Why We Increased the Kilo Health Learning Budget by 1,500% in 2022

Kilo Health became Europe’s second fastest-growing company twice already. At first, Deloitte ranked us among the tech leaders in Central Europe, and then the Financial Times named us the runner-up in Europe.

Growth is at our core, and we got here by fostering a professional and personal development culture.

In 2022, we boosted our learning budget by 1,500%. Here is why.

1. To encourage our people to outgrow us

Recently, everyone’s been talking about quiet quitting. I believe that quiet firing is more dangerous because it stunts growth and holds people back. Nothing is worse than feeling stuck in your career without advancement or personal development prospects.

That’s why at Kilo Health, the goal is to ensure our people outgrow their roles, their managers, and even the company.

We have 30 products in our portfolio, and there are many options to choose from through our internal careers program. If you grow tired of working with digital products, you can switch to creating smart devices. If you want to figure out new ways to fight type 2 diabetes or mental health issues, you can join one of our many in-house or invested products. And if creating new products is the dream, the R&D department constantly develops new ideas.

Experts seeking to specialize in a niche area can find a space in our internal agencies. Just look at Juste, who started out as a content writer, then joined our Design studio and became a content designer focused on verbal brand identity.

People who want to start a new stage in their career can join a free mentorship program Kilo Academy. We also do the basics – go to conferences, invite industry experts to train us, or visit top industry experts to share their knowledge.

Suppose you feel you have tried all your options within the Kilo Health ecosystem. In that case, Lithuania has a very tight-knit community of world-class startups that build products in cybersecurity, sustainable fashion, e-commerce, martech, or space technology. We even co-founded a union of high-growth companies, Unicorns.lt, to build an environment that helps people connect.

Plenty of people move through different startups in Lithuania, and this guarantees the environment is healthy and competitive. No hard feelings – as long as the person grows, the entire system improves, too.

2. To build a culture of ownership

If you connect all of these dots, it’s apparent that we want our people to take full ownership. We want them to craft their career path, fearlessly innovate the industry, and develop their own products.

Kilo Health is a company that creates companies. Over the past year, we have invested more than 2,500,000 euros into various healthtech companies through the Kilo Ventures accelerator. We constantly develop new products through the Co-found initiative or in the R&D department. Our co-founding program ensures that even C-level managers and senior experts can grow by developing their own projects.

We also launched the employee stock option program to ensure our people can get a chance to become co-owners of the company.

We want our people to lead the way.

And to hone those skills, we built multiple systems that help our people grow. We run internal mentorship programs, leadership trainings, Luniversity platform (Kilo Health internal learning university) for improving interpersonal skills, create individualized development plans, and offer access to every type of external training our people need.

Creating a culture of learning is also about honesty. Staying authentic means understanding that we all make mistakes. The only catch is to learn from them, share the findings, and ensure you don’t repeat them in the future.

3. To ensure personalization and wellness equity

As a company working in digital health, we seek to build health into the very core of our culture.

Workplace wellness spans multiple dimensions. People want to have a clear purpose, feel inspired by their environment, be challenged by their job, be emotionally safe, physically healthy, financially secure, connected with their colleagues, and constantly growing. We all prioritize different things during different stages of our careers and lives.

Our goal at Kilo Health is to create an environment where everyone can be themselves and get exactly what they need at the right time. For some people, it would be all the learning and growth opportunities and working with global brands. For others, it would be about helping 4+ million people get healthier. Some will prioritize being a part of a community and making themselves known among their network of experts.

To each their own – there is no one formula on how to thrive at Kilo Health.

Personalization is at the core of our products and our people’s experience, so the goal for everyone is to be yourself and help us find new effective ways to help people live healthier lives.

Do these principles work?

It might feel like it’s a nice philosophy, but does it bring results? We are an example of how putting people first is good for business.

Over the past years, we have grown from a tiny local company to a global brand without external funding. Our portfolio has grown to 30+ products, and we cover general wellness topics and help people with chronic disease or mental health issues.

Here is a quick summary of what we have done over the past few years:

At the end of 2022, Kilo Health consists of more than 700 talents, over 4 million clients worldwide, and 7 offices in various European cities. We grow fast, and we expect our people to keep up.

Ilona Bernotaite

Chief People Officer at Kilo Health

Lived in 50+ countries. Chose Lithuania as her home base because she fell in love with the Kilo culture.

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