Walton’s career in Enfield began 15 years ago. She started in an HR consultant role supporting the supply chain and moved into various other HR roles and projects before establishing a recruitment and employee relations service team in Enfield.
According to Walton, The LEGO Group’s culture centers on a commitment to quality at all times. “When I say a commitment to quality, I mean quality of product and quality of staff,” she says.
Walton says that The LEGO Group focuses on building relationships and that there is a culture of change and flexibility — traits that are key to the company’s continued success in the global marketplace. The company also makes a concerted effort to understand different cultures and styles of employees from different countries.
As The LEGO Group continues expanding into new markets such as China, Brazil and Singapore, Walton says she needs to focus on three key areas: attraction of new talent, selection of talent and the onboarding, or the organizational socialization, of new talent.
Walton says she works with local partners and global e-recruitment software to find talent. But the selection system is still a work in progress. “How do we create a system that everyone uses and develop metrics to report globally?” she asks. She envisions a time when there will be Microsoft SharePoint spaces for recruiters around the globe to meet virtually.
SharePoint is a business collaboration tool that enables colleagues globally to share and manage information.
The LEGO Group has certainly come a long way since its founding in 1932 by Ole Kirk Kristiansen. The company, based in Billund, Denmark, is still family owned, and this familial feeling continues to resonate despite the company being one of the world’s largest players in the toy sector.
The word LEGO is an abbreviation of two Danish words, leg godt, which mean “play well”. This way of thinking is reflected in everything the company does. The company’s mission is to inspire and develop the builders of tomorrow. The mission has been at the core of the company since its inception.
Most people are familiar with the infamous LEGO brick, but the first LEGO toys were wooden trucks and doll furniture. The contemporary LEGO brick was launched in 1958, and now all of the company’s toys and materials are built around the brick.
Tracy Michaud has been with The LEGO Group for nearly three years and says that the company has a high-performing culture — a culture that focuses on children’s creative development.
Michaud, a senior HR business partner who also holds the SPHR credential, says the company wants to inspire the builders of tomorrow for a lifetime of creative learning and innovative thinking. “It’s LEGO over ego,” she says succinctly. This means working collaboratively and focusing on solutions rather than the individual. She says there’s a level of healthy conflict that goes on in the workplace. But instead of creating tension, it creates great problem solving.
And it is clear that “LEGO over ego” works. Michaud says that employee turnover is really low. She says, “I find my work here meaningful, engaging and rewarding.”
Michaud began her tenure at the company in a senior HR operations role. She now supports the sales and marketing teams in North America. She says that her HR focus is to take the complexity out of the HR processes to allow the leaders to focus on their businesses. This philosophy helps her address an important question: “How can we be scalable and adaptable as the company continues to grow?”
Cultural differences and global values are important, but what about legal compliance in various jurisdictions? How do you reconcile those differences across the organization?