The brands OPUS and someday have been growing in the women’s clothing trade for years. Simplicity is behind the success story. The company sees itself as a network for textiles and technology and focuses on simplicity in its work. Simplicity now shows this in its first employer branding campaign and provides close insights into the team behind the brands.
Kristina Meyer, Chief People, Organization & Strategy Officer and Alina Engelmeier, Employer Branding Manager reveal in an interview what goals Simplicity pursues and how simplicity helps employees achieve them.
How does simplicity show up in Simplicity’s goals and vision?
Kristina Meyer: When working with our brands OPUS and someday, we have made sure to work efficiently and in a straight line since the beginning. One example is the optimal control of goods in retail, for which we use digital tools that we have developed internally. The mentality of simplifying things is a key driver of our growth and success. Simplicity is our claim and our promise. We leave out everything that is superfluous in processes, in communication and in dealing with our customers, business partners and employees. This is also reflected in our vision: With “Rethinking shopping” we want to make shopping for our customers as innovative as possible.
Alina Engelmeier: As an employer, we also aim to continually develop ourselves. If we want the best colleagues in our team, we simply need the best conditions. We ensure that our teams have everything they need to simply do a good job. With our employer branding campaign ‘Bring more Simplicity to your career’ we express exactly that.
What areas of Simplicity’s work culture are highlighted by the campaign?
Alina Engelmeier: In terms of content, the campaign focuses on our corporate culture. We show what it means to us to work goal-oriented, progressive, collaborative and holistic. It is important to us to represent the diverse work areas and teams. In addition to fashion design, sales and our in-house marketing agency, we also have state-of-the-art IT and fully automated logistics. We want to give those interested a comprehensive insight into Simplicity as an employer. That’s why, for example, on our new careers page you will find all the information about your specialist area bundled on a subpage.
To what extent do the experiences of employees play a role in the campaign? How have employees responded to this focus on ‘simplicity’ so far?
Alina Engelmeier: Our colleagues are the protagonists of our campaign. We worked unscripted and conducted individual interviews. The central question was “Why Simplicity?” We received very personal and individual answers to this. This showed us how diverse the connections to Simplicity are.
Kristina Meyer: Before the official launch of the campaign, we presented the campaign internally to all colleagues and received a lot of encouragement and positive feedback. Seeing our own team members in the campaign was emotional for many of us. I am amazed at how strongly the “One Team, One Spirit” approach is practiced in our teams.
How does the approach of simplicity manifest itself beyond the campaign in attracting new employees and developing existing teams?
Alina Engelmeier: Here we turned all the processes upside down again until they felt really easy. Simplicity is already evident in the application process. A current CV is sufficient for an application. We will then contact the applicants very quickly. Contact is on a first-name basis right from the start and we do not use assessment centers or traditional interviews. Instead, we talk openly in dialogue about each other’s ideas. This is the best way for both sides to find out whether the working methods fit together. Cultural fit is very important to us.
Kristina Meyer: We are growing rapidly and are looking for new team members. At the same time, it is important to us to promote the many talents we already have and to fill management positions internally. That’s why we are increasingly investing in the further development of our long-standing colleagues.
And finally, one last question: What are Simplicity’s goals for the future?
Kristina Meyer: Growth is the core goal of our corporate strategy. In retail, we see great potential nationally and internationally for our brands OPUS and someday. We are also continuing to grow digitally through our own online shop and our partners’ marketplaces. It is clear to us that we can only achieve these goals with a really strong team. That is why the growth of our company is inextricably linked to the further development of our employees and our organization.