The bol identity | How we create our unique organisation culture
Behind the Screens with Bo
At bol.com, we believe we can do better every day. It’s the driver of our culture. The fundament for how we operate. We have a total of five cultural beliefs, which clearly define what we stand for as organisation. Fine words and magnificent goals, but how do we ensure that the story actually comes to life in an organisation with some 3000 colleagues? We’re talking to Bo, Employee Engagement Specialist at bol.com. For the past year or so, she’s been revamping the culture programme. With her team – well, actually everyone at bol.com – she ensures that our cultural beliefs not only exist on paper, but are also put into practice and reflected in all our colleagues’ conduct. After all, only together we are bol.com.
Defining an organisation culture
“The culture at bol.com has been an important part of our identity right from the very beginning. It makes us unique, and unifies us.” It helped us grow from a small online bookshop to a leading retail tech platform in the Netherlands and Belgium. Our organisation is continuously changing, and so does our culture. And that’s why we recently updated our cultural beliefs. “At bol.com we often jokingly say that ‘change is the only constant’. Yet, how can we capture this in our culture, with ambition and without short-changing our rich history? That’s what we focussed on last year.”
Together with a colleague, Bo kicked off the culture project by talking to numerous colleagues. Just by starting doing it, because that’s the way our organisation’s culture works. “We conducted countless conversations, sent out surveys, and held round-table sessions with bol.com colleagues. We did everything we could to find out how colleagues experience the culture within bol.com and what else we need within the organisation. We were looking for answers to questions such as ‘How would you describe bol.com?’, ‘What should we keep?’, and ‘What should we change?’ We created a culture trust. This is a group of colleagues who all work in different departments, they represent the voice of all bol.com colleagues and their views about our culture. We used all the input we’d gathered to revise our culture story, in co-creation with the culture trust along the way.”
From concept to workplace
The revised culture story resulted in five new cultural beliefs. These are also regarded as the fundament of conduct within bol.com. We launched these during the bol.com Culture Week. Bo: “It was great fun to organise the Culture Week, mostly because we did it with and for colleagues. It was a fantastic setting to introduce the revised cultural beliefs to all our bol.com colleagues. And this is only the beginning. The trick is to ensure the cultural beliefs come to life, every day.”
And how can we help our colleagues adopt the organisation’s beliefs and embed them in their own ? Bo explains: “Culture consists of the conduct we all exhibit, every day. For example, we call ourselves ‘customer crazy’. We take the needs of our customers and partners seriously by focussing on these as our starting point when we’re innovating. Or we put them in the limelight now and then. We have the courage and audacity to fail, and we encourage our colleagues to talk about any mistakes. For instance, during the weekly bilas or development talks, but also during a meeting with hundreds of colleagues. We also encourage colleagues to share their biggest ‘fuck-up’. We believe these are part of our success story. They prompt curiosity and help us be open to learning new perspectives and ways of thinking. Ultimately, we make the culture together by integrating our cultural beliefs into every step of the employee journey. From writing a job vacancy to onboarding new colleagues, as well as offering opportunities for development and a safe working environment. All colleagues are in contact with the bol.com cultural beliefs – all the time. And that keeps our culture alive and kicking.”
“At bol.com you can be yourself. People really listen to what you have to say, and you have the freedom to take good care of yourself and your family.”
Practical experiences
As bol.com employee, Bo also lives the culture story she masterminded. How does she experience this in practice? Bo: “The common thread through all the conversations I had with colleagues was the human aspect of our organisation. Bol.com is a warm and welcoming community, and that’s how I experience it too. You can be yourself, people really listen to what you have to say, and you have the freedom to take good care of yourself and your family. I’ve been working at bol.com for almost seven years now, in various positions, and the fabulous culture is one of the main reasons I’m still here. Being able to contribute to the company culture and make it a little better, has been a tremendous honour. The way it’s turned out is a great compliment.”
Our culture story is now firmly embedded, yet it remains a key focus for Bo and her colleagues. “We hold an employee engagement survey for all employees twice a year. We want to find out how they experience our culture. This enables us to tweak our programme where necessary. Every organisation is continually changing – I know it’s a cliché but it’s true – and that goes for the bol.com culture too.”