Building and communicating a workplace that works - for now, and what's next.

(Guest Author: Ben Phillips is our global lead on all things Employer Branding at Booksy. His role sees him tightly connecting our evolving culture and people experience, and in this post he shares what it's really like to work at Booksy today, how we're building our future of work from the inside out, and why it all matters).

At Booksy, we're scaling quickly. And like a lot of companies at our stage of growth, we've had to stop and ask ourselves, "what do we want it to be like to work here?" And, "what types of people will thrive in future Booksy?" Not just the people who can do the job, but the ones who'll want to do their best work here, stay for the long haul, and help shape what's next. 

In late 2024, we started doing work to answer these questions properly, and to get clear on the kind of business we're becoming - strategically, operationally, and culturally. 

So, how are things shaping up? Read on to learn about some of the things we’ve been working on over the last few months. 

From local to global. From busy to high-performing. From fragmented to aligned. 

Until a few years ago, Booksy’s business and culture was fragmented across our core countries - Poland, Spain, France, UK and US. We're now becoming far more connected – aligning in how we build, work, and lead – and more focused on building experiences for our customers (health, wellness and beauty providers, and their clients) at scale and speed. 

This is requiring a lot of change across Booksy, and we’ve had to get more honest with ourselves about the kind of environment we need to create to ensure we can deliver on our goals. 

Through work that’s been happening across our business, we’re identifying how we want to operate as a global, unified team. A part of this means building a high-performance culture. Not in the corporate cliche' sense, but in a real way. For example, ensuring:

• People focus on what has the most impact vs. what requires the most effort.
• Teams have clarity about their outcomes, not just tasks that keep them busy.  
• Individuals and teams own their work, take responsibility for the outputs (wins and lessons!), and keep relevant people informed throughout the progress.
• A culture where we back each other, challenge each other respectfully, and grow together.
• A mindset and actions that raise up our community of colleagues, providers and their clients. 

It's early days, but this will increasingly become a shift in terms of what we expect from each other and what new people can expect from us. 

Who will thrive here, and who might not?

There are many reasons why people choose to join Booksy now, and why they might want to stick around in future. Some of it is practical e.g., remote-first options in many countries, flexibility, a decent amount of autonomy in how to get things done. But for many, the real magnet that pulls people in, and the glue that will make them want to stick around, will be the sort of work, the type of people, and the kind of mindset that will increasingly succeed here. 

We also want to be clear that it’s not all sunshine and rainbows. As a career destination we're open to anyone, but we acknowledge that we won't be for everyone. There are hard and unique challenges ahead if we’re to exceed our potential, which won’t be for the faint-hearted. A lot is being built or rebuilt. Many things still need fixing. And change is a constant. To thrive in the current and future Booksy, we’ve identified some key characteristics we think people will need to be comfortable with:

• Builders and creators. With our rapid growth and evolving maturity there’s a lot to shape, setup and repair. Whether in the driving seat or a passenger on the ride, having a builder/creator mindset will help as you'll need to be comfortable with the ambiguity that often comes in an environment that's figuring a lot of things out all at once. 🛠️ 🤔
• People who can think fast and move to action quickly. There's increasing pressure - technologically, competitively, and economically - to move at pace. Progress is expected over perfection. We need people who can push forward first, polish later. If you're someone who spots what's missing and moves to fix it - there's a greater chance you'll fit right in. 🏃🏾💨💨💨
• Dreamers who are also pragmatists. Great ideas are welcome from anywhere, but they need to land, not just sound smart. Excellent ideas without execution are sports cars without fuel - look nice but don't go anywhere. 🧠 ✅
• Passionate about elevating others. You get to help independent beauty-providers around the world build thriving businesses that match their ambitions and save time for what matters most in their lives. We think that having this positive impact, globally, is a solid reason to get out of bed in the morning. 💇🏽 💅🏽 🌎

What we're building to enhance your experience:

So, you'll bring initiative, drive, and a bias for thoughtful action. What are we bringing? This isn't just about what we say. We’re planning for the changes we're making to show up across our entire people experience, and we're just getting started: 

• We are evolving our new candidate attraction and hiring processes to ensure we bring in people who are more aligned with how we'll be working and the direction we're heading.
• We're building stronger, more consistent onboarding and training experiences for employees, managers and leaders.
• We’re improving the way we create, share and track business, department and individual strategy /goals across the company – aiming to provide more direction and transparency so you know how your work contributes to Booksy’s overall success.
• We're on the path to updating and providing more clarity about how we reward, recognise, and support people.
• We’re investing heavily in how we train and develop colleagues - from leadership development, to online English language courses and many things in between. 

This is only a taste. There are many other things going on. 

Why this matters:

We know that having the right people, in the right roles, doing their best work is essential to the success of everything we're building. If our people are clear, connected and happy, our providers will see, hear and feel it. Our product and services will reflect it. And our performance will prove it. 

It's a long game and we're putting solid foundations in place to make sure our end-to-end people experience supports and reflects the ways the company is evolving. 

There’s a lot more going on and it's work we're excited to keep doing - with the right people, in the right way, for the right reasons. 💪🏼 📈 🌟