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 […]
SpotOn! Season 2
At Spotify HR, we love to learn from, and get inspired by leaders from around the world who challenge the status quo. And with the SpotOn! podcast, we do just that. I listened to last season’s SpotOn! episodes with so much curiosity and joy, so I was delighted when the team asked me to host Season […]
World Mental Health Day: A Time to Turbocharge Mental Health
The last few years have been especially tough on us all. And it’s no surprise that since the entire world has been through so many turbulent changes and events recently, we think that now (more than ever before) is the time to tune into ourselves and focus on taking care of our mental wellbeing. At […]
The Fake Resignation
Is The Great Resignation really happening, or going to happen any time soon? Is it just a tale or a myth? It sounds very similar to a story I’ve heard before, where a management consultant repeatedly tricks an executive into thinking that 50% of their employees are about to resign. Off the back of this […]
Civic Engagement for our consumers, creators and employees
A recent study from Harvard Kennedy School’s Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation showed that voter participation efforts are “not only good for democracy, but also good for business,” with benefits ranging from positive brand awareness and meeting consumer expectations to increasing employee satisfaction. As a part of our broader Equity & Impact function, […]
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 […]