Our corporate culture

At Zalando, our purpose of reimagining fashion for the good of all drives us to make the fashion world smarter, friendlier, and more open. As we continue to grow as a company, it is crucial to foster an empowering corporate culture, uniting behind the values that have brought us to where we are today. From performance culture and professional development opportunities to health initiatives and community involvement, Zalando’s corporate culture speaks to our sustained commitment to individual and group success.

Our Founding Mindset

Our Founding Mindset principles are encapsulated in four core values: customer focus, entrepreneurial thinking, speed and team spirit. These principles guide decision-making and empower our employees to work in the interest of our customers and partners. As we prepare for the future, we want our employees to grow with us. With our Founding Mindset as our cornerstone, we can continue to build a company culture that offers new, meaningful learning experiences and challenges everyone to think bigger.

Performance culture

Our success as a company and the success of our employees is based on effective and unbiased performance management. We see performance management as a commitment to a mutual promise, an eagerness to identify strengths while continuing to learn, develop and grow. Through structured 360° feedback, we are able to ensure fairness and transparency when it comes to salaries, promotions, and development opportunities.

Prioritizing feedback

With 360° feedback, we avoid a biased, top-down approach in favor of a more holistic, fair, and transparent system. Zalando holds two feedback rounds per year, supported by our evaluation process and tool. These are designed to promote interpersonal, unbiased conversations regarding an employee's individual performance and opportunities.
Together, the employee and lead decide on who to invite to provide anonymous feedback on the employee’s performance across different projects. This peer-review process allows managers and employees to sit down for an in-depth discussion and use their colleagues' feedback and a self-assessment to identify strengths and opportunities for further development and training, as well as the potential for raise or promotions.
We also seek out feedback from employees, collecting anonymous employee surveys on a quarterly basis. The results of these surveys help us improve our performance management across the company. 

Training for the future

It is clear that the work environment will change through the growing use of technology. Therefore we closely analyze the skills that are in high demand now and for which demand is on the rise. We then create opportunities for our employees to learn those skills. And because great leaders inspire and drive their teams to collective success, team leads are invited to embark on a leadership development journey, tailored to their individual needs.

Health and benefits

To achieve our goals as a company, we need our employees to be healthy and engaged. We focus on various benefits and initiatives to make our workforce healthier – so that they can help shape our future. Across the company, we apply expert advice on healthy workplaces to design current and future offices and fulfillment centers.

Getting involved

Part of our mission as a socially responsible company is to contribute to our community. For instance, we provide two days for volunteer work each year per employee. In 2023, 535 Zalando employees supported 66 projects through 4,281 hours of volunteering while gaining meaningful experiences at the same time.