Without a question, there are many talented people and fantastic teams doing meaningful work at Zalando. But as the unofficial saying between employees goes: “Your experience at Zalando depends on your lead”. Unfortunately, my department turned out to be the living proof that “a fish rots from the head down”.
What happens when you have leads who validate their intelligence by making others feel inferior and scared by using their hierarchical position and performance evaluation (formerly known as ZONAR) as a retaliation technique? They push people to leave even if they love what they’re doing. When leadership turns a blind eye towards people being treated unfairly rather than punishing such actions, it sends a message to everyone that this is acceptable, and becomes part of the company culture. When employees are labeled as “toxic, negative and problematic” for speaking up against misconduct or micro-aggression, it’s creating a fear-based workplace. Even worse, attempts to hold somebody accountable for their behavior are treated with gaslighting, telling you that your perception of what happened is wrong.
Forget psychological safety to be yourself, voicing your opinion or asking questions that might differ from your lead’s perspective if you ever dream about being promoted or get recognised for your contributions in the performance cycle. Unless you’re a master manipulator, shameless self-promoter or do everything to “be your LEAD’S biggest fan”, you might be disappointed with the outcome. Feedback is highly encouraged, but it’s actually effective only one way. Even if you try to provide your manager constructive feedback, it will either be forgotten, used against you later, or dismissed altogether (this applies to both, one-on-one feedback, as well as facilitated and documented with an external team).
Ironically, leads also love talking about the importance of mental health, but some think it’s about smiling more, being positive and just being grateful that you still have a job. Teams were even told in a public forum to write positive and grateful comments, and not what they actually think, in the internal survey tool that is designed to provide an honest picture about team health. Every constructive comment was therefore automatically labeled as “toxic” - leadership just wanted to hear happy thoughts and words of gratitude. And if you do take up the courage and share about your struggles, you run a high chance of being gaslighted, psychologically invalidated, or being blamed for it - Everything that makes your managers uncomfortable needs to be silenced and covered up with toxic positivity.
Also, if you have a choice to be anything for Zalando - Be a consultant, not an employee. External consultants are brought in on high rates and even if you just end up recycling existing ideas from the team and presenting them back to the lead - You will be praised and celebrated more than the employees who provided all the groundwork and expertise.
My advice to everyone before applying or accepting a job at Zalando: Don’t trust the interview process alone, do your own research. If your future team members are not included in the interview process (always a major red flag!), reach out to current or past team members on LinkedIn and ask about their experience. If you see several job ads for the same team popping one after the other, ask what has caused all the positions to become open out of a sudden. If you notice the same job ad circulating for months or being constantly changed, ask why and don’t accept dismissive or surface-level answers. This is your career and you deserve to make an informed decision whether or not this is the place for you. It’s in your own best interest to do proper due diligence to be aware if you will join a supportive and friendly work environment, or an ego-centric political minefield that will end up leaving you worse off than when you joined.
