My Story of Ikigai and Why Joining Glovo Will Be the Journey of Your Life

By Roxana Dobrescu, EMEA People Director at Glovo

I’ve always refused to work in a boring job. I didn’t know that from the beginning of my working life, but it also didn’t take me long to figure it out.

Starting to procrastinate, to feel how my energy easily dissipates, how I am looking for excuses not to be there. Working in a job that doesn’t ignite my passion would lead me to a slow spiritual death.

So I decided that this wouldn’t happen to me anymore.

I truly believe Robert Byrne had a point: “The purpose of life is a life of purpose.”

That’s why I’m asking you, what if you could live longer just by doing more of what you love to do most?

It’s an attractive theory that originates from a community on the island of Okinawa that’s nicknamed the Village of Longevity because its residents have the highest life expectancy in the world. They also share a devotion to a Japanese philosophy known as ikigai, over-simply translated as the happiness derived from doing something that holds meaning and purpose for you.

People spend so much time on the job, far from other interests. Life’s too short, it’s important to feel you belong and that you’re making a difference. You need to answer the question, “Why am I here? And why should I stay?”

These questions are life changing, and at Glovo we put consistent effort into offering our employees the chance to fulfill their ambitions. We give people the avenues to grow, learn, and make meaningful contributions within their teams.

Back to my story.

Prior to joining Glovo, I worked in Mauritius, a beautiful country in the middle of the Indian Ocean. I accepted to go 15,000 km away from my home country because to be a complete HR professional; I needed more than HR best-in-class practices. I needed to see and experiment different cultures; I needed to embrace diversity with all my heart and celebrate our differences. Going to Mauritius was the best career decision of my life until that point.

And then, I joined Glovo.

I fell in love with Glovo’s vision of reinventing the urban experience. A lifestyle app with all urban services available easily through our smartphone. A white canvas where I received the freedom and the empowerment of writing and innovating and… failing. My ikigai.

This is one of the most rewarding things Glovo has offered me: this distinctive sense of belonging. This strong connection with the shared purpose. Because while we are proud of our humble beginnings and our local stories, we feel empowered by our international footprint and stronger by being part of a diverse and connected global team.

In a very natural way we started to build a global tribe of optimists who don’t want to reinvent the wheel, we want to break it.

We collect and share the stories of our optimists under a project umbrella named #HumansOfGlovo. This is a great form of recognition and celebration, bringing together and sharing the stories of our people.

I am always inspired to see the life and career insights of my colleagues from Kenya or Kazakhstan, to understand the struggles and the impressive achievements of colleagues from Croatia, Romania or Poland. Celebrating our stories and our differences makes us stronger. It makes us Global Humans of Glovo.

And we continue our journey.

In order to find greater meaning at work, we strive to enable our employees to experience a strong sense of social support in the workplace. For example, what we focus on as an important form of social support is explicitly sharing experiences of meaningful work. We encourage managers to talk to their direct reports about what aspects of work they find meaningful, and get our leaders to share their perspectives with employees, too.

At Glovo, we encourage being vulnerable; we strive to foster a culture of authenticity and true leadership values. No matter the role or the rank. We want to demystify leadership and to inspire young people to unleash their leadership potential. We motivate senior leaders to mentor and support their teams and their talent. A project close to my heart is #Coffee with a Leader. Every couple of weeks we have a casual, fresh talk with a leader to discuss real topics, share genuine stories, and show that being a leader is first about being human.

And speaking about leadership stories, I just need to tell you about our #LeaderSHE initiative. This is a special Mentoring program dedicated to support, connect and empower our women at Glovo. This is important because it’s part of our overall commitment to make our workplace more diverse and even more inclusive for everyone regardless of nationality, religion, sexual orientation, gender and disability.

Or family status. Being inclusive is also about allowing flexibility and support when it comes to your family or private life.

Yes, funny thing, there’s life at work and life outside work. When we become parents we understand how exciting but also how challenging it can be. At Glovo we implemented a generous parental leave and nursery allowance to support new parents. Moms and dads. For all our offices and markets, to celebrate the growth of our tribe.

So, there you go, a bit of more light on how life at Glovo is.

Want me to summarize all the above in a line?

This is a harsh request for someone that loves to speak and write a lot.

But ok, deal, I’ll do it.

What to expect if you’ll join Glovo?

Just the Job of your Life.