Delivery Hero leaders build their resilience & well-being amid rapid growth with BetterUp

Always delivering an amazing experience. It's more than Delivery Hero's mission; it's an ethos that's felt company-wide. 

Delivery Hero has experienced rapid growth since its start in 2011. Based in Berlin, the global company acquired multiple organizations as its mission and business expanded. This level of growth brings leadership challenges. The pace is fast, and leaders need to stay on top of ever-changing projects and responsibilities while managing their teams. 

From the start of their tenure at Delivery Hero, Eloise Brauer, director of performance and talent, along with the Micah Lasseter, director of leadership and management development, knew that supporting leaders with the right mindsets and tools to stay resilient amid change was critical to their colleagues' well-being and business success. 

One of the key tools Lasseter uses to develop top talent is BetterUp coaching.

Almost 500 employees take part in BetterUp's dedicated 1:1 coaching. This includes both managers on a leadership development track and any employee who chooses to spend a portion of their yearly learning budget on the product. 

The significant interest in BetterUp is evidence it's working. BetterUp is one of the top ways people choose to upskill their development across the company. 

But Delivery Hero is passionate about more than leadership and career development. They know that amazing talent is hard to find and even harder to keep. And what makes the organization unique is its strategy around retention. 

Versus the traditional territorial manager who aims to keep the best leaders on their team, leadership drives a culture where talent is encouraged to explore different areas of the business. People seek out new opportunities instead of new employers, and workers refresh their energy and enthusiasm for their job when trying out something new. 

BetterUp supports this strategy by helping employees discover their strengths and development areas, their passions, and where they want to take their careers. Personalized coaching sessions offer the space to reflect and outline next steps and strategies for career development.

Of those who participate in BetterUp coaching, 90% say they've made meaningful progress toward their goals.

The value of BetterUp expands across Delivery Hero. Leaders who participate in coaching create a ripple effect on their teams with coaching communication skills and techniques. A coaching culture — one where leaders empower, trust, and grow the potential of their team members — is strong. 

BetterUp sat down with Lasseter to learn more about the importance of resilient leaders, retaining talent, and cultivating a coaching culture so people and the business can thrive.

On average, employees who worked with BetterUp experienced the following growth: 

BU: How has BetterUp helped leaders build resilience? 

Lasseter: For our leaders to best support their team members and the business, we encourage them to take care of themselves first and foremost. When it comes to leadership development, we believe in a holistic approach. This consists of providing growth and stretch opportunities, receiving support from their manager, BetterUp coaching, and other leadership learning support on essential skills, that all help to build resilience. 

Part of the culture is also connection moments that take place in 1:1s with your manager, which enable open dialogue and problem-solving together. When leaders use BetterUp, they invest in themselves. A dedicated call with an external coach gives them the space to talk about topics, skills, and themes that are relevant to them at that moment. 

BU: How has resiliency helped leaders cope with the challenges of growth?

Lasseter: We have seen an increased level of awareness among our leaders around work-life harmony, resilience, and well-being, both for themselves as well as for their teams. With combined efforts and initiatives, like BetterUp, an employee assistance program, an employee wellbeing community, training, mindfulness exercises, and more, we aim to make a positive impact on resilience. 

I was able to get BetterUp coaching when I was onboarding at Delivery Hero. It came at a really great time because I had just relocated from the Netherlands, so I was learning a new company culture, I was in a new country, and it was a lot of transition. 

Being able to have regular check-in moments with a coach to see the small actions I could take every day had an impact on how present I was at work. It helped me focus on self-compassion because I was in a hurry to try and create results as quickly as possible. It gave me the space to be okay and practice self-acceptance as I was navigating those changes. 

BU: How has BetterUp helped Delivery Hero cultivate a coaching culture?

Lasseter: Aside from resilience, we see an increased level of awareness around what coaching means. As people managers are receiving coaching through BetterUp, they have exposure to empowering and valuable coaching questions and techniques, from their BetterUp coach. We see managers afterward apply these techniques in conversations with their team members, creating a ripple effect. 

BetterUp also provides a lot of valuable data around multiple leadership and relevant topics, enabling a pulse check on realities that managers face in their day-to-day lives. With this data, we continue to tailor additional support and iterate on our leadership development and coaching initiatives.

BU: Why is a coaching culture critical to Delivery Hero's success?

Lasseter: Coaching asks questions and has the coachee unravel the solution by themselves, knowing that the solution usually lies within the person already. If a manager simply answers a question from a team member, the answer will entail the manager's point of view and their own approach. If the employee executes on it, it likely won't challenge them or give them an opportunity for exploration or growth. Coaching supports and empowers our employees to try out new things, take on different responsibilities, and take ownership of their work.

BU: Delivery Hero has acquired many organizations. How is BetterUp helping you create tailored leadership development across a variety of regions?

Lasseter: BetterUp gives us insights into the unique needs across certain regions. The rich data enables us to delve deeper into growth needs analysis work, and identify and tailor leadership development support. This is important when operating in different contexts and BetterUp makes the data relevant to our interests and mission. It's the connector between what's happening day-to-day for our leaders and the growth and development they want to achieve.

BU: What stood out about BetterUp with so many coaching platforms on the market?

Lasseter: Eloise had explored other coaching platforms and what stood out about BetterUp was the maturity and scalability of the coaching platform. BetterUp has the experience we were looking for and everything is truly driven by data and science. The in-depth reporting on measurements that mattered to us was key. We also found it to be the best coach-matching algorithm. 

BU: Now, over two years into the partnership, what makes your collaboration with BetterUp unique? 

Lasseter: The ongoing support and partnership from the team have been amazing. The BetterUp team has been able to provide very thorough data on the needs of our leaders — the level of insight we get is amazing — and they continuously think with us on ways to elevate the offered program, as well as proactively collaborate on strategic and operational topics. We've expanded and doubled our licenses since starting which shows the value we see in it for everyone.