Cooking Up a People-First Culture at HelloFresh

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In this special edition of the HR Leaders Podcast, I have the pleasure of speaking with Johannes Wilberg, who serves as the SVP of People at HelloFresh. Our discussion delves into how the company, known for its innovative approach to home cooking, champions cross-functional development and internal mobility, making them core aspects of the employee experience.

One of their seven core values is "learning never stops." As Johannes said, "We focus a lot on learning in the day-to-day and learning on the job." They structure agile teams across functions like tech, product, and marketing to enable continuous skills building.

HelloFresh also drives an inclusive internal growth culture through a formal global mobility program. Johannes explained, "We have a very streamlined application process...that's very quick and lean" allowing for easy movement between opportunities across countries.

The company further accelerates development through targeted programs like their graduate FastStream initiative and leadership Future Leaders program. Johannes said, "We bring those people together, working on actual business challenges across the group."

For HR leaders looking to evolve their organizations' cultures, Johannes advised not underestimating "investing early in data and analytics to drive people insights." This sense of empowerment through information is what fuels employee experience.

Listen to the full episode and connect with Johannes on LinkedIn to share your thoughts! Also, they are hiring!

Episode Highlights

• How HelloFresh enables continuous learning via cross-functional, agile team structures

• How HelloFresh accelerates development through targeted programs like FastStream and Future Leaders

• How HelloFresh drives an engaging culture by investing early in people analytics

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Recommended Resources

• Follow Johannes on LinkedIn

Careers at HelloFresh

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🎙️ Automatically generated Podcast Transcript

Johannes 0:00

Don't underestimate the effort of data driven as of data in general and the people function and start early. Right so I think there's so much opportunity and data that we have in the team that we don't really leverage for neck come so much insight from like a good structured approach and are engaged are people were people not happy? Where do people develop generally what are like basically core ingredients for for for success and leadership for success in an organisation? There's so many different angles to take from the and I think we often underestimate investing in that

Chris Rainey 0:42

Hey, everyone, welcome back to the HR leaders podcast, little bit of a different episode today. Today, we're here at HelloFresh. I'm joined by Johannes Walberg, who's a senior vice president of HR for HelloFresh. Enjoy. Hey, yo, ns how are you?

Johannes 0:55

I'm doing well, Chris, thanks. How are you?

Chris Rainey 0:58

Not too bad? I bet you're thinking, what if the team signed me up for today? And I'm probably and I'm also thinking the same thing. How are you?

Johannes 1:06

Thanks. Great. Thanks for good so cannot complain. We're in basically now entering peak period here end of year before when tragic conversation starting out and the prep for this. So nice. All hands on deck. And and everyone like, into making this a great experience. Right? So

Chris Rainey 1:23

where would you give your sort of level of HelloFresh cooking skills at a scale of one to 10?

Johannes 1:30

I think I'm okay, I'm probably like a bit better than average, probably six or so I'd say.

Chris Rainey 1:36

You're saying that. Now. I think you're saying that we feel better. And once we get started, now you're going to be a weird chef wizard. And I'm gonna level up really bad.

Johannes 1:43

You have the you have the better track record. I've been impressed with your early childhood experience is there right. So

Chris Rainey 1:50

I shouldn't have mentioned it. Now. I feel like I set myself up, there's a high pressure on me. Let's jump straight in. And we can start cooking as well. Whilst we do that, tell everyone a little bit about your background and your sort of journey to where we are today. And let's just jump in, I'm gonna get my chopping board out. And I'm going to start prepping, we can do that at the same time.

Johannes 2:06

Sounds good? We'll get going. I mean, so yeah, about myself that actually, I'm probably when I listen to your podcast, because I think I'm now more of a rare species actually being one of the people in that position that has actually been in HR Korea for the whole 15 years. I've been really basically. So I actually majored in HR and innovation intrapreneurship Purdue University. Okay, following following that first job was in consulting. So I work basically, and it's accurate, not here. I worked with BCG for nearly 10 years starting nice. And the consulting side. So

Chris Rainey 2:47

you're recovering consultant, then? Is that what you're saying?

Johannes 2:52

You could say that, yeah. And like, yeah, just after six months doing something in variety of roles, I pretty quickly move back into the HR space again, and work mostly exclusively on HR topics, I was actually the one of two global HR experts back then, at BCG. When they started the expert track, setup and consulting, this was a thing and to go away from just having pure generalists having a couple of people that just focus on one area. So I was one of you, in that lucky position there. So we're pretty much any HR topic that you can imagine a long day to value chain, but abundance of different industries. So that's where nice, that started lots of exposure to lots of different challenges, of course. And that was basically BCG time until the point when another opportunity within VG popped up to actually build out what back cool is the global HR knowledge management team, which is the knowledge backbone, basically of the consulting side, right. So you have consultants at the front facing to the client, and then me, my team basically, collect and make available all the great wisdom that the company has created over. So in so many cases, and make sure that we can infuse this into any new case or an assignment that we're basically going through. So I built that team pretty much from scratch globally. So across all continents, more or less over the last two and a half years, and we've got obviously exposure to pretty much any larger HR case that was there pretty much in in BCG at this time. And the other side of the road was also a lot of topic development, right? So you'd basically work on developing things I've worked a lot on HR operating models on people analytics, actually, that's where that passion come from. And then also a lot of other areas around that like strategic workforce planning was big for me also is like basically the the export efficiency on this planet. And then hello, fresh opportunity came along, which is basically at the intersection of HR which is love, but also the emerging firm context, which is something that I've been always like very proud Schnitt about I think that's that has actually been been a very, very exciting journey for me. Now starting at this and had a fresh and actually being hateful to

Speaker 3 5:11

being able to live this also, without being

Chris Rainey 5:19

right worried that my water is boiling fast enough right now.

Johannes 5:23

Mine is too high. Thank you. So basically, yeah, back to this. So HR would just pretty much what I would have loved pretty much in from context, obviously, at BCG times you work for mostly like s&p 530 companies or large organisations, not a lot of exposure, these sorts of things. But I've, as I said, Major, I also wrote my PhD thesis on HR, I'm an emerging firm, so exactly at that intersection. And that was like kind of a unique opportunity for me and to the day, this has been one of the probably the best decisions that I've taken so far. So HelloFresh has been a fantastic journey has been a very challenging journey as well, like imagine going through also like Google, the COVID, period, massive growth. Imagine

Chris Rainey 6:02

you kept me fed during. So I literally said to the team I've been having had our first customer for about five years, I think for a long, long time. And I think, as you know, my wife and I have fought to, you know, very busy full time jobs. And we've got a little daughter Robin and being able to come home and just grab a menu and be like, Okay, which one are we choosing tonight? Not having to think about it. It's been amazing for us as well. And I was really amazed at how how I can only imagine how stressful was in the back end. But the fact that you kept the supply chain going, Yeah,

Johannes 6:38

this was a massive. This is a massive effort, right? You had like, I can imagine massive demand spikes, weeks and weeks, like sometimes some of the crazy periods. Really, yeah, really significant, like 50% Plus in some cases in some markets and some DC so that was really a really a stretch, but the team did super well. Like this was the time when everyone was like full hands on deck 150% driving that forward, so that was pretty impressive. And obviously from what? Sorry.

Chris Rainey 7:09

So your highness. Whoa, hello, fresh core values. Yeah,

Johannes 7:13

so hello fresh. Basically, we have seven core values that have a fresh, the core essential ones that have been there already from the start. And from one I've been is like one speed and agility. This is pretty much a tough one for me, Pat with relentless prioritisation, which was a super critical back at the time we just talked about when there was massive demand spikes, then you have learning never stops at you have data driven. And you also have one of my favourites, which is egoless environment, I think that's that combination is something that had a fresh caps, I think, throughout the entire growth period. And this is also something I feel that it's very different to many other organisations out there that have the size and the complexity of a HelloFresh. So you have OPC, multi geographic, physical and digital products combination that already creates quite quite some challenges, but also quite some opportunities. On the other hand side, you still kept that spirit alive of being very fast and how you take decisions and how you iterate things. And where this really comes to live in speed. And agility is about actually always taking a very strong MVP type approach being very hands on and Matic and developing a first solution that is probably an 80%, which was something that was quite hard for me coming from consulting actually, to get into where you always do a 150%, right, but doing this and bringing this faster customer, right. And then from there, you actually iterate this in an ongoing fashion. And by this you actually achieve a better product in a faster time. And I think throughout all teams that we have, this is something that we really ingrain in the way that we work. And that makes us I think, quite competitive in despite the size of the organisation, we have been very fast and moving things forward.

Chris Rainey 9:01

How is that then realised in your people strategy? Yeah. So

Johannes 9:05

I think it's a good question for people strategic perspective, I think a number of values basically combined, right? So on the one hand side, you have exactly that you have like a very natural way of how you do things. But at the other side, it's all about like customer centricity for us as well and our customers the business, right, so making sure that we truly focus on what the business needs are and prioritise. Accordingly, using data a data driven us to understand what are the trade offs that we are making, and where do we can basically take calculated risks to to move forward. And then also, on the other hand side, be very relentless in how we prioritise the things that really matter, and that really have impact. So for us, I think this is ingrained in all the things that we do and like when we define people structures, it's all about customer centricity and like applying the game to this in terms of delivering in a very speedy and agile way in a very collaborative way, right and this comes from iteration In in, in speed and agility where you work with teams, I still think there is a lot of opportunity for us to grow in this and like actually become become even better. But I think like this if you look at it and HelloFresh and the people team to me, this is what makes us really strong as an organisation. So

Chris Rainey 10:15

let's talk about speed and agility. How are you getting on over there?

Johannes 10:20

I'm doing fine. I'm trying to balance like talking to you where universe but I'm where I'm at. I'm, I'm in step two, Chris out of six. So, okay. You might,

Chris Rainey 10:32

you might have a slight I did I need

Johannes 10:35

to talk more than you. Right. That's the title code for and he

Chris Rainey 10:39

says to be fair, I do have the advantage, right? Yeah, I've chopped the mushrooms or chop the onions, and waiting for my pastor to finish pointing. And then I'll be off to Friday mushrooms. And

Johannes 10:50

that's good. Like, I'm still far away from that. But that doesn't matter. Okay,

Chris Rainey 10:54

we all want to give you a bit more of a distraction. And tell everyone a bit more about the I know you have some internal membership mentorship programmes. And I think that your approach to mentor ship programmes is quite different from other organisations I spoke to, Could you walk us through that? Yeah, absolutely.

Johannes 11:10

So I think maybe to start that off, like, when you talk about learning and development and people development, we have a fresh in line with our other core value, which is learning never stops. It's characterised as something that where we focus a lot on learning in the day to day and learning on the job. So everything is basically built around this course, when we talk about programmes and mentoring and a second and spacey at the core to make sure that we actually leverage a the massive opportunities that have in an organisation and allow people to actually stretch themselves every day, learn every day. So part of the learning never stops pieces that you really, essentially take every day as an opportunity in every task as an opportunity for professional growth. And that is something I think that's very powerful. If you combine it with the right ingredients, so to say, right on, on making that work. So what are these ingredients? Right, I think number one, it's really about making sure that people actually have transparency about all the opportunities and understand these opportunities. And these come from, as I said, that powerful combination of being a very large organisation that has quite complex challenges. That is basically in 18 markets with seven brands, right all across the world, which also provides a lot of opportunity for people internally in the organisation to actually grow. And like one key piece is to make sure people have transparency about this and know what are the internal opportunities, and we'll come to our internal mobility programme in a second right with actually facilitates this. The other piece is basically about making sure the way that you structure how teams are working and HelloFresh is also quite targeted towards having a cross functional experience. So you have tech for example, right? Where where this is quite usual, you actually have an agile setup you have we have alliances, tribes, squat logic here and you need squat, you have people from engineering, from design, from products that work together, cross functionally on solving problems in a very agile, a speedy and iterative fashion. But also we apply this in other areas and people for example, right? So you have, and people as well, teams that actually follow strong agile approach and how we develop stuff on people analytics side on the people system side. But also, right now is something that I'm working on with a team, which is quite exciting and thinking about what actually, that next iteration of people operating model could look like, where you build something that will call business solution teams, where you actually bring in people from different functions within the people function, trying to work on very focused business solutions to the point that we discussed before, right, identifying these high value topics. And then we bring this together in a cross functional way. So this is in the making, and something that I'm quite looking forward to, because I think it will help a lot and also applying the successful approach to people. So this allows for learning a lot from other people cross functionally. And I think 1/3 pillar, when you think about the snout of frosh that makes this really powerful here is really the focus on how you can actually build a leadership safety net around us, right. So we've actually invested quite a lot over the last last two years to build up a strong leadership team and how fresh across the board and every function. And this allows people that are having the opportunities to be stretched, to actually be able to try things out. But whenever they need to, they actually have that sparing spot in the back that can provide them with the expertise can walk them through some of the scenarios and solutions that they provide. Also add additional insights to this. And I think this combination of all these three things, right, the structural part, the opportunities that this provides ways of working and the leadership safe in that actually is very powerful in that regard, right and in making sure that you actually facilitate a day to day learning now what we're doing on the people team site actually to support this is just trying To amplify, so we try to amplify these things with the programmes that we put in place. So we don't have a massive lineup of, of l&d programmes here. But it's very focused and tailored to facilitate at cross functional work, facilitate giving people the opportunities to work in different parts of the business, and making sure that people actually do as part of these programmes learn on the job as well, while we provide them with mentorship, for example, to build that leadership safety net around and when doing so. So I think this is probably the powerful ingredient here on our end, on how we like drive this forward and happy to share a bit more about what are these programmes doing in order to facilitate this? And how does this look like?

Chris Rainey 15:44

Love that? How are you getting on?

Johannes 15:46

Well, I'm at the audience now. Don't push me, Chris.

Chris Rainey 15:54

I've chopped everything here depends already on ready to cook the onions and mushrooms. And

Johannes 15:58

you don't have to wait from the press. It's all good. You can just go ahead.

Chris Rainey 16:02

I'm only joking. I'm only joking. You mentioned, you mentioned earlier mobility, your mobility programme? Yeah. All linked back into the mobility programme.

Johannes 16:11

Yeah. So I think mobility programme is all about the first part of creating transparency, right, and making sure that people have the opportunity to actually a understand what are other opportunities out there and the whole of HelloFresh. But we also make sure that people actually can very easily take up this opportunity. So the way that we do this is, of course, there's like in the back office or an approach and like, what is the relocation support that you get, but I think one of the core pieces, it's really helpful actually, there is to have a very, very lean process and how people can apply. So if you let's say, You're Chris are interested in opportunity right? In in the UK, right now working for headquarters in Berlin, you basically have talked with lime and just has this position open or the hiring manager. And then if you're interested, you basically apply and you have a very streamlined application process there. So that means you have less interviews them, typically an external person has because we have obviously also all the internal insights on how you perform. And we try to make this a very quick and mean experience for you in that regard. And then you basically move into that process quickly. And if everything pans out, we have a good agreement on what is the minimum transition times that you get, and then you actually have the opportunity to take up this new opportunity. So I think that's pretty powerful from an internal mobility programme standpoint. And this is actually one of the core priorities that we want to double down on going forward. So if you think about our strategy going forward, this is something that we're really investing in, we have an own OPR team that's just only working on internal global internal mobility, as the topic there. And this is something that's actually really, really exciting for me as well. There's massive support from our C suite against this, which is something that they also believe in like now, I think we have so a lot of untapped potential in the global organisation, we are to actually provide people with those learning opportunities. So yeah, I think that is pretty, pretty powerful. I'm got,

Chris Rainey 18:05

and I have you already, how long has that been in place? Have you already seen sort of an impact on

Johannes 18:10

you. So we started this rather short time ago, like before, this was a bit more opportunistic. So that's why this was such a big opportunity to formalise this, where we have and there's a number of examples where people have done this, in the past actually been quite successful. And the people who have done this, in the past have like been typically on very strong trajectories. And also partly with with us in the company, or one person on the team, for example, Fryar, like she's a senior director of international employee experience, she's actually started out as senior ta manager here and people, oh, wow, person very early, seven years ago, and on the Berlin team. And then, as part of that role, she actually also hired for our Australian business background. And then from that came an opportunity to actually move over and build the actual HR team in Australia. So she became the local head of HR in Australia. And in 2020, we had chatted about like how we can lift the function further talking about how we can probably build also employee experience more to the foreground. And this is where our employee experience function started at the centre of Airbus. He came back to Germany, actually to Berlin, joining the team building this app, and now very successfully driving employee experience on an international level there. So that's pretty impressive story, I think. And like we want to really facilitate more of this across the board. There's a number of other examples, I think we have also in the tech space. One very powerful thing, I think, with HelloFresh. There is another example where for example, our SVP of product right now, most senior female leader in the tech organisation, she actually started as a business analyst in the US back then always had affinity for TAC moved into basically TPM role, that product management role there, and then basically developer, they're moving back to global taking on the topic here and now actually, is driving products and for a very sizeable chunk of our tech business. So

Chris Rainey 19:59

I think there's a huge arrows opportunities, you have sort of an internal talent marketplace. So

Johannes 20:04

yeah, so this is like this is something that like going forward going to be pushed more, there's a number of things. So we have an internal dashboard of course, as every other organisations while we also do is we, we feature like, most critical roles internally. And in our internal newsletter and communications like this is some of the key roles that we're looking for, are you up for to fly and this is cross geographically right across the whole organisation. So people have fins currency. Also, what we do is like, we actually have an interest group of people, which actually, I'm interested in relocating or do this. So this is part of our personal development plan approach, right, where you actually people submit this as it open for an opportunity elsewhere. And then you have that pool of talent that you know, is actually willing to move in, they're interested in they get like specific, specific opportunities addressed to their members, there are some assets potential for me and dandelions like to take us to like that actually, internal global talent pool where we is actually actively used as as a sourcing Pool Party at right, first and foremost, before we go even outside, right, and this is part of that internal mobility, our team will be driving going forward. But we also have programmes already that facilitate Astroid. And I think this is another element of, of that whole story and making this successful. So for example, on the tech side, actually, one, one thing that's pretty cool, since we talked about Annie here was ICP product, we have what's called pasty gopher people actually outside tech on a reactive basis. So whenever we open like a junior product owner role, actually have the ability to, to apply even if they are non tech, right. And then I got actually partnered up with the senior pass in the senior Pio. And basically, first of all, first time they shadow that person, then the person shadows done, and then they basically get sponsibility for for their own own product. So that's been very successful in the past to actually build internal talent across function. So it's your, like, typically people think a lot vertically, right? In terms of how can I grow within my function, I think one of the big pieces of continuous learning and telling people is like cross fingers across functional software. So that's something I think we double down on a bit. And there's, I think two other really cool examples that we have the the other way of how we facilitate what we talked about initially, opportunity part working actually on the job and Kasanka thing, there's like two programmes, we have one for graduates to start, which is called our past stream programme, which is basically entry point for top talent graduates to basically joining, joining had a fresh, straight out of university. And then they basically get on a two year programme where they do four assignments, six months, each across a variety of functions. One of them is an international one, where they actually get a lot of exposure to different teams, different functions work in quite function, you also stretch the lights on these assignments. And then posters like go into the business and we have like 100% success rate of them. Wow, very strong, very strong tensile mechanism also, and this is a really amazing programme. We also have this, of course, for our existing leaders, which is basically our internal we call future leaders programme, that is also basically trying to facilitate that on the job parts, bringing those people together, working on actual business challenges across the group. So this is a global programme, right? Where

Chris Rainey 23:30

you look like a mixture of in person and virtual.

Johannes 23:33

Yeah, you have like on site events like once your summit where people come together, I'm just very quickly make sure I don't burn stuff. Yeah.

Chris Rainey 23:44

We need to get some moments for the for the for the clips on LinkedIn. So if you want to set something on fire, we'll get more views.

Johannes 23:52

Maybe we need to put some some massive or you can get, though, I think that's that's basically one bit there. And on that programme to come back to this. The way this works is you have those on site events where everyone meets right in person. They work together on projects and actual business problems that we ideally try to solve going forward and then pitch this to like a broader audience working cross functionally. So you have people like that come from marketing that work on operations challenges, for example, and call and vice versa. Right, which is pretty powerful on the programme as well. This has sparked with that leadership safety net, which comes in form of a strong mentoring programme. So Abby FRP participant is paired up with a senior person in the organisation to mentor them, they have the ability tools to take some additional coaching on that journey. And also, that actually is a lot of opportunity for people to peer coach and like work within this group and that work on what are the current challenges they have pull on this group to actually deliver against some of their daily things that they need to do. And then on top of this, you have very curated l&d. phrasing that focuses a lot on making sure that that whatever is needed for these people to move forward, you actually offer this through, for example, certain leadership trainings or stuff that is related to how we actually implement, like a strong, agile way of working set up for this. So there is, I think, that combination of providing this on the job real life opportunities, hiring the software, strong mentorship, and Safety Network, and then making sure that these people also together, they get a lot of opportunity to work on exciting stuff,

Unknown Speaker 25:35

right for for the

Chris Rainey 25:36

event to be exposed to different functions, right, and parts and challenges of the business, because otherwise, you wouldn't organically get that cross pollination, especially when you have such a global workforce, right? Any of those leaders we wouldn't even probably meet, if they didn't have the opportunity to do that, outside of those type of programmes. And I can only imagine the sort of innovation that would come from those type of meetings. Oh, absolutely.

Johannes 26:01

It's also always pretty impressive, I find when you put these like highly talented people together, and they then basically pitch a solution to a business problem. And that really triggers some very good discussions. And some of these things have actually ended up in becoming a life reality. So finally be one of the leaders FSP Pro was actually born out of FLP project. So that's pretty, that's pretty cool. I think there's, there's really powerful, I think, one one other element that I feel on top of this. So this is obviously targeted programmes for targeted audience. One key thing that really makes this also scalable across the organisation is a strong focus on personal development planning, we call our performance management priorities, basically the foodie dialogue, so feedback, objectives, opportunities, development, for individual excellence, that's a nice acronym, Rudy, and part of this is a strong conversation around what are the things both short term and long term that people want to develop? We need to also to actually achieve their goals within their current role, but also one of them. And there's always looking two years out, and understanding how that basically look like on a long term basis, like two years out, what are people actually striving for actually trying to trying to achieve in the long run so that you can build this into the plan that people actually have? That that I think is pretty successful, as we just started initially with that talent pool to make this mandatory. And we're rolling this out across everyone to have these conversations on a regular basis and have a good understanding of people in need. And then this is paired with individual r&d budget and really targeted the looks at how can people achieve these goals? And how can we help them drive for So now, it's like shining through everything and making sure that on your day to day learnings, how we can make you enable you to basically reap full potential by providing opportunity by providing senior mentorship by providing those cross functional teams setups and projects for people to actually experience this, and this, I think, are quite powerful hands on approach to l&d, I'd say compared to what I've seen in many other

Unknown Speaker 28:07

organisations, if

Chris Rainey 28:09

I'm from the leadership side, how are you holding them accountable for for that? Are you linking it back to their compensation, their performance reviews? What does that look like?

Johannes 28:19

That's a very good question, man. Just quickly, I think we're the water out here for my pastor, and she was carrying what the team probably want to eat so I have to,

Chris Rainey 28:33

they have to, you're gonna make them

Johannes 28:38

not single can take still a bit more accountability for this. Good point. So I think there's two angles for this overall, as an organisation, what we do actually, is that we have we call mandatory people, okay, ask for each function. So every function automatically inherits like, a goal independent of which function they are. And that is related to how we can engage people, how we can retain people or how we can develop people. So develop is one core element of this. And then, on an individual level, you basically, every team has deliver against them. This is like ongoing basis, we have quarterly pulse checks here and have a fresh, you get a good sense, for example, on engagement and how people are trending and then there's a very concrete action mechanism behind behind that going, girl with water here. Just give one sec on that

Chris Rainey 29:31

point that I want to kind of jump into our quickfire round what an outside of the office, what are some of your hobbies and passions?

Johannes 29:36

Yeah, so my whole life outside of mercy is focusing around family so I have two kids and like try to spend as much time as possible they're basically accompany them on their learning journey, right that they have. So that's that and other than that, for me, personally, my balance is gardening. So I'm, I'm not big into this. So we have a good chunk of God Then like there's lots of work to do never finished. And but that's the best thing about it right? That's right.

Chris Rainey 30:05

I just bought a house recently. And my wife's like, who are you? Because I'm like, my kind of de stress on the weekend is selected. I'm like, she's like, why are you I'm like a perfectionist, the grass has to be perfect as to be caught every, you know, every at least once a week now, not so much now because of the weather. And all of a sudden, I've got a fall in love of gardening. For me. It's like an escape from all the craziness at work and everything else. And I can just be in the moment if that makes sense. Yeah, maybe well,

Johannes 30:31

maybe one other one other thing about this. Actually, also, on the sports side, you do swim, we actually do lifesaving classes also do with us once a week on a voluntary basis, so that's always pretty. Something that I started doing in university and like, over 10 years now active in that organisation, so German lifesaving Association, and that's something that's also pretty cool. I actually never thought that I enjoy teaching so much. But actually, that's, that's also pretty nice. So this helps a lot on the, on the on the sports side of it. during, during, during busy week, so

Chris Rainey 31:09

yeah, definitely. It does have HR and kind of seen it evolve, right? I've been doing this since I was 17. I'm 46. Now, and it's almost like a completely different function. That being said, if you could click your fingers and change one thing about HR, what would you change? And why?

Johannes 31:26

I think many people would answer HR to have a seat at the table. I think for me, it's probably that there is a bit more to this in terms of sort of thing really to change. But I think it's more in terms of how are we looking at HR work from both the business and the people team side and actually introduce a little bit more of an egoless environment, I would say in this and what do I mean by this? I think for one is like on the business side, it was so revered, but their view on how to run an HR function and be very forefront about it, how you can do your job better. I think on the other end site on the charts that is really listening also to the business, what is the problem that they have? And how can you support resolving this and like take, sometimes very thoughtful feedback goes more into consideration. I think, many times we're focusing too much on our own as a function. And same business, sometimes focusing too much outside of their function on HR. If we can be more egoless in this, I think this would be extremely powerful. And this will go a long way also into more rewards to partnership, right on this end, which I think we're all striving for in the end.

Chris Rainey 32:28

What would you say about yourself personally, your career journey? What would you say is the biggest investment that you've made in yourself?

Johannes 32:35

I think it's actually taking the liberty to take time out of all of this interesting, I've been in the fortunate position where like, in all my times, both BCG but also HelloFresh, we've had the opportunity to to, like truly take take time out for myself. So roundabout every two years, I go out for two months. And I've kept up with this, if you plan this well, even in a position like this, you can actually work out quite well. And this is something that's super rewarding for me, right, disconnecting a bit like also recharging the batteries, and then spending time with my family as well. Right. So we typically do four weeks of this to like trip, we asked two times we went to South Africa, amazing, I can really recommend it. And the other four weeks, it's mostly like for myself and my wife, actually to her. And that that's giving me a lot of this is in terms of investing in myself, I'm investing there and like I'm I'm fortunate enough that companies like HelloFresh and also BCG actually do support this quite.

Chris Rainey 33:38

Yeah. Well, it's also good for everyone. Well, one one is the moments that matter, right, where you want to spend that time with your wife and your kids. And it's also an opportunity for you to connect with them on a deeper level. Because sometimes this way, you know, quite hard to, even if you have a week off to completely disconnect and be present, right fully present in a moment. But also I've realised the hard way through my challenge with anxiety. And over the years that in order for me to be the best husband, the best dad, the best leader, I need to look after me first, I need to prioritise Chris, and take time out in order for me to be the best person for everyone else. Exactly. Love the fact that you I love the fact that you're very strict about that and that you make that and your kids will never forget that. And I'm sure you come back so much more energised for your team, right and your organisation to

Johannes 34:25

absolutely right. And I think it's not to be underestimated, right, how much power comes from these times how much innovative ideas come from this, right also like operating model ideas, for example, right now, like some of this is seated in this time, right where you can really think about stuff so absolutely agree with us. Who

Chris Rainey 34:43

would you say is the one person that's had the biggest impact on your career?

Johannes 34:47

The one person that really is probably a bit responsible for where I'm sitting right now is one of my leaders back at BCG, who unfortunately passed away last year due to cancer. Very unfortunate you really made an impression on on my career in a number of dimensions one as a leader, really, I think he was one of the I think best people managers that I had in my whole career. Very invested really interested, right in, like what you actually want to do that taught me a lot about how I want to actually be be as a leader going forward. And what do I want to do with my teams. So that's a massive, massive impact on me as a people leader. And the other impact is just career wise. He was just one person who was always behind me like saying, look, like go with a straw, for example, taking up this global HR knowledge management team built up, he was the one that proposed this and says, look, there's two opening, like, this is an opportunity, you should go for it, you should like basically take that. So I think you need these people in your life, right? They push you a bit over the edge. Anyway. And so like you go for it. So that definitely was the person that has had the biggest impact. I think

Chris Rainey 35:59

sometimes people will see things in us that we can't see in ourselves, right. And, and you said, you know, any one of the things I've learned over the last 600 episodes is that successful leaders I speak to they kind of seek discomfort you know, it doesn't feel good is scary, you're not always gonna be prepared or ready but it's where the most growth happens. And it's really what the moments that you look at you look back on your career that redefined it as well. So I love that I'm sitting here ready to eat by the way.

Johannes 36:30

I'm meanwhile actress I'm also done now finally. So. So that's good. We can

Chris Rainey 36:38

take a buyer Yeah, go for it, what whilst you're, whilst you're playing it up, the parting piece of advice you'd give to all of those HR leaders out there that are going to be sitting in your seat one day, what advice would you give to them

Johannes 36:52

don't underestimate the effort of data driven piece of data in general in the people function and start early. Right so I think there's so much opportunity here and data that we have in the team that we don't really leverage well and they come so much inside from like a good structured approach and how I engage the people where people are not happy where do people develop generally what are like basically core ingredients for for for success and leadership for success in an organisation there's so many different angles to take from the and I think we often underestimate investing in that insight and getting that insight early it read through also building up for example people analytics capabilities in the team like training people on how you can interpret data how you understand data. And I think we've started he also quite early in this and I think this paid off quite a lot and I think that when I look also at like even very large organisations that I've been consulting in the big times a lot of the times I think this was very much underweighted when you look at people functions yet at best so much potential for how you can actually successfully manage that function and actually like deliver truly to what matters to to the business in the end.

Chris Rainey 38:03

Love that. Well let's let's jump in and have a taste. I feel like we feel like we did pretty well considered under the pressure. Absolutely.

Johannes 38:13

I think it just barely made it in the end but now we just need to find those those daring souls that want to try what I prepared so Tom just does that for everyone. Of course like people should get something for the hard work that they

Chris Rainey 38:35

have one plate on my end so I can actually share it any with anyone else. You

Johannes 38:39

probably weren't too hungry. Chris Rhodes. Alright, performance reviews coming up soon. So understand. Team team UK How did Chris do? It? That's like an eight out of 10

Chris Rainey 38:57

I'll tell you I'll take it.

Johannes 38:58

Oh, nice. Time. We need to have the team here try as well. I'll pay you later. I'll pay people there. We just have the topic. You know, I shouldn't forget this. Actually, it looks quite decent. I would say what's the what's the judges in the room say?

Unknown Speaker 39:14

Well, it's perfect.

Johannes 39:18

Nice good. Now you also need to try that maybe we do this one we'll finish Chris Yeah, no, spoil the moment. Yeah,

Chris Rainey 39:27

that's before it before let you go Jonas? Where can people connect with you, if they want to reach out and say hello, and then where's the best place for them to check out HelloFresh

Johannes 39:33

personally, definitely on LinkedIn. So please feel free to connect reach out and very happy to engage them in any follow up conversation there. And then for our first OPC we have abundance of awesome role cells and the people team so check out our careers page.

Chris Rainey 39:49

Appreciate you doing this and putting you into this is the first bit of HR leaders podcasts and I appreciate I really really enjoyed it. For everyone listening those links are already below so wherever you're listening or watching right now, click the link In the description and you can check out HelloFresh career page there. Apart from that, uns enjoy the rest your day and know I'll see you again soon. It was a pleasure. You too

Johannes 40:08

Chris. Thanks a lot for having me Have a great one.

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