A day in the life: Caroline Courtier

Caroline works at Conduent (a recent spin-off from Xerox) as an HR director, looking after compensation & benefits for their international offices. She is also on the board of the PWN (Professional Women’s Network Barcelona). 

6AM: If it’s my turn to take our son to school, we leave at 6.25am to beat the traffic. Otherwise I get up around 7.30am and start the day with a coffee, fresh orange juice and porridge. I work from home because my team is spread out all over the world, but like anybody who works in an office, my first task is to catch up on emails. I start with Asia because it’s midday there and I need to catch them during their standard working hours. 

9AM: See what projects need attention. Typically this means sorting out an issue with employee benefits in a certain country, or helping a business manager who needs to assess the salaries for his multi-country department against the market. 

10.30AM-1PM: Meetings with my Asia and Europe direct reports. They understand the local challenges of dealing with managers who want to ensure their employees are remunerated fairly and receive the correct employee benefits. This may result in new projects to improve salary levels, bonus plans or benefits offered. Sometimes it is only a matter of educating people on our compensation and benefits packages in each individual country. 

1PM: Run on the beach. This is the time to clear my head before my US colleagues wake up. 

2-7PM: A quick sandwich and then calls with my US colleagues. I am their go-to person when it comes to ensuring that global policies are compliant across the board. I also depend on them to keep me updated on the different directions the company is taking. This could result in new initiatives on the international side. These calls go on until approximately 7pm, depending on what issues occur. In between I often prepare reports or presentations for these calls. 

7PM: Time for a glass of wine while my husband prepares food. He takes care of the household and my youngest son. (The older one is at university in the UK.) We eat as a family at 7.30pm. After dinner we like to watch UK’s Channel 4 news, which I must say seems like a soap opera these days. 

Working with countries around the world means I learn new things every day—there’s never a dull moment! Other than that, there are PWN events in Barcelona during the week. Attending these gives me enormous energy and pleasure. Networking with other professional women, who are given a voice through our network, is very satisfying.