You are the first company in Spain to offer paid leave to employees who adopt or buy a pet. Do you feel pioneers in this aspect? Do you think more companies will follow your example?

We’re proud to be pioneers and we hope to inspire others to follow because we can only see the advantages of bringing our dogs to work with us. In fact, our dogs were our true inspiration for this policy. We wanted to break the status quo of having a pet and not having the time to nurture them. In many ways, this policy was an extension of who we, individually, are and the things we wanted for ourselves: a great life together with our dogs.

Do you allow your workers to go to the office with their pet? Would you recommend that this practice be extended to other companies?

Yes and yes! Everyone can bring their dog to work and we encourage our team to do so from day one. Dogs can play a big part in someone’s onboarding and team integration. We definitely have a positive experience and we recommend it to any company that gathers the right conditions to make it happen.

What does it take to activate this type of dynamic in a company?

This was a very natural decision for us as a team, but we’ve learned along the way that there are 5 golden rules to make the most of this experience:

1.  Everyone needs to be comfortable with the presence of a dog.
2. There needs to be access to water, toys and space for the dog to explore safely.
3. The dog needs to be trained to obey simple commands.
4. The dog owner must always be available to intervene as necessary.
5. Come to work with your heart open to goofiness and tenderness.

What benefits do pets bring to the work environment of an office?

Above all, social connectedness. Pets trigger conversations, they break the ice and make us laugh together. They have the power to join people who otherwise would not feel comfortable to hang out together, like when team members go take a walk outside to stroll the dog in the afternoon break.

In what other areas is the introduction of pets beneficial?

Pets can have a beneficial effect in reducing work-related stress by introducing moments of fun and cuddles in the middle of the workday. When we engage in these pro-social activities our bodies segregate hormones like oxytocin and serotonin, known to have an impact on the levels of stress and anxiety.  At the end of the day, pets act as inducers of calm and you end up having employees who report more happiness, fulfilment and a greater perception of work-life balance.

What are your challenges in terms of Corporate Social Responsibility in what affects people?

The place that work occupies in a person’s life has been changing dramatically over the years. People long for a job that gives them a sense of purpose, a mission, and tools for them to evolve as professionals and human beings. They want to leave the office knowing that they learned something new and that their work impacted the world in a positive way. People also want to feel supported in this journey and that’s where we can really make a difference, with initiatives that promote work-life balance and mental health. Our Pet Office policy responds to these challenges in a creative and light way.

To be part of your team, is it essential to have a pet? Are there attitudinal differences between people who have them or not?

At Barkyn, we all share a deep love for animal welfare and we’re all very aligned with our mission to deliver health and happiness to pet families around the world. However, due to different life circumstances, not all people have the right conditions to own a pet and we respect that. So, it’s not a requirement to have a pet to belong to Barkyn – we rather look for genuinely kind and empathic people who can understand the emotional experience of having a dog in their life.

A question that you have never been asked but that you would love to be asked, around people.

How can (self)compassion skills be key for business success.

People first | A project by Eurofirms

People First es un espacio de inspiración donde compartimos contenidos con un eje común: las personas. Desde distintas ópticas y sectores, abordamos varios temas, tendencias y noticias de interés humano.

La entrada Joana Recharte (Barkyn): “We can only see the advantages of bringing our dogs to work with us” aparece primero en People first.

Your position at Kiabi carries the ability to identify talents for greater performance. What is your mission in the company?

For us, all people have talent, and my priority is to identify which ones are the best fit in our company, and more particularly, with our “Happy Cultura” and with fashion, which is our trade and our passion.

How would you define your “happy cultura” and what values ​​are you looking for in the new candidates?

The Culture of Happiness is our backbone, where all the actions we carry out in Kiabi are born, and what makes us a real community of happy people. What best defines our culture are the 5 qualities that all Kiaber lives and transmit in their day to day: passionate about people and fashion, with an enterprising spirit, close (but at the same time demanding!), and generous. We accompany these values ​​in a context of recognition (we always celebrate successes), demand, and exemplariness, because being “happy” is not the same as being “hippie”!

Last year you got fourth place on the list of the Best Companies to Work For. In fact, over 80% of your employees say they are proud to belong to Kiabi. How are these results achieved?

For us, the main thing is to generate the best experience for our community of Kiabers, either the futures one or those that are already today. And we achieve this by asking them directly, working personalized actions that respond to their needs, and anticipating their expectations. In retail, and more specifically in the fashion sector, everything changes at breakneck speed, and we have to be vigilant to always stay one step ahead.

At Kiabi you defend that respect and coexistence are the basis of a pleasant professional environment. How do you enhance these two values ​​in the day to day of your stores?

In addition to being implicit in the qualities of the Kiaber, for us the most powerful tool to achieve this is continuous 360º feedback. It allows us to develop empathy constantly, which in the end, and from my point of view, is the key quality for respect and coexistence.

You perform an atypical selection process, in which candidates must register on the website www.thekiabijobexperience.com and make the process dynamic and motivating. What benefits does this type of process have? Does it allow you to make a tighter selection than with the traditional method?

The gamification in the selection process has allowed us to meet the candidates from a different perspective, putting their skills and competences into practice, instead of selecting with the classic curriculum. We care about the person, not the experience: how they are, how they develop in different situations, etc. The fact of being able to objectively measure the achievement of each of the games that they perform, gives us a global vision of their profile, and their compatibility with the Kiaber profile that we seek.

You ensure that Kiabi’s success is based above all on the talent of their teams. What kind of actions do you carry out to develop the talent of the employees?

The autonomy of our teams plays a fundamental role. Within our Happy Culture we have the right to be wrong, but above all to get it right, and we can only do that if each Kiaber has an optimal context to dare. 100% of people in Kiabi have a personalized development plan to develop their qualities and skills, and people who want to go a step further and take on other responsibilities (in Spain or internationally) also have an individualized career plan.

Innovation is another of your pillars and you have carried out actions such as the “Innovation Play” to accommodate for the ideas of workers, collaborators and customers. What other actions are you taking to enhance innovation among your team?

We work on all projects promoting co-construction among our Kiabers. From the workshops we carry out in Spain to develop the different projects in the country, in which people from different groups participate, even the most international ones such as International Store Sinergy and Shopping into the future, both with the aim of creating common synergies in the Group and anticipate the challenges that await us.

People first | A project by Eurofirms

People First es un espacio de inspiración donde compartimos contenidos con un eje común: las personas. Desde distintas ópticas y sectores, abordamos varios temas, tendencias y noticias de interés humano.

La entrada Diana Cubero (Kiabi): “We care about people, not the professional experience” aparece primero en People first.

The company offers services such as Auditing, Consulting, Risks, Fiscal and Legal and Advice on Corporate Transactions and makes a clear commitment to its human capital.

Maite Poyos is HR Director at Deloitte and in this interview, she highlights the reasons why employees want to continue working in the company.

Even though in your sector workers usually start from scratch and continue to rise, you have some collaborative rooms that represent the loss of an office or a hierarchical position. To what extent have you modified your compensation, benefits or management policy, of what type of hierarchy or level?

Collaborative rooms have allowed us to change work habits, moving to environments that facilitate sharing information, collaborating on different projects and participating in multidisciplinary initiatives. This has not implied any change in our professional career, which is based on meritocracy, on how each of us do and work. From our professionals we value what they know how to do and what potential they have and, based on this, we determine their responsibilities. Many of our professionals join Deloitte recently graduates, we train them and prepare them and help their development in the Firm. The idea is that each year they grow in roles and responsibilities. We value people based on how they are and the potential we think they have. And based on this, we give it responsibility and they grow professionally.

This growth in the organization itself provides our professionals with a deep and specialized knowledge of their work. When a professional joins us, we try that this knowledge of the sector was integrated by him and, sometimes, they have to go back a step in their professional career to later grow and consolidate. This leads us to very young people who have grown in the Firm have a very fast career, acquiring responsibilities and managing teams very quickly. Other professionals, who join mid-career, may need adaptation time and participate in teams in which their manager has fewer years of experience than they do.

In recent years, with business diversification and specialization, we have had the need to incorporate professionals who bring a wealth of experience in the new specializations that are emerging. In these cases, it is important that the responsibility that we give to these new professionals is aligned with their preparation and their potential, to facilitate their adaptation to the organization.

We try to ensure that the level of responsibility and that of compensation are aligned. Therefore, career, responsibility and compensation go hand in hand throughout the professional career.

You have to adapt to the change in the market. Is training in these career plans offered by Deloitte?

At Deloitte we believe in training as one of the basics in the development of people. There are training plans by business lines and categories. First of all, we have the “core” courses, which are those that all of us receive regardless of our line of business or function, since they are basic that any Deloitte professional must know and that depend on the level of responsibility of each professional. From here the courses are increasingly specialized by functions, experience, responsibilities, etc. Many of them are taught by other professionals of the Firm. Finally, we reach the maximum specialization that consists of accreditations that are taught by external organizations.

Collaborative rooms are very dynamic and less hierarchical spaces. How is this change achieved? Is it suitable for all departments, business areas that have an impact at the human capital level? Do you have a KPI?

We wanted to take advantage of the changes in space to achieve a change in work habits, moving to a more collaborative, participatory environment that encourages innovation and work in multidisciplinary teams. To do this, we have established various dynamics and tools that allow these changes in habits, from which we measure their results periodically.

The first collaborative rooms were inaugurated in January of this year, so we are fully implementing changes in work habits. We have established some indicators, such as the level of occupation and release of the rooms, which will help us when measuring the impact we are achieving.

Deloitte is considered one of the best companies to work for in Spain and the first in your sector. What are the keys to achieve it? Why do people want to come work here?

We are a great organization, leader in our sector, with magnificent clients and with avant-garde projects. These are undoubtedly some of the reasons why people want to come to work. At Deloitte, growth and level of learning is exponential and you take on responsibilities very quickly. Training, both formal and that our professionals acquire every day by participating in many projects, very diverse and sharing experiences with other top-level professionals, is another element that attracts when it comes to wanting to come to work at Deloitte. However, one of the factors that most attracts people to come to work is that we are normal people who have a good time working together and growing and making grow our organization. The people who work at Deloitte are happy to be able to do it, we have great friends here. The average age is 28 years old and this leads to many activities being organized outside of work, such as skiing or paddle games, for example. We work intensively learning a lot and participating in innovative projects.

We are a great organization, but we are committed to micromanaging, both projects and talent. Our leaders manage both professional and personal groups and this allows people to feel comfortable working at Deloitte.

Is this micromanaging performed by an area leader or is it someone from Human Resources?

Both. The business area is responsible for management, but from human resources we help its development through knowledge of people and by providing the necessary tools to carry it out.

We are all close to our people and we are free to share concerns with whomever we deem necessary. Our professionals have reference people, in their line of business, in another line or in human resources to share. We always offer answers to the concerns of our professionals, either from the business line or from Human Resources.

What other measures do you have planned for the well-being of the team?

We are now working on a healthy business project, which involves having everything from healthy vending machines to wellness talks, courses, making it easier to go to the gym or yoga rooms. We have incorporated mindfullness sessions into some meetings. We also have a runners club and football and basketball teams. We offer accompaniment programs to people who change responsibility, we have mentors, tutors and internal coaches. For example, when a person joins he is assigned a buddy who is another professional with a little more experience, but very close, who will accompany you throughout the first months in more logistical or administrative aspects. Subsequently, with significant changes in responsibilities, we have mentoring programs for the younger ones, coaching to develop basic competencies or Mentoring for the most experienced people.

People first | A project by Eurofirms

People First es un espacio de inspiración donde compartimos contenidos con un eje común: las personas. Desde distintas ópticas y sectores, abordamos varios temas, tendencias y noticias de interés humano.

La entrada Deloitte: “We value people based on the potential we think they have, not on experience or age” aparece primero en People first.