#leadership #culture #lessons learned
11. Nov 2022 |
- min Lesezeit
We come from a range of different backgrounds, and when we join together, that diversity is a great strength. By making the best use of our collective skills and perspectives, we can create measurable impact for a wide range of clients on their path to digitization.
When we founded, we put our values first. For us, this was a crucial step in defining how we wanted to work together, and it really wasn’t that complicated. We had a clear vision, and we wanted to share it with colleagues and customers: create a work environment where teams can thrive to build impactful digital solutions that shape the future.
We put the way we work together into the foundations of our company. We enjoy working with each other, and we pass on that enjoyment to our clients. When sparks fly, they ignite a fire of ideas and new ways of thinking that generate powerful solutions.
When people see work as a place they enjoy going, where they can work on things that they feel are important and then feel valued for doing that work, you know there’s trust and respect. It’s like a flag for social cohesion. Where there’s joy and appreciation, there’s focus. Where there’s focus, there’s impact.
Joy leads to playfulness. And being playful is at the heart of being curious and creative. It’s how we solve difficult problems and support each other to do our best work, to take risks, and learn from mistakes. Where there’s joy, there’s satisfaction, high morale and resilience to stress.
Meaningful recognition on a regular basis lets employees know what they’re doing well–and subsequently helps them grow.
As you may know, we recently won second place in kunnu’s Best Employer Award 2022 for companies under 250 people. We’ve now officially achieved our goal of becoming one of Germany’s best places to work.
Many thanks to kununu and IBA for the initiative. The award is 100% neutral and is not funded through marketing budgets etc. It’s great that such an opportunity exists, and it’s a great way for all of us in the sector to celebrate success and share best practice.
What I’m especially proud of, is that the award is based upon the direct, anonymous feedback of our colleagues; the people who live our values every day. It’s not always easy to define success because it’s the result of so many different variables.
However, sharing the same values is a great starting point.
We made it! Kamila at the awards ceremony of kunnu’s Best Employer Award 2022.
Keep improving: we want our colleagues to grow and develop their careers. We love to see people reach the next level in their journey. We support each other with continuous feedback and clearly defined goals for professional development.
We know where we’re going, and we help each other to get there.
Our internal Fridays give people focused time to spend on exchange and evolvement. It’s amazing what can be achieved through dedicating one day per week to individual growth. It’s good for team members, but it also adds a huge amount of value for us as a company through building competencies and refining workflow.
When I compare how we’ve run more recent projects to those of several years ago, I’m so proud of what we’ve achieved. There’s a clear and constant evolution.
Better Together: for us the team always comes first. We know how important it is to support each other by sharing information and skills. Our new starters are universally amazed at how helpful everybody is. Nobody here has a personal agenda, we just want to deliver great results.
Create Impact: we collaborate closely together as a team, but also with our clients. We support client objectives with knowledge and passion. We love what we do, and we want to be proud of it. We’re here to make our customers successful, and we do that by making life easier for the user.
Always transparent: we always give honest and direct feedback. We tell our customers the hard truth when their ideas are not realistic, or we do not see the potential. Internally, we communicate openly, sharing all the numbers; even our salaries are transparent.
Respect: we believe this is built upon transparency and mutual trust. A flat hierarchy means that everyone sees eye-to-eye. Everybody can bring ideas on how we can improve our project work or the company. We reserve time for open exchange, and we live the principles of New Work everyday; we trust each other.
Be yourself: diversity is strength and we don’t want to change people. In fact, we want to be even more diverse, but in terms of gender diversity we’re doing well. Our leadership team is 50% female, and we support parents with flexibility working and the KITA Bonus.
We can be even better here, and we’re open to hearing all ideas from different people and backgrounds.
We make it happen: we stay open, we stay curious, and if we need to adapt, we do it. Whether this means working from home or even from other countries, supporting colleagues through unexpected life challenges or solving previously unknown client problems; we are solution driven.
Happy people celebrating their award together.
They’re the reason it’s wonderful to work here, and they explain why we now rank as one of the best places to work in Germany. For me, one thing is certain; we want to keep improving and to keep living these values every day.
Our culture makes our work focused and fun. That means growth for our team and impact for clients. Defining your values isn’t that hard, it just needs some self-reflection, and the freedom to grow from there!
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There’s no magic formula for great company culture. The key is just to treat your staff how you would like to be treated.
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