27.09.2023
The communications battleground can only be won through earned value.
Navigating the Evolving Media and Digital Landscape.
Absence makes the heart grow fonder, but does that apply to your professional life, too? For our more than 200 global employees, who have developed strong, interpersonal relationships in their offices and across our network, it is critical that we maintain some sense of normalcy during these unchartered times. This is particularly true with our agency’s connected culture, which is key to any organization’s success.
Whether running an organization during good times or a global pandemic, driving a connected culture means focusing on five key areas: leadership, culture, talent investment, trust and infrastructure.
Leadership: Lead by example
In the service industry, when something challenges our clients’ businesses, it has a direct impact on ours, too. Through COVID-19, we have seen clients lean on us more than they ever have before and others putting programs on hold. As a leader, it’s important to be transparent when communicating the challenges and opportunities that lay ahead for your business. Sharing the facts clearly, openly and calmly helps build trust and ease nerves amongst your team.
Outside of running day-to-day business operations, it’s important to find fun, unique ways (virtual coffee chats, office-wide playlists, meme challenges, etc.) to keep team members socially connected while also encouraging mental and/or physical breaks throughout the day. However, it’s not just a leader’s responsibility to communicate these company-wide initiatives. You must participate – say by sharing a homemade cocktail recipe in advance of the virtual happy hour, dying your hair blue for whacky hair day, or turning your computer off on a Friday afternoon because you told the rest of your team to do the same. If you don’t practice what you preach, how can you expect your teams to follow suit?
Culture: Create a culture that is connected, collaborative, communicative
We’re in the business of communications, but for some agencies, that can be a situation like the cobbler’s children having no shoes. You get so consumed with helping your clients communicate, that you can deprioritize your own employee engagement. That’s not the case at Current Global.
We’ve transitioned our monthly agency meetings to weekly, using them as a chance to provide updates on our business, answer employee questions, which are submitted through an anonymous inbox, and spotlight innovative account work and team members. We also have regular leadership meetings, a bi-monthly internal email newsletter, virtual HR office hours and updates on social media celebrating our successes and people. When new, high-importance developments have occurred with our business, we’ve made a point to schedule meetings with our entire team to provide real-time updates.
Despite everyone working from home, we’ve seen collaboration and information sharing surge to even higher levels. While real-time media updates have continued amongst our team, we’ve also begun disseminating daily reports across the network, including what our contacts are or are not interested in covering, whose beats have changed due to COVID-19 coverage for the foreseeable future, new story opportunities and deadlines, and more.
Talent: Invest in invaluable resources, regardless of geography
Long before this pandemic, we prioritized hiring people who were the best fit for our culture and our clients’ needs. For us, it’s not about where you are, it’s about who you are and what you bring to the table.
While we have 15 offices worldwide, we don’t assign team members by geography, unless the client requires it. And some staff always work remotely where we don’t have offices, like Charleston, Kansas City and North Carolina. Because our people are accustomed to working across offices and regions daily, our rhythm as a team hasn’t missed a beat and has made for a seamless, invaluable transition.
We continue to encourage participation in learning and development opportunities, from educational webinars and trainings provided through our network, to the free online courses offered by Ivy League universities on Class Central. Now is a perfect time for people to invest in their personal development.
Trust: Assume positive intent, and empower your team to work where, how and when they want (within reason)
Key to any business’ success is hiring and nurturing talent you trust to drive meaningful results. To be a place where the right talent wants to work, you must show compassion and appreciation for the lives people live outside of your business. Following those two principles establishes mutual trust and understanding that everyone is doing everything they can to add value to your organization’s bottom line, even while our industry and global economy have slowed.
We have the utmost trust in our team to get the job done on behalf of our clients and our agency, while doing it under these unusual circumstances. We’re ok with hearing partners, children, pets and other noise in the background during a call, or with a team member taking breaks throughout the day to care for a loved one. That support system sparked the launch of a virtual babysitting service, where several times a week our talented employees will sing, draw, puppeteer and do whatever else they can dream up to help give colleagues with kids a chance to meet a deadline or have some “me time.”
I saw a quote the other day that read, “You’re not working from home during a crisis. You’re dealing with a crisis while trying to work.” We acknowledge that people are doing their best, while also grieving for what this pandemic is doing to the world.
Infrastructure: Put the technology and processes in place to enable connection and collaboration from anywhere in the world
For business owners and leaders, investing in and continuing to upgrade your infrastructure is critical to running a successful organization no matter what’s happening in the world. But it’s not just having access to the right tools and technology, it’s important to provide regular employee trainings on how to use those assets to ensure your investment delivers the intended business results your clients and you need.
Being able to communicate daily with our clients and each other over Teams, Skype, Zoom or Webex has been seamless for our team, and having access to Trend Kite and other analytics tools remotely has allowed us to continue to deliver best-in-class client solutions. The positive experience of pivoting so heavily to rely on these tools will likely have lasting effects on how we approach ongoing communications well after we are cleared to return to our offices.
By having a proven infrastructure in place, we have been able to remain flexible and sustain our business through predictable and unpredictable industry changes, something we’ve counseled and helped instill with countless clients over the years.
Our approach for establishing a connected culture has helped us navigate COVID-19 as a company and as trusted counsel for our clients. We continue to be grateful for the daily work being delivered by our team, the crucial communications we’ve helped our clients deliver during these uncertain times, and the opportunity to help our clients continue to reinvent their businesses once this pandemic eases.
We thrive on solving the toughest business and brand challenges. We’d love to discuss how we can help you ignite your spark.
hello@currentglobal.com