The woman behind Xing and Kununu: Petra von Strombeck on crisis management and leadership
New Work SE? Oh, Xing and Kununu! The professional platforms are the most important brands of the S-Dax group. In an interview, CEO Petra von Strombeck explains how recruiting is changing.
Right at the beginning of the zoom interview, Petra von Strombeck (51) comes out as an avowed video conference hater. On the other hand, when she calls from the living room at home, she looks extremely cheerful. After holding positions at Lotto24, Tchibo and Sky, von Strombeck has been CEO of the Hamburg company New Work SE since the end of May 2020, which, in addition to well-known brands such as the Xing business network with 19 million members and the Kununu employer rating platform, also operates B2B services such as Prescreen and Honeypot. The specialist for professional networks and recruiting achieved an annual turnover of around 270 million euros in 2019. The main shareholder of the listed company is the Burda media company. Despite the increase in members, the corona crisis and the upheavals on the labor market have also left their mark on New Work.
t3n: Ms. von Strombeck, your company already has the catchphrase New Work in its name, how about that in your own shop?
Petra von Strombeck: Of course, we try to practice New Work every day, especially with us. In essence, we concentrate on the topic of culture – our aim is to offer our employees an environment in which they can develop, do things that mean something to them – and in an environment that suits them. We take everyone seriously and strive for a relationship on an equal footing. This is one of the reasons why the aspect of transparency is at the top of our list. For example, three years ago we introduced company-wide salary transparency. We are now optimizing the model and the processes every year in order to create even more transparency and, above all, a dialogue at eye level – between those who negotiate their salaries and the managers.
t3n: Salary transparency – what does that mean in concrete terms?
We publish the “salary ranges” of the respective job groups and make it transparent to our employees how they are classified in a peer comparison. We understand the topic of salary transparency as an indicator of a certain maturity of the organization. With this openness, we want to ensure that discussions with superiors are on an equal footing and that good performance pays off.
t3n: What else are you doing to increase transparency?
We also follow the idea of the greatest possible transparency in the weekly publication of a short Executive Board interview. This is where we classify the most important events and projects in times of Corona. There are also contributions from the various units. Another, sometimes quite powerful, tool is our Mood-o-Meter, which employees can use to anonymously post questions – and vote up or down; the employees decide democratically which questions are most important to them, and the board of directors regularly takes a position on these. As additional formats, we are planning virtual all-hands to accompany our employees through this corona phase and to keep our corporate culture alive even without regular personal meetings.
t3n: You yourself only started at New Work directly during the corona crisis …
Yes, a dream. I started my CEO work from home. That was very special. Especially since I’m such a people type and I draw a lot of energy from the direct exchange with people. Fortunately, I had already started my onboarding in January 2020 and was still able to physically tour all areas. I visited all locations – from the Iberian Peninsula to Vienna to Munich – and was able to get to know the people and the different cultures of the offices.
t3n: What was your greatest personal learning experience?
It became even clearer to me personally than before how much energy encounters, discussions and real contact with people give me. Second, we are experiencing a mad pace of change. Otherwise we would have talked for years about making work models more flexible, and now it is here. By external pressure. You can of course actively use that.
