Welcome to the Spotify HR Blog! Our company is changing the world, all while growing at hyper speed. In order for us to stay ahead, both our people and the company must develop faster than the world changes. This puts very special demands on us, the HR department, to create that environment where a diverse […]
Life @ Spotify HR: Six Months In
When I started my career, I worked at a financial services company, and I was recently reminded this week of how we celebrated our tenure anniversaries back then. You had to be at the company at least five years before your tenure was acknowledged, and by your 25th anniversary, you could select a congratulatory gift […]
HR Binoculars
In the talent space of tomorrow, HR leaders will be the most sought after profiles and people with HR skills will be the most competed for. Yes, I’m biased as I think I have the best job in the world, and because it’s always easier to see how you create value vs how others create […]
Cultivate Your Adaptability
In my last blog post, I wrote about being and staying learning agile to keep our people’s skills up-to-date. One important factor we look at is the ability to adapt, and do it quickly, also known as the Adaptability Quotient (AQ). At Spotify, we hire for adaptability and do our best to encourage and cultivate […]
Humble Leadership Builds Inclusive Environments
A couple of weeks ago, Amy Edmondson (Professor of Leadership and Management at Harvard Business School) talked to people managers at Spotify about her new research that culminated in her book ‘The Fearless Organization’. Amy’s previous research and book ‘Teaming: How Organizations Learn, Innovate, and Compete in the Knowledge Economy’ has guided me in rethinking […]
HR Binoculars
The impact of COVID-19 on today’s workforce has completely changed the way companies operate, with many of them fast-tracking actions to stay ahead of this pandemic. In fact, this pandemic has become the greatest accelerator of workplace transformation, changing the topic of debate from what the “future of work” will look like to “today’s new […]
People Analytics and Its Identity Crisis
Billy Connolly once put it in one of his many sketches (to be read in Scottish accent) “ask a wildebeest whether it’s a wildebeest? Aye that’ll be right, I’m no a wildebeest, I’m one of those stripey things over there”. Much like the wildebeest, for me, people analytics sometimes struggles with an identity crisis. A […]
Normalising the conversation to reduce stigma
Normalising the conversation around mental health and mental illness in order to reduce stigma is one of Heart & Soul’s strategy pillars. Depending on where you are in the world, stigma associated with mental health is highly or partially present. Stigma makes us feel shame and guilt, and leads us to believe we are weak […]
Being skilled at upskilling
A constant challenge for most organisations is to make sure their people are up to date with the skills they need. It’s a subject that’s been debated within HR (and in particular Learning & Development teams) for some time, but with the rate of change in the world increasing every day the pressure on solving […]
Impacting Societies and the Planet Through Global Citizenship
No matter what your industry is, the need to understand social impact and climate change is key to your business’ long-term success. Your customers care, your business partners mind and your employees expect that from you. It’s not an area that any HR pro can afford to side-line or gloss over as a critical component […]
Spotify’s secret sauce of recruiting in hyper growth
When a company is scaling up its workforce at a fast rate, just as Spotify has done over the past 15 years, it means that every single employee needs to continually be in a recruiting frame of mind. And this only comes from a strong relationship between TA and the broader HR team, and across […]