The Ripple #1: Welcome to Deliverect
Episode 1: Hey Dripl, Welcome to Deliverect
As Chief Culture and author of the book "Shaping Company Culture", Ingrid De Clercq knows what she's talking about when it comes to workplace experience and how culture ripples into everything you do.
As a Belgian unicorn, Deliverect is the kind of scale-up that could easily lean on the startup-office clichés: the ping pong table, the beanbags, the free-snack wall. Instead, Ingrid walks us through an office built around one question: what actually gets people talking to each other?
First things first: a bar to gather & exchange ideas
The first thing you see when you enter the Deliverect office is a long bar, and Ingrid is specific about what it's for. "The bar symbolizes connection," she says. People lean on it to talk about their weekend, sure, but also to solve problems across departments that would otherwise never speak. That cross-pollination, getting spontaneous input from someone three teams over, can have a real impact. The barista who makes the coffees is a nice-to-have. Having a space where people can enjoy a good drink and talk is the point.
Her favourite spot: the auditorium
In Deliverect's auditorium, the whole company gathers every Friday at 5PM. The 12 locations across the globe, and all the different departments share their week, so that people can learn, applaud and celebrate together. It's a small ritual doing a big job: making sure connection isn't left to chance encounters alone. It's also a ritual that has survived and strengthened throughout the growth from a start-up to a global enterprise.
Ingrid's vision on office attendance & hybrid work
Ingrid doesn't hedge on the return-to-office question.
"We will never go back to five days in the office"
Ingrid says, and she means it. But she's just as clear that fully remote isn't the answer either, citing a Gallup study that found that efficiency isn't the real casualty of remote work, isolation is. Her ideal is three to four days a week in the office, not for output, but for the problem-solving and cross-pollination that "you cannot put in a spreadsheet."
(Re)defining values you can actually use
Deliverect's old had always been playful ("shoot for the moon, if you miss, you'll land among the stars") but after a few years, they didn't feel quite right anymore. So the company rebuilt them from both ends: Ingrid figured out what C-level expected, but also discussed it at every single office with what she calls "the belly of the organization". One value, "plan smart, act fast," came directly from employees who wanted the agility everyone praised, balanced by permission to slow down and think before executing.
The result lives on Deliverect's bar, and the values have been translated into concrete behaviours, so they can be part of everything they do. The combination of all these values is called "Stardust", which is kept in mind by each team member and in lots of different processed. For example, during hiring rounds, they gauge how much "stardust" a candidate has. It's a values system that is used on a day to day basis.
Wellbeing initiatives also need a refresh from time to time
Ingrid also talks honestly about making company culture work: not only the values, but also the wellbeing initiatives need to be refreshed from time to time. New initiatives such as yoga have traction for a while, then they might slow down after a while. Lunchtime walks catch on at first, then fade. She doesn't treat that as failure, she treats it as normal, and the job is to keep finding the next spark rather than always pushing the same one.
She's equally clear about the fact that wellbeing is a joined responsibility between the company and its employees. "As a company you can nudge, you can stimulate, you can offer, but it's for the employee to take it and actively adopt it in their daily life." For example, Deliverect decided to no longer offer unhealthy snacks, focusing more on fruit and nuts. They gave breathing courses for people to regulate stressful moments. But, she repeats, all these initiatives only really work if the employee also puts in the effort and takes their own responsibility to keep a healthy work-life balance.
Company culture is like a campfire
Ingrid closes on a metaphor: culture is like a campfire. You can build the most beautiful campfire, if nobody adds a log on it from time to time, it dies. The same goes for culture, and the initiatives that hold it up. When something stops working, her advice isn't to fix it, it's to drop it and find the next spark. It's a fitting note to end on for anyone building workplace habits that are meant to last, not just launch.