Glovo: First 180 days Review!
By Rodrigo Adanya, VP of People at Glovo
I have just completed my first 180 days at Glovo while also having to be away from the office towards the last few days for personal reasons — a combination that gave me some time to reflect on what I value as a person, including the professional aspects of my life. That allowed me to put things into perspective and I wanted to share some of those thoughts in retrospective.
When people ask how my experience with Glovo has been so far, my first answer is that my expectations were 95% met and the number grows day by day. It all started with a very transparent and grounded interview process in which issues were discussed, challenges shared and the mission made clear. The remaining 5% is all about the little day to day surprises: some good, others not so, but all part of what it means to be one of the fastest-growing companies on the planet.
Some of the People-related highlights we have been through over these last few months include the shift of a large group of recruiters from traditional recruitment roles to developer headhunters — with training, new tools, and an improved process was thrown into the mix. At the same time, we have also implemented a new level structure while reviewing salaries for 1200+ people in the company, considering 20+ different countries and local specificities. We have also had moments of joy and celebration that culminated in our Summer Culture Day, fundamentally changed the structure of our Data team, and had our largest funding round ever. All of this impacting on how we operate but, more importantly, on who we are. So far, what I am most proud of is the People team I’ve managed to recruit (some roles are still open, by the way!), setting it up for a version of the future I believe in.
While navigating all this, I realized Glovo just feels right. It is never 100% scientific, but these are the three main traits I see that keep me passionate every day:
- People are brilliant, yet they Stay Humble. They push you every day to be the best version of yourself — smart people have high bars — but they still Care for you as a person.
- No bullshit, no assholes, no politics. Providing and receiving feedback is far above the average of what I’ve seen at other companies, even for tech and startups. All of this without losing the ability to keep cool and foster Good Vibes.
- The level of Gas required to meet ambitious goals can be overwhelming at times, but at the same time, it gives you the Glownership (our version of autonomy and ownership/entrepreneurial spirit) to build the future the way you see fit.
I also want to touch on what I believe are the most important challenges we are going through as an expanding company because this growth comes with a hefty price tag:
- Glovo relies on technology to be efficient, effective and competitive. We are increasing our Tech Development capacity, but not only that: we want to be the employer of choice for software engineers and people willing to move and work at a company in this industry. We are proud to offer unique career opportunities to developers who want to join us at our HQ in Barcelona.
- Culture will happen, steered or otherwise. I am very aware that behaviors may get out of hand if not taken care of properly, so working on defining what is important for our company culture will be key in the following months. Not only looking at our values but translating it into principles and behaviors is a huge adventure we are glad to commit to. Life at Glovo has an amazing feeling to it — and I will defend it without hesitation to keep our non-vanilla culture alive.
- Performance management and differentiation. As the company is growing so quickly, it is hard to credit success to particular individuals; on the other hand, as it becomes larger, we can clearly see who is performing at full capacity and who isn’t. At Glovo, we look at performance both on results and on culture affinity and fit, so managing people out will be part of the upcoming challenge. What brought us here may not necessarily take us further, and some people will have to go.
Glovo is now getting to its next stage of maturity which is beautiful to see and navigate on: it is becoming larger, but not so large that it loses agility. First-time leaders start becoming passionate about developing teams, working on their leadership styles. Business and People solutions start to get more sophisticated on the results while maintaining simplicity in the execution. All of this as a consequence of people being able to specialize, focus and find their calling as to what they do best because momentum now allows them to.
When I look back on these 180 days, after moving countries for the 7th time in my career, I can confidently say that being at Glovo allowed me to feel trusted, empowered, recognized, and also pushed to be better every single day. I also not only feel respected for the professional I am but as a whole person. My partner says, regardless of the origin of the feeling being right or not, what we feel is genuine because that is how we feel and that is real. So Thank-You Glovo for making me feel like this every single day and I look forward to the next 180 days!
(If you feel like joining this amazing journey, take a look at our hundreds of job openings here)
Adanya — VP of People @ Glovo, the Coolest Company on the Planet!
