Highly engaged and happy employees
A lot of our waking hours are spent at work. This fact underpins the responsibility companies have to ensure that employees have good jobs where they are happy and engaged. One of our behaviors at Oda is that ‘We care about people’ and we always aim to keep this front and center in everything we do. We are continually focused on how we look to engage and develop our people.
As we have experienced unprecedented times, for instance linked to the pandemic and the associated hyper scaling of our business, we have been continually learning how we can keep evolving and developing our offering to employees to ensure their experience at Oda is truly meaningful. We see this deeply empathetic and caring approach to be of critical importance, especially in the context of the industry we are working in.
E-commerce, including the e-grocery sector, is intrinsically linked to the boom of so-called ‘gig-economy’, which now employs millions of people worldwide and which is still in rapid growth (“What is the gig economy and what's the deal for gig workers?“, World Economic Forum, 2021). The ‘gig economy’ is often defined as labor markets characterized by high prevalence of short-term contracts or freelance work, and in many cases, productivity improvements in companies can often be built on ‘social dumping’ and decreasing the stability of work for employees, especially in operational roles. We are mindful of this and take measures for all employees to feel included, happy and engaged.
We care about people
Empathy is embedded in everything we do. We strive to make life simpler and easier for our customers, and we look out for each other in an open, caring work environment, creating space to balance work with life.
How we work with employee engagement
We want to be a positive force in the labor market, particularly within fulfillment and delivery where workers rights continue to be a political and social hot potato. We want to contribute to the human rights of just and favorable conditions at work and the right to organize (Article 23 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human rights). Within Oda, our desired approach is very different as we aim never to make sacrifices on an ethical approach to employment. We aim to make sure that our employees are safe, happy and engaged, and we’re working very hard to implement a consistent employment approach across our business and our labor value chain, with compensation above market median to support our employees.
Another core part of our philosophy, breaking away from many industry conventions, is to engage in ongoing and meaningful dialogue with employee organizations and the associated approach of collective bargaining. We actively promote organized dialogue with employees because we believe that is the best way to keep our employees highly engaged and happy in the long term - in other words, by making sure everyone has a forum to raise concerns and be a part of shaping Oda as a workplace. A lot of focus has been on scaling the business, and we have also worked on smaller and bigger initiatives to ensure that everyone looks forward to their job every morning and wants to continue being a part of our growth journey. From promoting physical and mental wellbeing, improving working conditions and organizing social events to ensure that people can form meaningful friendships at work.