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R/GA’s Victoria Curro on combining purpose, creativity and flexibility for a more human future
Following the opening of R/GA's Sydney's brand new office in Surry Hills, Mumbrella's Kalila Welch sat down with R/GA Sydney managing director, Victoria Curro, to discuss the agency's commitment to being on the 'right side of change' in an industry that has the power to transform business and culture for the better.
Last week, R/GA Sydney opened up its brand new office to the industry, highlighting the agency’s focus on a more human future, as it navigates the intersections of flexible work and the return to the office.
Globally, R/GA has addressed the return to office with the view of being on the “Right Side of Change”, a philosophy the agency has adopted across its people, culture and work.
Being on the ‘right side of change’, for R/GA Sydney managing director Victoria Curro, links back to the agency’s purpose, to shape businesses and brands for a more ‘human future’.
“That purpose is really an ethos that is delivered through our work,” says Curro. “We have turned away clients because they don’t fit with our values, and we have also really nurtured partnerships and clients that perhaps couldn’t afford to work with us if we didn’t lean into them and work with them in a way that is led by passion.”
R/GA launched the We Are Warriors platform on the 26th of January this year
One such partnership has come to life in R/GA’s We Are Warriors platform, created in partnership with First Nations rapper Nooky. The platform aims to spotlight Blak excellence and encourage the next generation of First Nations youth to “see it to be it”. Ideated by R/GA APAC VP, executive creative director, brand design and consulting, Ben Miles, and Nooky, the works surfaces First Nations role models and helps connect them with Indigenous youth.
The platform serves as a profit-for-purpose business, with a portion of the profits made on merchandise and events going directly into funding workshops and events within the community, with the intention of transitioning towards a not-for-profit model in the future.
R/GA Sydney’s new office embodies the agency philosophy of being on the ‘right side of change’, when it comes to change models of work
The agency’s ‘human first’ approach to work can also be seen through its ongoing partnership with A-Leagues, which include a rebrand from the Australian Premier League (APL), and a new positioning, which was launched with an anthem and campaign ahead of the 2021-2022 A-Leagues season.
“I think one of the reasons we won A-Leagues was that in our pitch, we really levelled up the women’s league with the men’s league,” says Curro, referring to R/GAs idea to combine the W-Leagues and A-Leagues together under the A-Leagues brand.
“We positioned it as A-Leagues Men and A-Leagues Women, so they’re on the same footing. It sounds like a really obvious thing to do, in hindsight,” she continues, “but we’re the only league in Australia to do that.”
Internally, the agency’s purpose of creating a more ‘human future’ is embodied in its commitment to what R/GA global CEO Sean Lyons describes as a “a truly flexible, hybrid approach to working”.
“From early on, we saw that the disruption caused by office shutdowns during the pandemic presented an opportunity for innovation. We were able to lean into this because we have been working as globally
networked teams for years. We bought some of the first licenses for both Zoom and Slack, two core tools for enabling remote and hybrid work.”
Lyons continues: “This wasn’t just the right thing to do for our talent, it also allowed us to accelerate into our distributed creativity model that allows us to better match clients with the right talent for their needs, regardless of where they’re located.”
This approach comes to life in the new R/GA Sydney office, with its shared working spaces, breakout rooms and well-stocked kitchen.
“This office was built based on feedback on what people wanted from an office, based on the fact that that they still want to work from home a few days a week, but they also want the office to to offer all the cool things that they can’t get at home.”
Curro explains that a human future means “creating an awesome environment for our people”, which also just “makes business sense” as agencies continue to compete for the same staff.
At R/GA, there have been no mandates made globally or locally, as to when staff need to be in the office, with the agency instead approaching return to the office by creating an office environment that is “the highlight of the week”.
“Our job is to make the office a really great place to come into,” says Curro.
Curro adds that this flexibility extends beyond the confines of the home or office, explaining that as a single mother, she often needs to drop her daughter off before work, or leave early in the afternoon to pick her up.
“If people want to go to school events or do anything else, they can design their day,” she says. “There’s no more nine to five.”
When asked how R/GA ensures that this flexibility seeps down into the culture of the agency, rather than remaining a shiny HR policy that is not embraced by employees in reality, Curro is firm that R/GA has a multitude of initiatives that invite employees to put their wellbeing first.
Staff are encouraged to enter their location into an agency-wide Slack channel throughout the day, as they move between home, office and elsewhere. A weekly ‘health hour’ also gives employees the permission to take an hour of their choosing for an appointment, workout, class or other activity that benefits their wellbeing. Moreover, R/GA offers staff $750 a year to spend on whatever they think is wellness – be that a counselling session, massage, arts and crafts – with no questions asked.
Not least, watching agency executives, like Curro, lead by example with their approach to work-life balance, might encourage more junior staff to allow themselves the same.
“Those sorts of things are really making it visible, and making it part of how we do things,” says Curro.
Adding to this culture, is R/GA’s principle of R/GA Anywhere, which means that staff can work anyway, and anyway that they want to.
This is also encapsulated in the agency’s culture of “distributed creativity”, which Curro defines as the view that creativity can happen anywhere – both across teams and across geographies.
Here, R/GA’s global client briefs are opened up to creative, strategy and service teams across the global network, and distributed on the basis of who is best suited and best available to do the work.
“It’s about nurturing three things: curiosity, collaboration and exploration,” Curro explains.
“It’s these principals that are actually really key to our culture and fuel what is part of our unique agency model, which is about developing deep practices in core areas – connected communications, products and experiences and brand relationship design.”
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