HR at Tony’s Chocolonely

The feel good brand Tony’s Chocolonely was found in Amsterdam on 29th November 2005
by Tean van de Keuken. The company name is derived from the name of the founder (Teun
is Tony in English) and the lonely battle they are fighting. The company, which is known for
its motto ‘Crazy about chocolate, serious about people”, is namely striving for 100% slave
free chocolate.

Henk Jan Beltman, Chief Chocolate Officer at Tony’s Chocolonely stated: “I want to make as
much impact as possible in making the complete cacao supply chain slave free in all
chocolate companies. This can’t be done without a good team. The moment you invest in
your team and make it a close knitted club that know the goal of the race, you realise this
goal. It starts with the people.”

In 2019 Tony’s Chocolonely became the second ‘Best medium workplace’ in the Netherlands
and ranked 27th for the same category in Europe

Tony’s Cholonely has 127 employees, which also are referred to as “Tony’s”. Twelve Tony’s
work abroad, namely 8 in the USA and 4 in London. Current staff is mainly highly educated.
When the proposed new factory opens, staff numbers will increase (approximately 500 new
employees are needed) and many production workers will be employed. The current HR
teams consists of 8 people.

Recruitment selection, onboarding and offboarding

Tony’s Chocolonely Head of People and Culture, describes the brand as a ‘love brand’,
attracting applicants who just want to work at the company in whatever position available.
However, the company is very critical who they take on: Tony’s Chocolonely only recruit the
best people. Experience in the Chocolate industry is nice to have, but not a necessity to
work at Tony’s Chocolonely. Staff is selected on the basis of 2 criteria: involvement &
engagement with the mission of Tony’s Chocolonely and on their enthusiasm for the job.
Their intrinsic social motivation is a key consideration for fitting in Tony’s team. If selected,
the candidate is offered a contract for 6 months followed by a permanent contract

The onboarding programme of Tony’s Chocolonely entails a 3 months programme. New

employees make their own chocolate and personalized wrapper, they work in Tony’s shop
and give a presentation to colleagues about things they noticed after starting to work for
Tony’s. They also receive a personalized mug with Tony’s tagline on it.

New employees are also given a ‘chocolate buddy’ and a ‘happy box’ which contains
chocolate, a t’shirt and a step by step guide of what to expect in the first few months.

The high people standards go beyond selection, as Beltman states that “If someone in the
team is not performing, I let that person go”. There is not much ‘natural turnover’ and most
employees who leave do so on Tony’s chocolonely’s initiative. The company believes that it
is important for the organizational culture to be honest about splitting ways. However, they
pay importance to this being done in an orderly manner, and people leaving with their ‘head
up high’ as they want that old employees stay ambassadors for the brand.

Performance Management

Tony’s chocolonely has adopted a rather traditional cycle: with development and appraisal
interviews taking place twice a year. Every Tony has 5 personal plan goals a year. Every
quarter of the year the 3 most important goals are identified for guidance and direction.
Staff tell each other every quarter what the goals are and how they set out to achieve them.

The company indicates that changing this process is top on their priority list. They aim to
develop a system with more frequent feedback, 360 degree feedback, short questions and a
conversation focused more towards development instead of appraisal. Also they want to
hold a salary conversation which is disconnected from the development conversation. The
company already has a feedback tool called Impraise which delivers 360-degree feedback in
appraisal meetings. However, this tool is not used very regularly.

Reward

In the start up phase, Tony’s Chocolonely paid around 25% less than average for comparable
positions in other companies. They focused on offering ‘a way of life’, with equality,
solidarity, pleasure and performance as key elements. Current salary levels are comparable
to market average (but not above it).

In their annual report (2017-2018) Tony’s Chocolonely describes how all jobs have been
scaled in again (using Hay method) which led to more salary perspective for the lower scales
and lower salary perspective for the higher scales. It is not known if Tony’s Chocolonely
reward system is still only containing 4 pay scales or if this transparent system has changed
due to adopting the before mentioned Hay method.

Beside regular pay, Tony’s Chocolonely also offers a range of other financial and non-
financial perks and benefits. For example, Tony’s also has a pension scheme and a staff stock
participation policy called ‘the Gouden Wikkel’ (English: the golden wrapper). Staff members
can eat unlimited amounts of Tony’s Chocolonely chocolate. They get 100 Euro a year for
sport shoes and can attend weekly bootcamp sessions. The company also offers a baby
bonus. The company also has a yearly ski-trip and offers a month parental leave. Employees
can also get small loans for personal use. Free/discounted concert-and football tickets are
also available for staff as well as a healthy lunch, a cupboard of in-between snacks, yoga and
chair massages. The company also offers ‘stay on weight’ bonuses to their staff. Also, there
are no set working times; working from home is allowed too. The company offers unlimited
leave days (with a minimum of 28 days).
Training and development

Tony’s expect people to positively contribute to the organisaton and to ‘Raise the bar’ (grow
together with the company). As the company is fast growing there are many opportunities
to grow and develop to other roles and teams within the company.

Every employee has his/her own personal training budget. Yearly there is a 2 day ‘Tony
Chocademy’ and there are monthly breakfast sessions with inspiring speakers. There are
regular feedback sessions and there are externally facilitated coaching sessions with the
management team.

Tony’s annual report indicates that the Choco Chiefs and Heads have started a leadership
trajectory. The leads have also started management skills training.

Organisation culture

The culture of Tony’s Chocolonely can be described as open and warm and is built around 4
core values: entrepreneurship, criticality, work happiness and willfulness/tenacity. The
company emphasizes that these values are really lived at Tony’s. For example once every
quarter they give out the ‘omdat het kan kan’ (English: because it can can), a prize for the
Tony who showed most entrepreneurship that term. Tony’s chocolonely sees it as their
responsibility to facilitate work happiness and offer development opportunities but states
that it is the employees’ responsibility to become happy in their role.

To develop and maintain the organizational culture several activities are undertaken. For
example, every half a year Tony’s has a ‘desk bingo’, at which everyone changes from desk
space in the office. There are regular Friday after-work drinks and fun office events. When
staff members celebrate their birthday they receive a birthday cake made by the last person
who had their birthday before them. Nobody ever leaves the building empty handed (of
chocolate).

Every year (sometimes twice a year) Tony’s Chocolonely conducts a labour satisfaction
survey called ‘werkpret enquete’, using Survey Monkey and tries to act upon its findings.

Challenges:

Tony’s Chocolonely perceives guiding the growth in the right way as one of its key
challenges. Another challenge is the ‘offboarding’ as many staffmembers do not want to
leave Tony’s Chocolonely.
References:

Abu Ghazaleh, N., Hogenstijn, M. and Sluiter, M. (2018) The story of Tony’s Chocolonely,
Amsterdam entrepreneurship cases,
https://pure.hva.nl/ws/files/5255121/Tony_s_teaching_case_final.pdf

Blom, E., Van Burg, E., Verhagen, P. and Hillen, M. (2014) Tony’s Chocolonely, How a social
enterprise is changing the chocolate industry, CaseCentre,
https://www.thecasecentre.org/educators/products/view?id=124929

GPTW (2019) Tony’s Chcolonely,

https://www.greatplacetowork.nl/workplace/item/2302/Tony%27s+Chocolonely

Jong, M. de, (2017) Need inspiration? This is what you can learn from Tony’s Chocolonely,
https://blog.hotelschool.nl/industry/need-inspiration-what-you-can-learn-tony
%E2%80%99s-chocolonely

Mes, H. (2017) Even proeven van HR bij Tony’s Chocolonely, Happy People Better Business,
https://www.hpbbnieuws.nl/?p=703

PWNET (2019) By Tony’s Chocolonely staat team op nummer een,

https://www.pwnet.nl/personeelsmanagement/artikel/2019/02/bij-tonys-chocolonely-
staat-team-op-nummer-een-10129300

Tony’s Chocolonely (2018) JaarFairslag,

https://tonyschocolonely.com/nl/nl/onze-missie/jaarfairslag

Tony’s Chocolonely (2019) Wanna be a Tony, too? https://join.tonyschocolonely.com/

Visser, M. (2019) By Tony Chcolonely wordt werkpret serieus genomen, De telegraaf 14 april
2019, https://www.telegraaf.nl/financieel/3436728/bij-tony-chocolonely-wordt-werkpret-
serieus-genomen