Improving Office Culture
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- 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
- 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.
- 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
- 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
- autoflavour0
group sex..
- doesnotexist0
have one
have an opinion on how your office looks
be unorthodox in your desk layouts
be fun, have fun, allow fun
- 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!).
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- dbloc0
Snowboarding Trip!!
- 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
- detritus0
Orgy.
- Black out the windows, blindfold everyone, let the gay commence.detritus
- Was it awkward in your office the next morning?desmo
- No, cuz they did it all over againMilan
- Well, it's been 6 months and we've decided it's best if we all keep the blindfolds on.detritus
- Productivity's gone up fairly significantly, mind.detritus
- quality is down though, right?Amicus
- No one's talking to each other, so I don't think anyone really knows.detritus
- monospaced0
Let individuals control music for the day, take breaks and play a game once in awhile (Yahtzee, for example), and yeah, bowling is good too.
- the music one is good, there's always good fairly lighthearted banter comes from that.Wolfboy
- sarahfailin0
- oh, OTHER than drinks. ... the globe does a lot too.sarahfailin
- what is that?monospaced
- I would say that's a Hinged Globe of Hidden Awesomeness™, by the looks of it.Continuity
- ArchitectofFate0
go visit a real proffessional of any craft, the older the better. They have the best stories.
- BaskerviIle0
• Show TED lectures each week for inspiration.
• Provide a group free lunch each week for all 8 of you to actually sit down and eat/chat together.
• Organise group trips to exhibitions
• Share inspiration site and video via email all the time.
• Each week, send a summary of all the creative work produced around to everyone, or organise a creative show and tell.
• Get people from other studios/companies/startups to come in and give talks.
• Create a startup of your own for everyone to work on in their spare time (like google's 20% time)
- Continuity0
Pay them better salaries, and don't make them work 16-hour days for two months straight.
You'll be amazed how much morale improves.
- Also, I'm not being sarcastic when I say this.Continuity
- daaaamn, you crazy!monospaced
- I know!Continuity
- whoa whoa whoa whooooaaaadoesnotexist
- < lolmonospaced