Samuel Noom

Quickly and effectively I can separate main and secondary issues. By observing objectively, I know what is important and what can be labeled as noise. This provides order and focus not only for myself, but also for the rest of the team. 

I’m good at talking but better at listening. That noise? I easily filter it out, even in personal conversations. This allows me to act as a mirror for my conversation partner, allowing us to really get to the heart of the matter. 

What I see and hear, I report back to you straight away. I think it is very important to be honest, because that way the people around you know what they have to gain from you and you know what you have to gain from yourself. 

Just because I honestly acknowledge things as they are does not mean that I do not support the other person in this. Even when things go completely wrong, I point out the positive aspects to those around me and create a calm setting in which practical thought can be given to the necessary next steps. 

I am part of the human resources team, and my roles are multiple. War Child is active in fifteen countries and part of the HR strategy is to improve organizational alignment by using one HR software, I am responsible for a HR software market analysis that will be implemented worldwide. I also have a role as secretary for the merger set up team where all department heads meet and discuss progress. In this role I am responsible for contacting all active vendors of the organization to discuss contract agreements. All in all, very interesting first assignment both in terms of responsibility and organizational purpose.

I worked as a project manager in the Cross-Border Solutions department at PostNL. The goal of my assignment was to improve the operational export process at the distribution centers in the Netherlands so that PostNL can meet customer requirements now and in the future. One of the ways the process could be improved was by having all centers use a single IT-system, which was the focus of my assignment. 

To achieve this, I worked with many different stakeholders, ranging from the architects of the new system to the employees who had to work with the new IT-tool. My manager gave me the space and trust to fully utilize skills such as stakeholder management and change management to advance the project. This freedom, combined with tangible results, made my assignment both enjoyable and educational. I am most proud of how I managed to hold my own among all the different stakeholders in a large and complex organization. Through this, I learned about the challenges you can encounter in a large corporate organization.