Young HR professional: Building corporate culture and making workers feel good

When Petra Matejíčková started working for the shipping company Zásielkovňa in 2018, it had just 40 employees and she was the only staff member in its HR department.

Fresh out of university, she had no experience of the kind of job she was taking on, and although she had swotted up on HR work in companies, she found the reality was very different to what she had expected.

She had to start from scratch.

“The processes at the HR department were set with the growth of our company,” she told The Slovak Spectator.

Four years later, the company has not only grown greatly in size (it now has about 500 employees), it has also rebranded (now called Packeta, part of the global digital e-commerce group of the same name) and been voted one of the most attractive employers in the country in an annual survey carried out by the Profesia recruitment company.

The work of Matejíčková and her team – the HR department has expanded to 12 – significantly contributed to this achievement and she herself has been recognised for her skills: she won the 2021 HRTalent award for the country’s best young HR professionals.

Search for the right direction

Matejíčková’s first proper HR experience was during her HR studies at university. Halfway through her course, she applied for a job as an assistant at a bank, hoping to work her way up to the HR department.