Improving Office Culture
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- dMullins0
One day I will write an impressively long post about all of the good and bad lessons learned running an agency for someone else the last 3 years. It's been awfully surprising the things that motivate, and the things that do not. I have learned volumes of stuff that will only improve my ability to run my own setup here shortly.
Top 3 Motivators:
• Stark variety of work and work-based challenges.
• Team collaboration over individual/independent work.
• Simple mentions of appreciation in front of co-workers/peers.Top 3 De-Motivators:
• Telling your employees too much about what's going on behind the scenes.
• Money. Believe it or not, money is not a motivator.
• Hierarchy. Hierarchy is a joke these days for small agencies.- I beg to differ about money. Extra numerals on my pay slip motivate me rather a lot.Continuity
- dbloc0
Snowboarding Trip!!
- dijitaq0
every month we have what we call a "lunch meeting", though it's basically just all of us having lunch together paid for by the company. employees take turn choosing which restaurant to go to.
- stoplying0
If you're a boss, acknowledge and appreciate in a genuine manner the work that your employees do.
If you're an employee, accept that you can always learn something new, or can learn a better way to do something. You don't know everything.
Or you can always start a mandatory face punching club. Every Monday morning.
- Amicus0
Some of these have been said before:
1. Reasonably strictly defined roles.
2. Variety of clients.
3. High expectations of quality.
4. Not too much overtime, and when necessary it is paid, and food and drink is supplied.
5. Spend some time out of the office with quality associated businesses or craftsmen – printers, finishers, letterpress, art museums, industrial design studios, architects etc.
6. Offices that don't feel like cubicles or are run-down. You should have pride in your workplace.
7. Employ happy people. Debbie downers ruin workplaces almost as quickly as a dog with diarrhoea.
8. Bring in some nature – natural light, plants, maybe a goldfish or extremely well behaved dog.
- doesnotexist0
i think there's also something to say about strict expectations on who's supposed to do what and who isn't. can definitely make it a shitty place to work when too many people act as art director's when their title on paper is project manager (example).
at smaller places this all gets thrown up into the air a lot of times (let's do it together! yay no accountability or seniority!).
- doesnotexist0
have one
have an opinion on how your office looks
be unorthodox in your desk layouts
be fun, have fun, allow fun
- autoflavour0
group sex..
- DaveO0
Lots of good thoughts here! I hate it when people think that free drinks after work is something people will consider as a great benefit. Anything arranged after work to me is just eating into my personal time. I love the people i work with but i love my wife and friends more.
I think having good things to do as a group in each quarter would be good – spring party, summer away day, holiday party etc. They key i reckon to this is actually making sure they happen and moving projects around them, rather than canceling and rescheduling a million times.
Friday breakfast delivered to the office at 9:0am is always good!
- +monospaced
- I meant during work not after workanimatedgif
- monospaced0
Alcohol at work, while fun in theory, won't help the studio culture one bit.
- Numbs the pain, though. Sometimes, that's all you need. :\Continuity
- Numbs pain? It makes people drunk and stupid and lazy and makes teh work shitmonospaced
- Well, if it's consumed during productive hours, yeah, I agree.Continuity
- the only time we drank was in all-night pitch work, and that was only during the production phasemonospaced
- No alcohol at work will thoughanimatedgif
- mg330
Also - if someone at your office gives the go ahead on a Scotch of the Month club, YOU START THE SCOTCH OF THE MONTH CLUB.
- animatedgif0
Better pay
Provide beer on fridays 4/5 onwardsThough if the people don't give a shit in the first place then they're beyond help.
- Thursdays. People (rightly) want to go the fuck home on Friday nights.Continuity
- Agreed. Thursdays make the best office happy hours.DRIFTMONKEY
- i_monk0
Learn your employees' names and make some effort to talk to them at least once in the four years they've been there...
What? That isn't a common problem? Just here, then...
- I think it might be time to polish up your CV, there, son!Continuity
- Get out of my brain!i_monk
- There are only 8 people, I'm sure he knows their names and talks to them all regularlymonospaced
- *woosh*i_monk
- oh... haha, sorrymonospaced
- dmay0
These guys seem to have a great office culture:
http://www.campaignmonitor.com/c…
- CALLES0
definitely more sex amongst yourselves
- uan0
good food. free food. and not talking 'bout work during lunch
- mg330
I watched a company I worked at try to invent a culture out of the blue when they became a new company, having left a large parent company. They seemed to make it about the method of getting work done far more than the environment the work was being done in. We were trying to create this culture around working hard to grow and strengthen our reputation as a new company.
Office culture, IMO, is not about the way you work. It's not about feeling pride about getting work done. It's about being in surroundings that are comfortable, stimulating, and motivating, and being surrounded by people that you can trust, respect, be respected by, learn from, and never feel subservient to. A good culture is one where everyone feels like an equal; just a bunch of nice and talented people working TOGETHER and not against each other.
- < 2nd paragraph. So true.centro
- I'm happy to say that after about a month at Ogilvy, I'm feeling everything in the second paragraph. :)mg33
- someone has to be in chargemonospaced
- True mono, but they still have to choose between friend or foe.
mg33
- utopian0
^ this