bloom: Hanne Vandael
Hanne has been working since September 2022 at RedMojo🌶️ as a People Analytics Consultant. After studying occupational psychology and a first work experience in HR, she took a different route once she found her passion for data. 🤩
Hanne is an energetic young lady who loves a challenge, and sees this new adventure as an opportunity to grow in the exciting field of People Analytics. Using her enthusiasm and eagerness to learn, she will help form the basis of this start-up and has really found her place here.
A people person
At the beginning of high school, Hanne was still searching. Once in the third year, she could choose a major that was right up her alley. "I always liked working with people, especially human behavior and everything around it intrigued me enormously. In the third high school, I could then choose Human Sciences. It was a good choice, I super enjoyed doing it. The subjects "Behavioral Sciences" and "Cultural Sciences" were really my thing. Without giving it much thought, I was pretty sure that I wanted to study Psychology from the 5th grade onwards. Back then, though, with the intention of becoming a clinical psychologist, where I could help people one-on-one."
"Due to the minimum number of hours of math in my major, some Universities on the SID-in scholarships recommended that I study the Bachelor's degree in Applied Psychology, while I was thus thinking of going for a Master's degree. This did cause a bit of confusion, but after some thought, I had taken the plunge anyway. I chose to study a Master's degree in Psychology at the University of Ghent and also suddenly went to rooming school there."
"I first wanted to major in Clinical Psychology, but I came across several courses early in my studies, including courses that gave an introduction to 'Business Psychology.' In the end, I still chose Business Psychology as my major because it intrigued me more due to, among other things, the fact that you can go into it so broadly. You can focus on marketing, behavioral economics, Human-Resources and several other things."
"I didn't want to be stuck in one specialization and enjoy learning about different things from a broad area of interest."."
How did you get into tech?
"I did a 6-month internship at Attentia, during this internship there was a job opening as an HR officer. This seemed like an interesting opportunity and I ended up doing this job for two years. The job consisted on the one hand of a Talent and Development part, everything to do with training, supporting the personal and professional growth of employees, and on the other hand a piece of HR dashboarding that I was allowed to set up from scratch. The latter was really the start. That's where I first came into contact with data and people analytics. The spark quickly struck and it managed to hold my interest. Because this project was completely new, I could really shape it myself as well and the responsibility for the further rollout lay with me."
"I never thought I would enjoy the HR Dashboarding project so much. I also knew absolutely nothing about it in the beginning, but gradually I noticed that I had created a permanent added value through this dashboard. I had monthly meetings with the HR business partners and with the HR director to go over all the data from the report and give advice based on it. I got a lot of energy from this project and noticed that I had really found my 'thing'."
"After attending a training course on HR analytics, the spark completely ignited."
From a large organization to a young start-up
"After 2 years of working on this data project, it was quiet time for something new. I felt I needed a new challenge because I had outgrown my current position. One thing was certain; it was going to be something challenging around HR analytics. Unfortunately, there weren't many job openings for that. You often needed a fair amount of experience already and, except for the data project at Attentia, I couldn't present that yet. BUT then I found RedMojo' s job posting on Linkedin for People Analytics Consultant. When I read it, I thought "that's me in a job posting form!". It was a perfect fit for me. I then started applying, the click was immediately there and in the meantime I have been working for almost 2 months."
So what exactly do you do as a People Analytics Consultant at RedMojo?
"RedMojo is still a very young company. Frederik Vandeputte founded RedMojo a few months ago, in May 2022. I was the first real 'hire'. As a result, there is really still a lot of room to help shape my role, and even the company by extension. As a People analytics Consultant, I work with all kinds of data from company employees, and pour it into powerful dashboards. From these, we extract insights for business leaders and the HR department. My background in occupational psychology is my strong point in being able to formulate those insights, and thus substantiate the decisions companies make. So the added value is not only in being able to collect the right data and pour it into a nice dashboard or report, but also (and perhaps especially) in what we then do with the conclusions and insights from that dashboard afterwards."
How did you experience the transition from a large and older organization to a young start-up?
"The difference is huge! It's a warm organization I've come into. Your voice matters! We have a lot of say and you can help place building blocks at the foundation of the company. This is often different in a larger company where your opinion does not weigh as heavily in business decisions. In a start-up, you see and experience the impact of what you do immediately and that is very satisfying."
"My opinion is heard, which allows me to help build the foundation of our story."
"With RedMojo, we are part of the Cronos Group. That is also really something special! Different people from other companies offer help and that is very typical of this organization. I like to exchange knowledge and I like to learn new things from others. Frederik (Managing Partner of RedMojo s.a.) and I also get along tremendously well, there is a very open communication. At the moment my focus is on polishing up my technical knowledge. So my day-to-day work is still a lot of on-the-job learning. I would like to deepen my technical expertise in People Analytics, which I did not get from my studies. And that is possible at RedMojo. I get to take training courses to learn about things I haven't yet mastered."
A future full of possibilities
"Career-wise, I would like to continue to grow in my current role. I currently do have some technical knowledge to catch up on, and in the near future I do want to be at a certain level where I feel comfortable with the technical baggage I have , so that I can go to a customer with confidence. In addition, I hope that with Redmojo we can support a lot of companies with our services. Surely that is the main thing I would like to achieve within a year. Finally, I also hope that our team continues to grow and that we keep the fun factor in it, but I have no doubt about that!"
"I think that team feeling is important, we are one front and help each other where necessary."
What are your ambitions for the further future?
"Surely in 5 years I would like to manage a small team. I love working with people and in my previous job I also had the opportunity to supervise and manage trainees. I loved it and got a lot of energy out of it. If I could add that, it would be ideal! Who knows what the future holds."
If you could go back into the past, what would you want to say to your younger self?
"First of all: don't stress so much, it will all work out! I used to worry about a lot of things, especially school. That was partly due to fear of failure, wanting to do everything right, not letting anyone down, ... Still, it's just better to keep your cool. I do my best and that's all I can do.
Finally, I would also tell myself to open my mouth a little more. I used to be very shy. Fortunately, I grew out of that because of my student job in sales, where I had to come out of my shell to interact with customers. On the other hand, the fact that I moved to Ghent for my studies was also a real game-changer, which made me blossom. Basically, to get rid of my shyness, I had to step outside my comfort zone. So my advice to both my younger self and anyone reading this: most growth happens outside your comfort zone!"
