In our Westwing Insights category we give you an exclusive behind the scenes look into our projects, events and our culture. Today, we talk with Miriam, our VP People & Culture, about the recent rebranding of our HR department to ‘People & Culture’.
Miriam joined Westwing in 2016 as an HR Generalist, was HR Business Partner for Technology, Finance, Style & PR for some time and took over the leadership of our HR (now People & Culture) department in March 2020. As VP People & Culture she is heading a team of over 40 amazing colleagues and is working closely with international People & Culture teams towards Westwing’s joint mission. In her role, she is responsible for developing and managing the execution of our overall people strategy and she’s representing the people function within the Executive Team. She is responsible for finding the perfect balance between fostering a company culture that benefits our team and at the same time developing a successful and profitable business.
Our People & Culture Team is responsible for every aspect of the people experience, from talent acquisition and onboarding of new hires to offboarding departing team members. It’s their job to ensure that Westwing can attract, develop, and retain the right talent, to develop every individual’s potential and to create an environment where people thrive professionally and personally by ensuring that the company values are reflected in all people-oriented decisions. The team’s mission is to innovate, engage and develop our people and Westwing, creating a world-class eCommerce organization in Home & Living.
Miriam, why have we decided to rebrand our department from HR to People & Culture?
“We believe this reflects our shared values and our culture way better. For us, people are so much more than simply a resource — we really care for our team, we are a people centric company at the core and our unique Westwing culture is the secret to our joint success. At the same time, the new title fits much better with our expectations towards ourselves as a department and our ambition going forward. The title “Human Resources” is really old-fashioned and not up to date any longer. We do not want to be informed only and told about decisions. We want to be consulted: brought into strategic conversations and decisions because we add value with our insights and opinions. We do not want to be reactive, only responding to issues and emergencies as they arise in a fire fighting mode.
We want to be deliberate, we want to anticipate and thus counteract challenges early on. And we want to really understand our business goals in order to proactively create programs that help us to achieve them. We don’t want to be tactical simply executing tasks. We want to be strategic and create programs and initiatives considering the long-term benefit and impact on our company. And we don’t want to be narrow, only working within the boundaries of traditional HR practices. We want to be holistic, taking a wider view of the business and thinking outside of the box. Thus, I am very much looking forward to this new chapter of People & Culture at Westwing.”