Hello Aurore! Before we get started, can you introduce yourself and Foodles?
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Hello Skeelz! My name is Aurore and since December 2021, I've been in charge of recruitment and employer branding at Foodles. My arrival coincided with an impressive fundraising of 31 million euros. My mission? To structure our department, recruit a strong team, implement the right tools and develop our employer brand strategy. At the time, our biggest challenge was our low profile. We had to work hard to fill our vacancies. So we devised a strategy to attract more candidates.
But before we dive into the details, let me enlighten you on what Foodles is all about. In a nutshell, we offer an innovative and committed gourmet catering solution, an alternative to the traditional restaurant giants. We offer ultra-fresh, economical and gourmet menus, delivered daily in self-service connected fridges, 24/7, enabling employees to eat quality food whenever they want, for an attractive price. Employees have a mobile app and a Foodles account: they sign in, the fridge opens, they help themselves and are billed directly.
How many of you are there today?
We've grown by leaps and bounds! Today, we're proud to have 360 people on the Foodles team. We have literally doubled our workforce by 2022.
I imagine you have big plans for the coming months. What's your growth projection?
Indeed, our momentum doesn't stop there.We plan to reach 390 employees by the end of the year. Our recruitment efforts are closely linked to our business development. Depending on our performance, we're welcoming more account managers, order pickers and delivery-procurement staff on board. And this is something we're particularly proud of: we offer sustainable employment. All our drivers are hired on permanent contracts.
What about your culinary team?
At Foodles, we can count on a passionate team of chefs, product managers, buyers, agri-engineers, dieticians and quality specialists to help us achieve our mission. A whole brigade of experts driven by the desire to design menus that are balanced, healthy and gourmet at the same time. Our Food team designs 3 menus a year based on seasonal produce, representing 2 different menus per week over a 6-week cycle, which are then offered in our connected fridges. Overall, 58% of our offer is renewed with each new menu. Our production laboratory handles part of the design of our dishes, with the remainder prepared by local catering partners.
Your ubiquitous presence and 24/7 delivery capabilities are why you're so appreciated!
Absolutely, we're always there for our customers. In addition to our presence in France and Belgium, we launched our concept in London in April 2022. It's still a fledgling market for us, with around fifteen people on site, but we're very excited about this expansion.
The challenge of recruiting an additional 80 people is no mean feat. How do you manage to attract so much talent while anticipating such significant growth?
It's a tall order indeed. The key lies in a mix of factors that vary according to our targets. For example, this year we doubled our "tech" teams (15 new positions created: Data, Web Development, Product), which is considerable, especially in the current context where such talent is scarce on the market. Despite the fact that we are a foodtech company and an innovator, we had a lack of notoriety with this particular target group and decided to set up a specific and adapted system to attract them (recruitment campaign on social networks, partnership with the "WeLoveDev" platform which generated nearly 90 unsolicited applications in 1 ½ months, RPO, overhaul of our recruitment processes for these profiles...). In addition, we also have specific needs for other populations, such as our sales and logistics teams, which require different recruitment and approach methods.
What do you think makes you so successful with this Devs target group?
We have strongly developed our employer brand over the past year. A brand that perfectly reflects our values and our Employee Value Proposition. Foodles offers a framework in which it is easy to flourish, with flexibility, autonomy and responsibility. We also offer this population the possibility of working full time from home (with only 3 cumulated days of presence per month at head office), which enables us to extend our search for profiles to the whole of France. Finally, they particularly appreciate our working methods ("Shape up" methodology) and our innovative technological choices.
In addition to your communications approach, have you made any changes to your recruitment processes to attract and select the best candidates?
Absolutely. We have rethought our recruitment processes to make them more efficient. Last year, we encountered some difficulties in filling our positions, and we spent a lot of time evaluating candidates. So we decided to shorten and improve our processes. Today, this takes place in just 3 stages, enabling us to finalize a recruitment in 20 days on average (vs. 33 days for the national average in France). This begins with an initial exchange by videoconference in the presence of the Talent team and the manager, with the proposal of a technical test at the same time. Following this first exchange, and if the test is conclusive, we continue with the presentation of a practical case in the presence of the CTO and the manager, and finally, reference checks complete the process before issuing our offer. This enables us to quickly assess the cultural fit and examine the candidate's key skills objectively.
Have you seen any improvements since you implemented these changes?
Indeed, these changes have considerably improved our recruitment process. We've been able to reduce the time it takes to recruit the right candidates. By optimizing the key stages of our process, we can identify suitable candidates more quickly and integrate them into our team more rapidly.
What does a "Made in Foodles" recruitment process look like?
In general, we're looking at two to three weeks for the whole recruitment process. We've managed to shorten it considerably, and we've also improved our conversion rate. Today, we receive an average of 70 applications per position, which is enormous when you consider that a year ago we were at around 5 incoming applications per position. Thanks to our experience, our teams, whether managers or recruitment staff, can make an immediate hiring decision as soon as they meet a qualified candidate. We no longer need to make comparisons between several candidates, which saves us precious time.
If you could describe your values in a few words...
Foodles' values were defined by our employees themselves in January 2022. It was important for our employees to participate in this definition so that they could then bring them to life. The five Foodles values are BENEVOLENCE - AUTHENTICITY - COMMITMENT - CONVIVIALITY - TRANSPARENCY.
Any concrete examples of how they manifest themselves in your company?
One of our core values is benevolence, which is often overused, but is actually present at Foodles. This manifests itself in various aspects of our corporate culture. For example, we regularly organize convivial moments around meals, be it breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea or even aperitifs. These moments reinforce the sense of conviviality and team spirit within our company. What's more, we encourage emulation and collaboration between our teams, fostering a genuine team spirit and a desire to move forward together.
When it comes to authenticity and transparency, we strive to maintain open communication with our employees. Our co-founders remain close to all employees, even with our rapid growth, and share their visions transparently. They are authentic and do not hesitate to express their doubts and questions. This transparency helps to humanize the figure of the leader and creates an atmosphere of trust within the company. What's more, we recently published our CSR 2022 report, in which we set out our commitments and concrete actions to improve our social and environmental impact. We continually question our practices and are committed to making progress in areas such as our packaging, testing new solutions while taking into account the financial and practical aspects for our customers.
Finally, commitment is deeply rooted in Foodles' DNA. Our aim is to have a positive impact on the environment and society. This can be seen in a number of ways. For example, we have opted for sustainable employment by offering open-ended contracts to all our delivery drivers, and we work in collaboration with companies providing vocational rehabilitation for logistics functions. We also became a mission-driven company in June 2022, which implies commitments to our customers, employees and investors that we strive to meet. We are proud to have obtained Ecovadis Silver certification, and we give preference to products of French origin, labelled "Origine France".
When it comes to food, we give priority to seasonal produce and work with local producers. We are also committed to a trend of reducing meat consumption in favor of vegetarian dishes, in order to reduce our carbon footprint. Every year, we calculate our carbon footprint and offset it by supporting small local producers and farmers.
Finally, Foodles has been awarded the happyindex®atwork, tech®atwork and WeImpactIndex® labels by Choosemycompany and #RemoteFriendly by TousNomades for the second year running, reflecting the fulfilling environment in which we operate every day and the satisfaction of our employees.
What's the ideal profile you're looking for?
At Foodles, we place as much emphasis on cultural fit as we do on technical skills. Consequently, the ideal profile varies according to the position. For our technical positions, we look for candidates with solid experience in development, data analysis or project management. For our sales positions, we are looking for people with B2B sales experience, on long and complex sales.
Generally speaking, we are looking for people who are passionate about our mission and aligned with our values, and who are ready to commit to a dynamic and constantly evolving work environment. We value people who are proactive, able to take initiative and contribute innovative ideas. In addition, we value candidates who demonstrate a genuine concern for the environment and social well-being.
For our order picker positions, we are looking for people who are rigorous, organized and punctual. Experience in logistics or order picking would be a plus, but we attach great importance to on-the-job training, so any profile is welcome as long as it demonstrates motivation.
Finally, for our Foodles Officers, we're looking for people with a sense of service, who are versatile, sociable and have a good commercial sense, who are used to dealing with BtoC customers and ideally have some knowledge of health and safety regulations (i.e. first experience in the restaurant business).
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And what benefits do you offer your employees?
At Foodles, we offer a range of benefits to our employees to ensure their well-being and fulfillment at work. These include a health insurance scheme, a pension plan, access to free medical teleconsultation and mental health care, a subsidy for all modes of transport, sports and wellness courses (yoga, sophrology, etc.), etc. A telecommuting policy that enables us to offer up to 4 days of telecommuting for positions that allow it, a parenthood charter... We offer subsidized meals that enable Foodlers to eat every day at very low cost. Finally, we regularly organize corporate events to strengthen team spirit and encourage cohesion between employees.
A final word?
If you're passionate about the world of food, innovation and sustainability, and want to work in a company where your voice counts, where your ideas are valued, then Foodles is the place for you. We offer a dynamic and collaborative work environment, where every day brings new challenges and opportunities. By joining Foodles, you'll have the opportunity to contribute directly and actively to our mission of making innovative, social and sustainable catering accessible to as many people as possible. We look forward to welcoming you to our team!
Many thanks, Aurore!
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