My GO-JEK Journey Through 3Vs: Velocity, Variety, Volume.
Having worked in GO-JEK for almost two years as People Engagement Manager in Human Resources or what we called People and Culture, I have had the privilege to witness the rapid change in this organization within a short space of time. Back when I first joined in July 2016, we only had around +/- 100 engineers based in Indonesia with only one People Partner, Natalia Sulistya, and one recruiter, Kautsar Ramadhan, who has recently become a UX — Product Designer and several folks in Bangalore. Our Headquarters were still in Kemang and our engineers had to work from a separate location. At that time, very few people were interested to work in GO-JEK, possibly because the traction we were getting then paled in comparison to the beast that GO-JEK has become now.
Now, everything has changed!
If I had to summarize the changes I have experienced personally at GO-JEK, it boils down to 3 words beginning with the letter ‘V’: velocity, volume and variety. This is the lens through which I wish to tell my story.
Velocity
As a physics major who stumbled into the people and culture department, -yes you can read my story, here- I know that that high velocity means moving quickly in the right direction. It means that If your position doesn’t change even if you are moving very fast, your velocity will be zero.
In GO-JEK, social impact is our direction, so I see velocity as moving quickly to broaden and deepen social impact.
In this way, every thing about GO-JEK is high velocity. We’re moving in the right direction — towards greater social impact. Each person recruited by our People and Culture team means there is someone placed on a new team looking to broaden social impact.
But, we’re also moving at high speed.
Do you remember the first time GO-JEK launched its app in 2015? I do. One year after that, when I joined GO-JEK, I remember how proud I was to become part of the first unicorn in Indonesia at that time. But now, we have grown even faster, increasing velocity. I still remember how my colleagues had to source aggressively hundreds of CV copies. But now, they are expected to sort out thousands of applicants for a couple of extraordinary candidates.
Variety
In my experience with GO-JEK, variety comes in many different forms. For users, we have more than 20 different products with a very broad target market. Our products range from transportation to logistics, beauty treatments to automotive, even billing to entertainment.
But, as part of the People and Culture Department, I believe that variety in GO-JEK is not only about how many products we have, but also how diverse the people behind them are. Just today, I had a meeting where there were two people from Bangalore, one from Poland (our CMO), and two from Indonesia. Read our more info story about the diversity of GO-TROOPS (GO-JEK employee) here.
Volume
Volume is my 3rd V.
It’s partly quantity of data, which is a huge part of what makes GO-JEK what it is. Data. Data. Data.
In our People and Culture Department, we have a specific division called People Innovation led by Astra Ayuningputri who responsible for handling the Data of GO-JEK employees.
But, it’s also volume of people I have seen come in and out. In terms of employee numbers, we now have almost 2,000 employees globally across 52 cities in Indonesia, Singapore, and Bangalore. We are also commencing with international expansion in Singapore, Vietnam, Thailand and The Philippines. In our technology teams, we have tripled the number of people partners — spread across Jakarta and Bangalore.
We received almost 200,000 applications to join GO-JEK in six months, screened by a team of what is now 13 People led by Femita Putri. Our Headquarters can now accommodate more than 1,900 employees, which is five times the previous office’s capacity and engineers are partners of our larger business.
And we’re only getting started…
Velocity, Variety and Volume. Those are the 3Vs that have characterized my GO-JEK journey.
Are you interested to be part of this growth? Check our available open positions here, and yes, we’re always hiring!
