Reimagining Work and Sustainability at Wildling Shoes
When Wildling Shoes was founded in 2015, its origin was not shaped by market opportunity but by a personal question.Could a company be built to fit the way people live, rather than requiring people to fit themselves to a company? For its founders, this meant creating more than a new kind of shoe. It meant designing a workplace that respected time, family,and the natural rhythm of daily life.
This blog post is part of 80+ case studies of progressive organizations we created for the ZeroDX awards 2025. These organizations embody the principles of RenDanHeYi in their work structures:
Zero Distance to customer: Decision what to build is based on insights from the marketplace
Autonomy: Small teams with full decision-making autonomy enable speed in execution
Shared Rewards: Everyone in the micro-enterprise participates in its financial success.
From the beginning, the structure of the company reflected that ambition. Working from home with young children, thefounding team built Wildling as a remote-first organization. What started as a workaround quickly became the standard.Today, Wildling employs over 140 people across Germany and beyond. It has no formal headquarters. Aside from logistics and warehouse functions, all work is distributed. People communicate through shared online tools, hold regular video meetings, and gather in person once every six weeks.
The majority of employees do not work full-time. In 2024, the company reported 83 people on contract, with only 25 in full-time positions. Others work between a few hours and nearly
full-time, often balancing caregiving or community work alongside their roles at Wildling. Many hold leadership or strategic responsibilities despite their reduced hours. One team member spoke about working during the morning while her children were at nursery and then again in the evening after bedtime. Another described how this structure allowed her to be present for her child’s school events and still contribute meaningfully to long-term projects.
Responsibility at Wildling is not tied to visibility or presence. Teams define their own objectives each quarter through a shared planning process. These are not imposed by management.
Instead, they are drafted by the people doing the work and shared transparently across the company. Everyone knowswhat each team is aiming for, and coordination happens through mutual awareness rather than control. This approach has made it possible to sustain accountability without hierarchy.
Decision-making is distributed, but that does not mean fragmented. When a product issue arises, such as wear on a particular outsole design, the feedback does not get passed up through layers. The design team responds directly. In one case, they tested a new material based on recurring customer input, worked with the sourcing team to adapt the specification, and communicated the change to the user community within weeks. The process required no executive sign-off because responsibility was already located with the people closest to the problem.
That same responsiveness can be seen in how Wildling works with its suppliers. In 2022, the company launched a joint project with its Portuguese manufacturing partners called the Impact Collective. Rather than setting supplierstandards from a distance, Wildling brought partners into the process of developing more sustainable production methods. During shared workshops, both sides contributedsuggestions, explored alternatives, and refined processes together. One sourcing partner proposed a change to water usage in fabric treatment, which the group then tested over several months. It led to measurable reductions in resource consumption and reinforced mutual trust.
Wildling does not separate sustainability from daily operations. Materials are selected with durability, traceability, and environmental impact in mind. Packaging is reduced wherever possible. Customers are encouraged to repair shoesrather than replace them. These decisions are not delegated to a separate team. They are embedded into product development, logistics, and customer communication. When a new repair initiative was proposed, it came from a group of employees across departments who saw a gap and acted on it. They built the process, designed the messaging, and ran the pilot without needing to escalate the idea.
Internally, transparency is more than a principle. It is a mechanism for coordination. New employees are introduced to the company through open sessions that focus on purpose and working culture. Quarterly objectives are shared across teams, and regular feedback sessions ensure that alignment is maintained without rigid oversight. People movebetween functions as their interests evolve. One employee who began in operations now contributes to onboarding and communication. Another transitioned from product testing into supplier collaboration. Role mobility is expected and encouraged.
While Wildling does not formally describe itself using RenDanHeYi terminology, its structure reflects many of the same characteristics. Teams hold authority over their work, customer feedback is integrated without delay, and partnershipsare based on shared learning rather than control. Autonomy is not conditional on seniority. It is granted by default. Direction is not announced from the top. It is shaped by continuous conversation.
The company’s ability to adapt quickly to customer needs is directly tied to its internal structure. People do not wait forpermission to act. They act because they are close enough to understand what needs to be done. When a usersuggestion becomes a product improvement, it is not seen as innovation. It is seen as the normal rhythm of work. The link between initiative and value creation is direct and visible.
Wildling has grown without abandoning its founding questions. It has not shifted toward standard models as it has scaled. Instead, it has refined its approach through dialogue and iteration. It has kept its structure light so that peoplecan move easily. It has made values visible so that they can be acted on. It has treated work as something to be lived with, not fought against.
The company does not claim to offer a universal solution. It is not trying to inspire by design. But in practice, it has become a compelling example of how a manufacturing business can organize itself around trust, purpose, and responsiveness. It demonstrates that autonomy can drive coordination, that relationships can replace oversight, and that responsibility can live wherever the work is being done.
Wildling continues to operate as it began. Not through systems of control, but through systems of care. Not with slogans, but with clarity. Not from theory, but from attention to what people need in order to do good work together.
