The best work perks in adland: part one
Last month, independent agency WiredCo announced they would be offering their staff paid parental leave if they need to look after their fuzzy, four-legged family members.
With unemployment skirting 50-year lows, workers setting up offices wherever they have a Wi-Fi signal, and the typical Gen Z worker viewing job-hopping as a vital path to career advancement, finding novel ways to keep teams together is more important than ever.
Mental health, work-life balance, and financial security are key to a happy life – and employers are increasingly shouldering some of the responsibility for providing this.
We asked a number of agencies what perks they are offering their staff in order to keep them happy, healthy, and hired.
Managers: be aware, this is what your competitors are offering. Employees, if you’re looking for a new opportunity, you can do a lot worse than an RDO on the last Friday of every month, unlimited office snacks, or a weekly remedial massage.
Below is part one – with agencies listed in alphabetical order for fairness and ease.
Part two will be published tomorrow (which may very well be your monthly no-screens day at work).
If you’re at an agency with work perks to compete with those below, please reach out – there’s always space to turn this into a trilogy.
Awaken
Awaken offers flexible working locations, additional time off for team birthdays, and recently introduced a new team cooking program, ahead of International Self Care Day.
“Select recipes are shared from one of our team, in a mini cookbook presentation, along with ingredient budgets, and everyone is encouraged to join in, to cook, create, and make the meal their own,” the group said in a statement. “Then we share our experience the following week, with photos, videos, and flavour feedback – capturing the true essence of our team’s make-up: that we are connected, even though often geographically apart.”
Awaken also provides training for all team members and a further training allowance (outside of media) for the development of people’s passions.
The company supports travel and working remotely, with many team members taking the opportunity to travel the world, working remotely from different time zones. As the majority of the team are output based, it makes it easier to manage workflows and global travel.
Awaken has also launched a new B2C start-up and offered all team members the opportunity to spend 10% of their time working on the new venture, choosing whatever area they are interested in, from brand to finance or logistics. An employee share scheme has been established for all team members that work on the business.
Claxon
Claxon engages a qualified massage therapist who comes into the office each week, and offers all employees a thirty-minute massage. Staff members who participate get the choice of relaxation or remedial. “It’s fantastic for the mental health of staff, productivity, and our culture,” the company said.
Honeycomb Strategy
“Honeycomb was created to set a new standard for agency culture, demonstrating that when you really take care of your team, commercial success will tend to follow,” managing director John Bevitt tells Mumbrella. “Our culture isn’t an afterthought or an accident. It’s considered and intentional, at the core of everything we do.”
Honeycomb recently introduced three ‘self-love days’ per year, encouraging staff to take a day to do whatever brings them joy and reinvigorates them. It might be a massage, a float tank or oxygen chamber experience or a day of outdoor hiking.
The group also recently relaunched its Employee Assistance Program to be more holistic and accessible.
“Our EAP now gives our team access to clinical, health, neuropsychology, education, coaching and performance psychology, greatly supporting the team through both the tough times and the good,” Bevitt said. “The best part is that it’s completely self-managed. Team members never have to ask someone else for access but can go direct to our EAP provider for completely anonymous support.”
“Our entire team, from graduate through to directors now have access to formal training via RMIT short courses at any time throughout the year. They don’t even have to be directly relevant to the role they are in now. We want our team to be able to continue to learn and grow in all areas they feel called to peruse. This ensures we maintain a constant growth mindset which is core to our organisation’s values.”
Half Dome
“Our work perks are built on the values we live and breathe at Half Dome and are an important part of the framework that brings our culture to life,” explains Renee Murray, head of people and culture. “We will continue to evolve these benefits to ensure they are relevant and most importantly, make sure they enable our team to reach their whole potential.”
Half Dome offers access to flex days every week, whereby team members can choose to start late, or leave early. It offers a remote-first approach, with the ability to work from anywhere. Core business hours are 10am to 3pm, Monday to Thursdya and no meetings on Friday.
“It allows many of our team from across the globe to return home without taking leave,” Murray said. “The focus is on the outcome of work and contribution rather than time at the desk.”
Half Dome allows team members to switch an existing public holiday to an alternative day of religious or cultural significance, celebration or another workday in that week.
It also has an unlimited leave policy. “We embrace a trusting and flexible work environment, so, just as we don’t have a nine-to-five policy, we don’t have a capped leave policy, allowing our team to take a break and recharge when they need to,” Murray said. Access to unlimited leave is available after one year at Half Dome and is managed and approved by team leads.
“We have increased paid parental leave for primary carers to 16 weeks and six weeks for secondary carers; in addition, we continue to make super contributions on all unpaid leave,” Murray said.
“To ensure a supportive and family friendly return, for the first three months Half Dome primary carers can work 75% of their usual hours for 100% pay, and this extends to secondary carers for the first four weeks of their return.”
Annually, the Half Dome team are entitled to $250 a year to spend on ways to enhance their overall well-being, from a new pair of sports shoes to remedial massage. There is also fitness memberships for strength and cardio sessions three times per week, access to EAP, and Mental Health First Aid Certification & Training.
Intentional
Intentional is a fully remote agency with the mantra of being “intentionally remote”.
Team members are able to pick where they work from and for two months of the year they can work from a different timezone. During the past 12 months, Intentional has had people work from Bali, Vancouver, Hawaii, and France.
When in Australia staff can pick their hours as long as at least four hours are between nine-to-five. Intentional has also introduced the “intentional reset” – a RDO on the last Friday of the month.
“We’ve tested and failed at things like sharing lunch online (no one wants to be watched eating!), doing 1:1 buddies – this becomes forced rather than fun,” the group said.
“We looked into four-day work weeks and nine-day fortnight, but many people shared they found it stressful getting their work done in that time. Having that one day a month of ‘full switch off’ has really engaged the team.”
Part two will be published tomorrow morning.
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