Our corporate culture

Zalando has grown to become the leading European technology platform for fashion and lifestyle. And it’s our culture that makes the difference. Whether it’s through professional growth, wellbeing initiatives, or community work, we have a sustained commitment to ensure every individual employee and the company as a whole, can succeed.

Our Founding Mindset

Our Founding Mindset (OFM) captures Zalando’s core ways of working. We focus on four core principles that guide how we show up, make decisions, and execute together: customer focus, entrepreneurial thinking, speed, and empowerment. These pillars connect our diverse teams and give us a common way to act and solve problems. With our Founding Mindset as our cornerstone, we can continue to build a company culture focused on our customers’ needs, doubling down on delivering results and offering employees new, meaningful learning experiences. The OFM principles challenge everyone to pursue big ideas, seek diverse perspectives and always play as one team.

Performance culture

Great work starts with clear expectations and constant growth. At Zalando, elevating our performance and delivering results is a mutual promise, a way to celebrate strengths while identifying where to learn next. Our success relies on individual performance and business ambition coming together to make a real impact for our customers. Through structured feedback, we ensure that salaries, promotions and development opportunities are handled with fairness and transparency.

Prioritizing feedback

With 360° feedback, we avoid a biased, top-down approach in favor of a more holistic, fair, and transparent system. Employees seek feedback from their colleagues on various projects throughout the year and complete a self-assessment. This helps us have honest, unbiased conversations between employees and their leads twice a year about where someone is thriving and where they can go next. We also run anonymous quarterly employee surveys and regular D&I surveys to make sure we’re actually listening to the experience on the ground and closing any gaps in our culture of inclusion.

Training for the future

The way we work is constantly changing, so we’re making sure our skills change with it. We identify which skills are in high demand and create the space for people to master them – from leadership journeys for our leads to embracing the potential of AI for all of us. New technologies like AI are a tool to support our talent, helping us streamline daily tasks and create better experiences for our customers and partners. By leaning into this transformation, we drive efficiencies and are setting Zalando up for success in a digital world that never stands still.

Health and wellbeing – our approach to prevention and high support

To achieve our company goals, we need our teams and colleagues to feel their best. Our approach focuses on prevention, in which we use regular assessments to make sure the workplace is safe and supportive - taking measures to address any working conditions that prevent our employees from thriving. In line with our OFM principle to “Live high challenge, high support”, we embrace ambition and change with a growth mindset, while we care about each other beyond our roles. We also train our leaders in psychological safety so they can build truly healthy teams.

We provide the tools for everyone to take charge of their own wellbeing:

• Psychosocial support: Professional counselling via the Fürstenberg Institute and our internal Employee Assistance Service (EAS) for quick, confidential support.
• Health services: Access to an on-site company doctor, gym and fitness classes next to health check-ups for sleep and mobility, provided by our health insurance partner.
• Full access to benefits: Our Benefits team provides Zalando employees with broad access to health, fitness, mental and financial wellbeing options, especially via our partnership with Wellhub.
• Practical training: We provide workshops on energy management and have trained a dedicated group of certified in-house Mental Health First Aiders.

Getting involved

Helping others is part of our DNA. Zalando employees are encouraged to contribute to community activities in various ways. We’re convinced it’s a driver for continuous learning and development, both personally and professionally.

Through our partnership with vostel.de, Zalando employees have spent over 30,000 hours volunteering for everything from environmental projects, teaching digital skills to youth mentoring or animal welfare. Since 2015, we have supported over 460 projects with more than 150 non-profit organisations. It’s proof that we’re at our best when we’re playing as one team – for the community as well as the business. Read more about our volunteering on our blog.

Aside from volunteering, Zalando employees can express their engagement by supporting one of many communities at Zalando. Examples include joining one of our twelve Employee Resource Groups (ERGs), attending a PeerPower session, an initiative where employees with a passion for fitness lead live classes on campus, or being part of the mentoring programme.