"Bringing the strategic direction of the businesses into the right balance with what is best for our employees, is the best part of my job."

Daphne about her position at Medtronic

Within my role as the employee and labor relations partner, I act as a consultant and liaison to key strategic business partners on aspects such as compliance with labor agreements and minimizing the impact for employees.

There are a lot of differences between all the countries in our region (Europe, Middle East & Africa), which makes it more complex, but also fascinating. I also represent the Human Resources (HR) function in the Dutch Leadership Team which gives me a wide perspective of all the different functions and businesses in The Netherlands. 

Daphne’s education and career path

I studied Psychology and worked as a psychologist in my earlier career. After that, I moved to recruitment and eleven years ago,  I started at Medtronic as a Talent Acquisition Specialist. After one year, I became the HR Generalist and after a couple of years I moved into a HR project management role before I became the HR Partner for the Dutch sales organization, which has been a great learning. 

What I like most in my current job

Working with the businesses, creating the combination with the strategic direction of these businesses and trying to achieve the best for our employees. Bringing this into the right balance is what gives me the most energy in my job.

What I like about working for Medtronic

What I like most about working for Medtronic, is the positive atmosphere, the diversity, the pace of change and the complexity. Also, the involvement of people is quite extraordinary. I like that I can contribute to an organization which is constantly evolving. Also, the fact that Medtronic is mission driven. 

My most memorable experiences at Medtronic

For me this definitely was the Covidien integration. Merging two companies of such a large scale has not often been done before, especially in the healthcare industry, this was a first. As a company we learned a lot: what should be taken into consideration and what is the impact.

There are so many changing elements which influence each other and bringing this together is unbelievably challenging. We have been involved in integrations before, but never in one of this size or complexity