Our People : Zsuzsanna TÓTH
Meet Zsuzsanna TÓTH, Customer Service Manager at Safic-Alcan Hungary. A dedicated team builder, passionate problem-solver, and proud mother of two, she brings empathy, structure, and a touch of logic to everything she does.
Introduce yourself...When and why did you join Safic-Alcan? What made you consider joining us?
My name is Zsuzsa, and I am the Customer Service Manager of SA Hungary. I joined the international Safic team in 2017 when - with the increasing activities in the Hungarian market - it was inevitable to start growing the administrative force.
At that time, I had a son going to kindergarten and a baby girl to take care of, so I felt incredibly lucky to find a part-time job where I could make use of my previous job experiences and knowledge from my studies. An open mind, an MA degree, and a BSc in economics and logistics seemed to be a good base to start.
I had the opportunity to join the emerging Hungarian team and participate in shaping the office procedures to back up sales activities. We tried to learn as much as possible from our Czech colleagues. Creating something new was hard but also very exciting at the same time!
Ever since then I enjoy full support of our team and my whole family. Seeing the Hungarian subsidiary and my kids grow parallel is fantastic!
How do experience your relationship with other collaborators, partners, principals or customers?
Having experience in working for multinational companies before joining Safic-Alcan I was aware that I have always enjoyed being in contact with colleagues and partners of different nationalities. It is often a challenge but also fun to understand one another and sort out tasks together.
The years spent with Safic-Alcan have enabled us to anticipate challenges and opportunities; and paying attention to details help us manage everything in the most efficient way.
I believe success is the result of team effort. I try to encourage my colleagues to rely on logical thinking in daily work and to trust their abilities.
However, still it feels quite difficult for me to stop trying to find solutions for everything, let go of control and delegate tasks while remaining fully accountable.
Full of challenges, but fortunately, all parties: colleagues, partners, principals and customers are excelling in cooperating based on clear directions and a hint of flexibility!
What is something curious to know about you? (your hobbies, passions, etc)?
Apart from my job, first and foremost, I am a mother and wife, which clearly means that my hobbies are put on a more distant shelf for a while. My passion for reading helps to balance the lack of travelling in the past few years. However, I prefer Scandinavian thrillers to travelling guides!
In my free time I love watching movies and listening to music of all kinds… maybe except for some bands my son is so keen on nowadays.
Logic games, Sudoku and crosswords, take up the last free minutes of my daily active hours, and I can hardly wait to play a board game with my friends and family when we get together.
My favourite season is spring. Gardening makes me move to the open air after office hours from behind the laptop!
How do you try to incorporate Safic values of Entrepreneurship, Responsibility, Expertise, Trust in your day-to-day work?
These values should be kept in mind and followed in our everyday lives, not only at work. Effective communication, reliability and trust are the most important values in daily work in my opinion. Skills can improve with time, but to succeed in overcoming the great variety of challenges we must understand and adhere to principles, work autonomously and also share our thoughts when needed.
Do you have any illustrative fun/light stories to share from your time at Safic-Alcan?
Sales managers can surely tell you a lot of exciting stories during their travels, visits to customers, fairs and so on, but office work seems to be less adventurous. I must admit it is safer too - at least in Hungary. Each of our sales managers had an accident quite seriously hurting one of their fingers in and out of the office within a couple of weeks. To remember this extraordinary situation we took a photo of the injured fingers, of course!
What is the one main takeaway candidates wanting to join Safic-Alcan should know and look forward to?
Spending a couple of years at a company specializing in chemical substances enables you to be more aware of your environment. Apart from that, with working at Safic you can be sure life-long learning is a must and widening your sight does not stop when leaving school or finishing a previous commitment. This working environment provides you with new challenges and the ability to acquire new skills on a daily basis. Making contacts and getting to know lots of people can enrich your experiences. Be sure: you will not be bored at all!
