5 Ways to Keep Employees Happy
The #GreatBritton Way to Work Happiness
If you’ve ever worked at a marketing agency (or if you know someone who does), then you’re familiar with burnout. The high turnaround. The late nights. The push, push, push, rush, rush, rush, and then the short time to rally before it hits again.
It’s the nature of the industry. Agencies are service providers. We make marketing easier for our clients, and our clients know that they can count on us to come through whenever, however.
Why settle for good or OK when we could have great?
But that can mean crazy deadlines. It can mean working over the weekends and holidays. It can mean late nights and long business trips. Not always, of course, but often enough to impact morale.
It’s no wonder that agencies struggle to hold on to employees. People get tired, worn out. The creativity eventually dissipates and the excitement wanes and work becomes work.
We’re well aware of this problem, and it’s one we’re kind of afraid of. We’re nothing without our people. Lose them, and we start to lose what makes us unique. What makes us strong. And sure, we could hire new people or morepeople if we happen to burn out our great people, but is that really an option? Is that a sustainable business model — settling for good or OK when we could have great?
Like any agency, we want to keep our great people for as long as they’re in marketing and living nearby, and we’ve found that in order to make that happen, we have to be proactive. We have to go to great lengths to do whatever we can to make Britton Marketing & Design Group a great place to work.
And you know what? It seems like it’s working. Employee turnover at BMDG is shockingly low. We have numerous employees who have been here seven, eight, nine years, and we were recently nominated for this year’s 2015 Readers’ Choice Best of … awards in the “Best Place to Work” category. (We still don’t know which of our employees nominated us, but thank you!)
So what is it about our company culture that defies the norm? What do we do that goes against everything you hear about agencies when it comes to employee happiness and retention?
While we don’t have all the answers, we do have five principles that guide our company culture … and we tend to think they’ve made a huge difference:
1. Don’t just tell employees you appreciate them, show them.
Congratulatory emails, acknowledgment in company meetings — it’s always worthwhile to boast on an employee (or a group of employees) in front of the entire company, and we make a point to do it often. But telling someone how great he or she is only goes so far. At BMDG, we strive to show our employees how much we value them by doing little things for them on a regular basis. From food truck visits (complete with paid-for vouchers!) and free Keurig coffee to bottomless snack drawers and free tickets to local events, we’re constantly showering our employees with benefits that go beyond what’s expected.
2. Encourage creativity … no matter what.
We’re a company full of artists and creatives, but the work we do tends to focus more on client needs and guidelines than it does creative license or expression. Too much of this and it’s easy for employees to feel as though they aren’t able to pursue their passions or that they don’t have time to add to their portfolios. Our solution? We provide as many creative outlets as we can, and we also do our best to support our employees in their personal endeavors.
It may sound backward, but we’ve found that by encouraging employees to pursue what they love, they’re happier. And we recognize that client work doesn’t always fill that need. So we support their interests, their art shows, their personal successes. And in turn we get to see just how crazily talented they are. Take for example what one of our art directors, Bridget Forte, created for a few of her colleagues (yes, we have a serious Game of Thrones fan base here at BMDG).
Is it risky to encourage employees to pursue their dreams outside of work? Maybe. But we don’t see it that way. We see it as an opportunity to ensure that our designers and writers continue to love what they do and feel fulfilled by it.
3. Force some downtime.
Agencies are famous for not granting vacation time or being so busy that time off is out of the question. But a little time away can do wonders for morale and work ethic. Every summer when client work slows down, we bug our employees until they schedule their vacation time … and we prefer that they schedule all of it.
And yes, we know it sounds ridiculous. We know that our goal of encouraging employees to take vacation time is one that’s kind of a no-brainer. But we also know that in our industry, it’s easy to end up with lots of unused vacation time and lots of disgruntled employees. So if forcing a few weeks off means that we keep our people happier? Then force we will!
4. Remember that life happens.
Every employee wears a number of hats. They may be a writer or a designer or an account manager, but they’re also a wife, husband, son, daughter, mother, father. And sometimes those nonwork-related job titles get pushed front and center. They take over.
Not every company can handle this well … we’ve heard of agencies who have lost great employees due to the company’s inability to give the support and the time that the employee needs to handle life’s obstacles. But if there’s one thing we understand, it’s that these nonwork-related titles are usually the titles that define them. Our employees are mothers first, designers second. Husbands first, photographers second. These are the titles that are most important. So when there’s a death or an illness or a crisis or when the baby just needs to be home with Mom or Dad, we understand. And it’s something that has made us not only a female-friendly work environment but also a place where all employees feel covered when life happens.
5. Provide a reason to get everyone together … often.
It’s one thing to throw an annual Christmas party or tell employees that they should really take a break every few hours. It’s another to give them a reason to get up, get out and get mingling.
We throw not one, not two, but three or more parties every month. #GreatBritton is our company initiative to bring our employees together multiple times per month for wine tastings, food holidays (National Donut Day, anyone?!), birthday celebrations, cookouts and more. It gives employees something to look forward to and a reason to get away from their desks.
How do we make sure that we don’t get too busy to plan these events? It all comes down to a set budget, a party committee, and the expectation that there will be at least one event every month. And while we may be missing out on some billable hours, we’re cultivating a culture of fun, food and festivity, and when you work as hard as we do, it’s a fair trade.
All in all, we may not yet have a company slide or a “no a**holes” rule, but we do as much as we can and are constantly pushing to do more. It’s our way of saying thanks, our way of telling employees we like having them around … and we’d like to keep them around.
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Photos/Embeds: BMDG and BMDG Instagram
