Anne, you are CHRO at Eucon, a digital pioneer and expert in data-driven decision-making. How important is the corporate culture to you as an HR executive?
To me, the corporate culture in general is the most important distinguishing feature for any organization: At Eucon, it is a strategic success factor. A clearly defined mission statement and distinct values not only provide orientation and transparency but also form the basis for trust and security, create a sense of belonging and identification with Eucon. All of this in turn drives motivation for engagement and learning – the key levers for continuous improvement and the ability to innovate within the company.
A positive corporate culture is the glue that holds us all together. We have over 500 employees worldwide working in very diverse teams. And it is our colleagues who give our culture its personality, not the other way round. Our corporate culture is made up of individuals who form a community that gives us a sense of identity and belonging. That’s why our mission statement is called OneEucon – we all jointly work towards the same goal, with everyone making a meaningful contribution to the greater whole.
So how has Eucon’s current mission statement and corporate culture come about?
The starting point to kick off our cultural change process was our 25th anniversary in 2022. Last year, we then again stepped up the pace and gave our mission statement a facelift. We have put the focus on our values, which now fully reflect our corporate culture. Our purpose is a promise: Together we empower smarter decisions – jointly with our customers and partners, we lay the foundations for smarter and therefore better decisions based on data intelligence.
Our values have emerged from within and bottom-up, i.e. from within the team. Eucon Group colleagues contributed to the process in various workshops, at offsites and team events. But of course, we didn’t start from scratch. Our culture has constantly evolved since Eucon was founded in 1997. It is crucial to carry the history of the company forward into the present, because it is the very essence of our DNA. The large-format, colorful works of art that were co-created during this mission statement process together with conceptual artist Pellegrino Ritter have now been hung up in the stairwells at our headquarters in Münster. They display the values of our company. As you walk through the building, you are constantly reminded of them.
The colorful works of art in Eucon’s stairwells displaying the company values
What are the core values at Eucon and how are they reflected in day-to-day work?
In the course of our workshops, six core values have emerged that unite us worldwide and determine our daily actions. The aim is to break down silos and hierarchies and to strengthen our community. We are guided by these values to be successful in our job and enjoy our work at the same time. These values reflect the key elements of trust, responsibility and openness – the latter also in the sense of “showing vulnerability”. They are central to team psychological safety, which in turn is the determining factor for successful teams and therefore companies. Psychological safety creates the foundation for innovation, learning, commitment and performance – and we need all of this to make Eucon strong and fit for the future.
Six core values were developed jointly by all employees at Eucon Group
How do you ensure the mission statement is put into practice by all employees? Which initiatives have you introduced to promote the engagement of the team?
We offer various opportunities of exchange and feedback to our employees. Here, we use a combination of large events for all employees and individual, dialog-based formats for smaller groups. This year, for example, we introduced the new format of Roundtables with Colleagues from the Executive Board. Our employees can register for a personal exchange with the management team or explicitly with our CEO to ask questions, contribute ideas or simply discuss the latest topics in the company. This creates a sense of closeness, which in turn is essential for trust and understanding.
We are creating the right framework with a variety of communication measures to promote employee engagement. To anchor our mission statement, we introduced motto weeks, among other things, to explicitly raise awareness of our values among all colleagues and bring these values to life. In addition to traditional communication channels, we also use talks and workshops as well as joint events that create meaning. This year we organized a tree-planting campaign in the regional forest, taking up the spade together to make a sustainable contribution to protecting the planet.
Eucon has a reputation as a data pioneer, and technology progress is part of the business strategy. How does the company manage to combine innovation with a corporate culture where employees feel at ease?
One begets the other. You can only be innovative and think outside the box if you work in a culture that makes you feel at ease, that gives you a secure platform and where you don’t have to worry about making a mistake. The aforementioned team psychological safety plays a particularly important role here.
This means, for example, that we need to not only be proficient in the latest technologies, but also have the right attitude towards them and set an example in key areas. And this is where culture comes into play again. With this kind of corporate culture, we promote openness to change, continuous learning and a willingness to explore new technologies in order to further strengthen our innovative power and competitive edge as OneEucon.
The use of generative AI (GenAI) at Eucon is a good example of this. We use it to increase our efficiency and develop innovative products and services. Simultaneously, we are establishing a culture that is open to change. To make this work, it is extremely important that we offer our employees the opportunity to continuously develop their skills.
What do you offer your employees in terms of professional development and career opportunities within the company?
We systematically invest in training and further education to promote the individual development of our employees and our company in equal measure. We assess which skills we absolutely need now and in the future and define company-wide learning priorities for each year – at present, these include: GenAI, leadership development, product management, project management and agile mindset.
At the same time, we offer our employees opportunities to develop within the company as well. The keyword here is internal mobility. We are breaking down silos not only through collaboration across teams, but also through the development of our employees. Everyone has the opportunity to look into other areas and develop, for example, by changing to another team or assuming other responsibilities. Thanks to this, we create a constantly growing wealth of experience within our company.
How do you manage to find employees at Eucon who fit in with the company and bring the culture to life despite the shortage of skilled workers?
Successful recruitment and onboarding of new employees are crucial to our success. We therefore continuously invest in our recruitment processes and programs. This allows us to attract the most talented people to our team who are professionally qualified while – and this is particularly important to me – sharing our corporate culture and values.
We basically take an approach that I’d describe as “hiring for attitude” rather than “tick-the-box hiring”. First and foremost, we look for candidates who fit in with our culture and have the right attitude. At our company, everyone is on first-name terms right from the start and gets to talk to the team very early on in the application process. As a result, applicants get to know the people and culture at Eucon a lot better straight away and we can figure out together whether the chemistry is right. That’s what makes us an attractive employer, along with other factors such as flexibility and the opportunity to work from home.
How important is a strong corporate culture in times of economic uncertainty and technological disruption?
Especially in times of crisis like 2024, the importance of a strong corporate culture has become apparent. It provides orientation and strengthens cohesion where there is uncertainty. Clear values and a common goal create trust and provide stability. Willingness to change and to adapt are key factors here: A well-established corporate culture promotes the ability to respond to new challenges with flexibility and agility, which is crucial in dynamic times. It also supports resilience by fostering openness to new ideas and continuous development. Companies with a positive corporate culture can overcome challenges better and emerge from them even stronger.
We consider our corporate culture to be the basis for the company’s success and therefore a strategic factor. But even if culture is hard to measure in figures, we can tell from qualitative indicators, such as the extent to which our mission statement is anchored in our daily work, how much progress we have already made. Colleagues often refer to OneEucon, which shows that our mission statement is taking root.
Our aim is to develop our culture organically and to firmly establish it in the long term. It is not a rigid concept, but rather a dynamic process. Our six values already embody this willingness to change. And as long as we remain innovative and flexible, our corporate culture will be key to enduring success.
