- Fraser Bradshaw /
- News /
- 23-02-22 /
- SHARE
Further starts with us: How we’re shaking things up in 2022
This may just be the single most important point in recent history for workplace culture. Employers are increasingly struggling to recruit and retain top talent following a shift in attitude, dubbed ‘The Great Resignation’.
Covid-19 has shined a new light on our priorities, our values, and our view of work. The organisations that will succeed in retaining and attracting the best of the best are the ones who develop an employee-centric work environment. And we’re one of them. Here’s how…
The hybrid approach
Throughout the pandemic, we’ve learned that being productive isn’t exclusive to the confines of our office space. We’ve rebranded companies over Zoom, shot hard-hitting ads from a social distance and kept our clients buzzing with content created in home studios. A change of place came with a change of perspective. A Harvard Business School survey found that 81% of employees who have been working from home through the pandemic would prefer a hybrid schedule – and that desire is reflected within our own team. In-person collaboration is always key, particularly when it comes to being creative, but giving our teams the time and space to be productive in their own space is just as important. That’s why we continue to offer flexible working on a 3/2 basis, giving staff the opportunity to work from home twice a week. Our 11 (!) saintnicks pups are paws-itively delighted to hear the news.
But keeping the agency connected is just as vital – whether we’re online or offline, we strive to create a community that we all feel part of. We know that’s how we work best. Evenings out, a summer away day, our weekly Crossfit bootcamp, the infamous saintnicks day on December 6th and our Christmas party are all designed to carve out time for us to connect outside of the office.
A winning model for all
Whether it’s benchmarking our salary brackets, annual appraisals and 360 reviews, personal development plans or training budgets, we want to make sure that our team have the stability and transparency they need to thrive within their roles. We offer various salary sacrifice arrangements to help our employees balance their payments for bicycles, childcare, seasonal travel tickets, tech, or kitchen appliances, and we have a financial adviser on hand to help with advice on mortgages, pensions and savings.
We’ve also found new ways to say thank you throughout the year, from our agency profit share scheme to annual re-signing bonuses, referral bonuses, sabbaticals, birthdays off, and our monthly round-ups; where we celebrate each other’s work, announce our ‘Catch of the Month’ winner and toast our successes with DIY cocktails. (You only have to catch a glimpse of our office bar cart to see how seriously we take our tipples.)
Our staff’s personal wellbeing is just as important to us as their professional health, which is why we provide private medical insurance through Vitality Health, which gives everyone access to healthcare whenever they need it. That includes mental health support and comes with a whole host of exciting rewards for keeping active, like discounts on gym gear or free tickets to the cinema. When our team feels good on the inside, its reflected throughout every aspect of our work.
A business for good
The last two years have brought about immense, inspiring change in areas outside of work – from COP26’s spotlight on climate change to BLM marches across the globe. And while our function as an agency is to create demand – through strategic insights, planning, creative development, and effective execution – we also appreciate that a good business is one that does good. (More on that here.) Aside from supporting a charity every year – this year it’s Mind – we are currently in the process of completing our accreditation as a B-Corp. In doing so, we have signed up to a global declaration of interdependence and a commitment to being the change we seek in the world. To further this work, we are recruiting an internal diversity and inclusion team and have joined the WFA’s Inclusion Hub. This will enable us to deliver a wide range of new initiatives for the agency to address our corporate and individual responsibilities. We can’t get wait to get going.
We are constantly growing and evolving as a business and the feedback we have received from staff and clients has helped shape us in ways we’d never imagined. We would love for you to join us on our journey – you can see what we get up to on Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn or drop us a line at info@saintnicks.uk.com to learn more.
