Guillaume had the opportunity to exchange with Jérémy Belainformer HR Director for France at Deliveroo.
When he joined the adventure in July 2017, Deliveroo, which is headquartered in London, does not exceed 300 people worldwide In France, they are less than 50. Without a real HR department at the local level. Result: in 2023, Deliveroo will have 4,000 employees. Of which about 300 in France.
We are therefore very happy to share such an experience with you!
Enjoy your reading,
Hi Jeremy! Can you tell us a bit about your background?
I started in the HR environment by chance, in a consulting firm specialized in IT and technology where there was a lot of turnover, where rapid recruitment was essential and where theattractiveness of Talents was already a critical issue. I learned a lot about recruitment and retention strategies.
Throughout my experiences, I have had the opportunity to work on all aspects of the HR function: training, career management, compensation policy, social relations, etc. within growing, shrinking or transforming companies. This allowed me to acquire skills and knowledge of 360 of the profession.
I learned that the added value of the function is done in close collaboration with the business, in other words to be able to propose HR policies at the right place, at the right time with and for the "right" people so that they are in line with the strategy of the company and its ambition; while bringing a certain amount of innovation which allows to differentiate.
When I joined Deliveroo, I was attracted by the idea of building everything almost from scratch. I was tempted by the opportunity to build a company culture and values with the leaders and managers that would suit me.
When you joined Deliveroo, the company was already growing?
Absolutely. I joined Deliveroo two years after its launch and the company had already opened about 10 markets around the world, including Asia and Australia. We were testing different countries and France was one of our markets with the most potential, but we were still at the beginning of our growth. It's a market that quickly became highly competitive and with very high financial stakes.
This meant that we had to recruit quickly and efficiently, while having an almost immediate "return on investment" approach. In an HR legal and administrative environment that can take time to understand and execute, making an immediate impact and building value-added policies was a daily challenge. I was fortunate to have been very well surrounded and to have had leaders and a team with whom we shared a common vision.
What was the first thing you did when you arrived at Deliveroo?
When I joined Deliveroo, I started by creating a clear and ambitious roadmap. This roadmap represented my overall strategy and goals. Although there were uncertainties about the success of all the objectives, the important thing for me was to give a vision, an ambition and a meaning to the HR function.
For the implementation, I divided my roadmap into several steps over several months with deadlines for quantitative and qualitative indicators to be reached, but above all, the responsibility for which did not lie entirely with HR. This method of OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) allowed us to regularly see what was working and what was not, and why, and therefore to adapt accordingly.
Throughout my career, regardless of the environment, I have always tried to apply this methodology by focusing on validating and sharing goals with my team and key leaders/managers and by using clear performance indicators to measure success (and failure).
The advantage at Deliveroo: I was able to have some flexibility. If something wasn't working, I could try new things, or revise/adapt strategies. This flexibility of "test & learn" was, honestly, an opportunity, which doesn't exist everywhere, and allowed us to constantly question and evolve as a company, but also as an individual and a team.
I saw that Deliveroo won the Great Place to Work certification in 2019. Can you tell me about that?
I mentioned that I had set up a roadmap with a common vision. Thus, obtaining the Great Place to Work certification was an important outcome of the strategy and the meaning given to all the HR actions implemented.
There was a lot of background work, but above all a very strong commitment from all employees to this project. We set up several working groups to clarify, adapt, develop and improve all HR processes.
This work of introspection, of taking a step back and of critical thinking, only after 3 years of existence and still in an environment where everything is done and undone at an incredible speed, was a real challenge! But I believed in it and we made sure that everyone believed in it and was united around a common goal!
Our approach paid off and we won the Great Place to Work certification in 2019. 1st start-up this young with less than 100 employees to have won this award! This award has clearly reinforced our internal culture, improved our processes, consolidated our strategy and had a very positive effect on our external employer brand. There has clearly been a before and after in terms of the number of incoming applications!
Many thanks, Jeremy 🎉
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