Having a sexy corporate culture is possible, even in logistics

Supporting evidence with FreightHub

I have been at FreightHub as an intern for 8 weeks by now and it’s been an amazing ride. What impressed me the most is the really strong culture that the founders and especially the entire team managed to convey. So I asked myself how this corporate culture was characterized and finally what made it so special from one company to another.

FreigthHub was born from the following premise :

Logistics is an old industry based on outdated systems and processes, with tasks still performed manually or even on paper. This obviously leads to high inefficiency and lack of transparency. And icing on the cake, no one finds it exciting to work in a freight forwarding company.

Our value proposition

We provide our customers with control over their supply chain by making freight forwarding more efficient, reliable and transparent through real-time processes on our digital platform. This platform is obviously intuitive (user-friendly), disruptive and our ultimate goal is to create “the digital backbone of global trade”, connecting all parties involved in logistics on one seamless platform.

At FreightHub, it is notably through our corporate culture that we have succeeded in making logistics once again attractive (“sexy”), allowing us to attract and recruit the best possible talent. Entering a phase of strong growth with more than 150 employees in our offices in Berlin, Hamburg, Cologne, Hong Kong and now Porto, we can ask ourselves :

How can this corporate culture be sustained when faced with rapid international expansion and a strong need for recruitment ?

This is one of the challenges faced by Amazon or Airbnb being in hyper-growth and having an almost daily wave of newcomers.

Yes, but then how does a corporate culture translate into concrete terms ?

Defining values, a vision and a global strategy shared by all employees is the first step in building a strong corporate culture. This is one of the challenges for any CEO: to have a common goal and to get everyone on board to achieve it.

At FreightHub (FH from now), the values have not been defined and imposed by top management, but they are the result of a collective work carried out by the bottom-up, i.e. by the team itself. After many surveys administered, long hours of brainstorming and about fifty post-it notes stuck on the walls, here are the values that were retained :

Our culture is therefore conveyed by these values that we share. But first let me give you examples of tried and tested good practices that will make your culture shine :

My experience as a “freightie”

• As soon as I arrived, I received the traditional “onboarding pack”, composed of a t-shirt, a sweatshirt and a personalised notebook in the FH colours. (For the most quality and stylish pack, I suggest Kymono of course).
• But onboarding itself goes far beyond that…. My agenda was perfectly planned with various “onboarding sessions” allowing me to understand how the different services interact, what processes are in place and finally what the overall structure of FH is. Everyone knows the importance of leaving a good first impression, so this integration phase is not to be neglected.
• Focus on breakfast, lunch : because we won’t lie to each other, it’s immediately more friendly and pleasant to meet each other, to exchange with colleagues while feasting. At FH, I have every morning an excellent breakfast, coffee, tea and above all a club maté at will.
• “Lunch roulettes” are also organised, allowing you to leave to chance the people with whom you will share your lunch. A great way to spend more time with your colleagues working in other departments.

Totem has understood this well with its cafeteria system, which makes it possible to create convivial places in companies to encourage interaction and make employees engaged and happy.

• Then, fortunately, we have crazy ping-pong competitions and a discounted sports membership to get rid of all that food and establish other relationships between colleagues at the same time. But not just in any gym:

Here again a unique concept is offered by FreightHub : Urban Sports Club, which offers more than 50 disciplines in 3000 venues in Germany, France and Italy.

Speak Up

• Around the “founders roundtable” that takes place several times a month, we can talk about strategy, future challenges and even our next promotion… directly with the founders and C-level (CEO, CTO, CCO, COO, …) !
• To reflect on the need for transparency towards our customers, but also (and above all) towards our employees, we have screens in all our offices that show us in real time the figures for the day/quarterly : big profit, revenue, volume… Nothing is kept secret.
• Concerning our personal development and professional development : we frequently organise “inspire and grow sessions” where everyone can talk to us about the subjects of their choice. Whether it is his experiences, tools to promote our productivity or how to work on our public speaking… For that, I recommend Punchie — prise de parole without hesitation.

Stronger through diversity

• Or the power of multiculturality ! There is nothing new to teach you here, except perhaps that our team is composed of more than 30 different nationalities. Collaboration between cross-functional teams is also encouraged as much as possible, i.e. combining procurement, sales and operations functions, for example, as a source of productivity and innovation.

Mistakes offers Opportunities

• We organize the “FuckUp nights” for this purpose : the idea is to expose yourself and share your biggest failures, while showing how you have solved them.

As Mary Moore said :
“Take chances. Make mistakes. This is how you grow.”

We are one

• Finally, culture is mainly about the team, the people who make it up and lead it on a daily basis. To make it vibrate, there’s nothing very secret : organise the most fun team-building, incentives or seminars (no matter what you call it, the goal remains the same : to create relationships and share an experience).
• Because small attentions are priceless, via Teambay you can send your employees satisfaction surveys, but above all “thank you message” such as :

• Among these small attentions and actions that count a lot, the Growth team has created its own flag representing their common values. We also have a wall of postcards with the most beautiful and exciting holidays that everyone has done and wishes to share. Three huge celebrations are organised throughout the year: the “Christmas Party”, the “Summer Party” and the “3 Years Party” (in short, there is always a good reason to celebrate).
• Ah and I forgot… the 10X every Friday, to finish in style : we announce the progress and advances of the week, we reward the efforts made by everyone and then it’s free beers and free pizza ! What more could you ask for ?

So we can think that it is quite difficult to measure, by figures and ROI, the impact of such investments to feed (literally and figuratively) this culture.

However, in the medium term, the impact of a strong culture can easily be measured through a satisfaction survey administered to your team, through their feedback and their own NPS. And in the long term, it is simply measured by employee turnover.

Finally, as I said earlier : it is so simple to please with only small attentions that will not cost you the slightest investment! All you have to do is put your heart into it.

So to quote Fabian Heilemann, Co-founder of FreightHub and Partner at Earlybird :
“Culture over Strategy over Execution”.

That’s it, that’s the FreightHub culture ! So if your company is not yet doing the same, don’t hesitate to give it a few suggestions 😉 (If you are interested I will write about the missing values #thinkcustomer, #Imakeithappen #focusonimpact in a next article).

PS : if it ever made your mouth water, know that we are recruiting…..