JUUNOO - The importance of corporate culture - interview

Soon, JUUNOO will take its first steps abroad. The team will grow over the next year with 25 additional people spread across the headquarters and several international locations. How do you make sure your company and especially your team is ready for the next leap?

One of the things that founder and CEO Chris Van de Voorde is actively addressing to achieve this explosive growth with a strong team is company culture. By mapping the company culture, he can clearly communicate to his team what is expected of them. At the same time, it also makes clear to every JUUNOO team member, no matter where in the world, what goal is being pursued.

HR can select the right people based on this. In this way, the individuality of JUUNOO is taken into account and the expectations to the new team members are clearly set.

Want to learn more about JUUNOO's corporate culture? Check out the conversation with JUUNOO founder and CEO Chris Van de Voorde and our own strategist Bert Van Wassenhove, or read the full interview below.

What does JUUNOO stand for?

With JUUNOO, we ensure that offices are arranged more efficiently and circularly. Today, most people work at home, in the office, an open office was used. By corona, this will not continue. With JUUNOO we give a solution to divide the offices more smoothly without dust or dirt. In addition, our system ensures that as the team evolves, the walls can be moved smoothly to create new or different spaces. People are looking for solutions to create offices that easily adapt to needs, without demolishing or building the classic or world-famous gyproc walls, without dust or misery, efficiently and safely.

JUUNOO offers a seamless and neat solution. You make a one-time investment in a wall. When you move, you can take the wall with you and reuse it.

This is in contrast to the classic model where you pay for a wall that you throw away afterwards. At JUUNOO you pay the same price as a classic wall that you can reuse afterwards.

From whence did the name JUUNOO come?

This name comes from my two children, Jules and Noor. I have a background as an engineer, passionate about walls. A huge nuisance has been created by waste from interior walls. 40% of all waste in Europe comes from the construction industry. Of that, 15% is from walls.

I was active in stand construction. In this business, walls are successfully reused. I chose to apply the reuse of walls in another business. In which, if we succeed, 6% of waste in Europe will be avoided.

I accept the challenge with JUUNOO, as an entrepreneur and as a father, to provide a solution for the future and next generation regarding climate change.

Whence your interest in your own corporate culture?

We are at the gate of the next capital round. The business model is proven in Belgium and we want to roll this out in different countries. For this we are raising money with which we can then hire new people.

The question is which people and how will you find them?

For this, you need a vision. Attracting the right people is enormously difficult. The corporate culture exercise was a potentially interesting approach for us. We capture our corporate culture and can attract the right people based on this.

Don't you know your own corporate culture then that you wanted to examine it?

You don't know what you don't know. I do have an idea about what our corporate culture is. But the added value of this exercise is, in a structured, neutral way, you identify some issues and get a concise analysis that you can work with.

The corporate culture within JUNNOO can be traced to these 3 values: LEARNING, PURPOSE and RESULTS.

The insight through the summary analysis is a first part. Namely, the second part is that I personally have a corporate culture in my head, but do the employees have the same corporate culture in their heads?

What was interesting here was, that what the staff felt and thought was different from how I saw it. This then came out in this exercise. That way you can discuss this in your team, take targeted actions on it and grow.

How did that process go?

There was an online questionnaire that was completed by all employees. Each answer is a correct answer. The answers were not linked to individuals in the company. Based on this, a graph was made by the team from THINK with people where the theory behind the graph was explained as well as the results were communicated. There were 4 points on which we scored above average. Thus, priorities and areas for attention were established .

What does purpose,learning and result mean to you?

Our company wants to scale as quickly as possible where we want to get every wall circular as soon as possible. That's our goal, our purpose. But that's also bigger. This is not just about ecological, that's just as much the numbers behind it. It's also linked to our results-driven focus.

Were we only purpose driven, we would stick to tree hugging.

But also grow 30 - 40% every quarter, then you are also result driven. The two reinforce each other. It is important that employees see that. We then have our 3rd focus, learning is then a way to continuously learn. Daring to question everything and always.

What are the problems in the market, how can we solve this. Very iterative daring.

The exercise had also revealed that authoritarianism in the team scored high. That was interesting to note. We discussed this in our team because I do not want to appear authoritarian. This way I could explain that if I communicate something in a clear, directive way, it is mainly to achieve our results. Our values of PURPOSE, LEARNING and RESULT are now clear to everyone, and remain open for discussion in the team. The combination of the three give just that very specific character of JUUNOO that people choose us for.

What are some areas of work that you are undertaking based on the analysis?

Making it internally discussable is one of them. Using them as selection criteria for hiring new people is a second. This is then towards employer branding. Team spirit, for example, is clearly stated on our website. We also use the 3 values in our job interview. This is the type of company you stand for and is that a fit? We just got out of the 'roles crisis' and for us the big new challenge is the 'culture crisis'. When I hear other startups you see that challenge in them too. I didn't like that roles crisis. It inhibited the growth of my company and that's why we want to be proactive. If we can get around that culture crisis, then we can move forward faster as a company.

How many people do you want to recruit and what profiles?

Belgium is not the best country to market a building product. We have defined that there are about 10 regions in the world to market our product. Like Sweden or New York, where there is a better fit with our product and we can start scaling faster. In total, we need about 25 people internationally. These will not only be working in our headquarters in Kortrijk but will also have local entities everywhere, which of course do have a strong link to our headquarters.

That will be a special dynamic that is sure to be fascinating. The locals will also be part of the culture of JUUNOO.

That's super important, that everyone is going for the same goal.

Inspired by the JUUNOO story? Then be sure to take a look at their new website!