Care and Laun­dry & Home Care units were con­sol­i­dat­ed into the Con­sumer Brands divi­sion. “It was quite sur­pris­ing to see just how dif­fer­ent the cul­ture was in the two units despite being togeth­er under the Henkel ‘roof,’” Nicol recalls. “Dis­tinct cul­tur­al iden­ti­ties and lead­er­ship styles had devel­oped over many decades.” Shared goals and direc­tions were defined over the course of numer­ous dis­cus­sions. The result­ing syn­er­gies led to the elim­i­na­tion of 2,000 posi­tions world­wide. In an inter­view with the Süd­deutsche Zeitung, Henkel’s CEO Carsten Kno­bel announced fur­ther world­wide effi­cien­cy mea­sures in the areas of pur­chas­ing, logis­tics, and production.

Kno­bel is the lat­est non-fam­i­ly mem­ber to head the com­pa­ny since 1980 when Kon­rad Henkel, grand­son of the com­pa­ny founder, moved to the Super­vi­so­ry Board. The con­sumer and indus­tri­al goods com­pa­ny has remained in fam­i­ly hands, how­ev­er, with around 200 fam­i­ly mem­bers hold­ing more than 60 per­cent of the shares. The remain­ing shares are trad­ed freely on the mar­ket. Fritz Henkel’s great-great-grand­daugh­ter Dr. Simone Bagel-Trah chairs the Super­vi­so­ry Board and the Share­hold­ers’ Com­mit­tee. She is active­ly over­see­ing the trans­for­ma­tion — includ­ing the changes in HR man­age­ment ini­ti­at­ed and imple­ment­ed by Sylvie Nicol.

Before Nicol’s time, Henkel had already been active­ly pro­mot­ing diver­si­ty, gen­der equi­ty, and inclu­sion. In 2024, the com­pa­ny intro­duced eight weeks of fully paid parental leave world­wide — regard­less of coun­try-spe­cif­ic guide­lines. And look­ing for­ward, its HR tal­ent cloud plat­form is expect­ed to match tal­ent­ed employ­ees with new com­pa­ny jobs at a faster pace than before. To do so, AI sys­tems sup­port to find a fit for open posi­tions worldwide.

In search of experts in spe­cial­ized fields such as dig­i­tal­iza­tion, ana­lyt­ics, sup­ply chain man­age­ment, and IT, the goal is to iden­ti­fy capa­ble peo­ple already at the com­pa­ny and devel­op their abil­i­ties fur­ther. As Nicol observes, “This is not just about acquir­ing new skills but about fun­da­men­tal­ly reshap­ing our approach to tal­ent devel­op­ment.” Dig­i­tal solu­tions are absolute­ly essen­tial in such a large and inter­na­tion­al orga­ni­za­tion, she adds, and explains that a glob­al job archi­tec­ture already exists to com­pare employ­ees’ skill sets. “We encour­age our work­ers to keep their skill pro­files up to date,” she says. “The next step is for each par­tic­i­pant to obtain ref­er­ences or feed­back on their indi­vid­ual pro­file, not only from their man­ag­er but also from their peers.” The mix of per­son­al ini­tia­tive and effi­cien­cy gains is very impor­tant to her. “We offer a plat­form and the nec­es­sary tool sup­port, but each employ­ee must take action for them­selves,” she says, also speak­ing from per­son­al expe­ri­ence. “A career is not some­thing that just hap­pens to you.”