Pretzel, bagel and pogaqe – what does diversity mean for Agrando?

More than 160 people belong to the Agrando team today: at the two locations in Munich and Prishtina, the company is growing steadily and diversely. But what does diversity actually mean? For Agrando, diversity in a company means promoting diversity and fostering intercultural relationships. And not just because our team has been an international one from the start.

The more diverse the workforce, the more diverse the knowledge, talents and experience that employees can contribute. Diversity therefore means, above all, using an obvious advantage: When hiring, not only to pay attention to the quota of women or inclusion, but to consciously look only at the know-how and character traits. This is what brings the Agrando team forward. One can start doing that on a small scale, for example, when new employees do not necessarily have to work (and live) directly in Munich. Starting completely remotely also has its advantages, as this opening up opens up new potential. 

"Besides equality, equal opportunities and anti-discrimination, diversity is a matter close to our hearts in the People Department," says Chris Eichtinger, Lead Recruiter at Agrando. "We are very happy to be able to gather incredibly passionate experts from different cultural backgrounds and experience every day how positively different views and approaches affect productivity, creativity and cooperation.

In applications we look at experience and skills, not name or background, and in interviews we look at character and passion, not skin colour or religion. At some point in the hiring process, we also invite applicants to meet potential future colleagues in a Meet the Team, which gives the applicant an in-depth insight into Agrando and gives us a differentiated opinion on whether they are a ‘good fit’. Especially nice: During our expansion to France, a native-speaking colleague from Engineering helped us as an interpreter to overcome the language barrier.”

What do our colleagues themselves have to say? We asked the team. 

Left to right: Evelina Hoxha, Johannes Kramer, Serafina Weinhold, Gentrit Mustafa, Madhuri Kulkarni

Evelina Hoxha, Team Lead Customer Acquisition

"Everyone in the company is open-minded, we go through life with our eyes wide open, so to speak, and everyone is interested in new things and different ways of thinking. In concrete terms, this means behaving respectfully, having an understanding for the other culture and paying attention to both your own verbal and non-verbal communication. What comes to my mind off the top of my head is that the Agrando Summer League has been postponed because we are in the month of Ramadan, so staff:ing participation would be low at the moment."

Madhuri Kulkarni, Junior App Developer

"The constant effort to organize and translate bilingual meetings or documentation, to switch immediately in conversations, proves the amazing respect you get. Most importantly, it confirms to me that I feel included and it's easier for me to express myself."

Serafina Weinhold Andersen, Manager People Operations

"I enjoy welcoming people from all over the world to our Munich office and watch them come together. People here appreciate each other's differences and enjoy learning about each other's cultures. This openness is something I value very much."

Gentrit Mustafa, Front-end Engineer

"Diversity is a very important thing for me. I believe that diversity means having a wide range of characteristics, backgrounds and experiences represented. When you work with people from different countries and cultures, you learn a lot of new things you've never heard of. Another very important thing is that when you work in a multicultural environment you find a lot of different ideas and thoughts that are really helpful for the vision of the company.

At Agrando there are over ten different nationalities with different cultures, which makes Agrando a very good place to work, to meet new people and learn new things. I'm part of a team of six people here and we all come from different countries and we have a very good time together, even though our communication is only remote."

Johannes Kramer, Senior Creative Designer at Agrando

"Diversity?! What does that actually mean? For me personally, diversity goes beyond the obvious things like origin, gender, skin colour or sexual orientation. For me, diversity stands for a holistic attitude that is open to everyone. It is about general diversity and not only accepting but welcoming people, cultures, ways of thinking and acting. It's like a flower meadow that becomes more beautiful the more different flowers bloom there. For me, Agrando represents exactly this flower meadow. Here, many different cultures and personalities bloom in the most diverse jobs, also independent of classic role models."

Would you like to become part of the Agrando vision? Feel free to take a look at our career page. We are always looking for committed talents like you, who want to shape agriculture!