Work isn’t a place you go anymore, it’s a thing you do. So our agency won’t be going back to the office
The Hallway won't be making employees return to the office. The leadership team realised that the agency should, and wants to, continue being remote. Does that mean it won't have an office though? CEO Jules Hall explains.
2020 is a year for the history books. And rightly so. It’s been horrendous for so many people in so many ways, and regrettably there are plenty of challenges ahead. But it’s a year we must remember so that we can learn from what’s happened and make our precious world a better place.
As the ‘return to work’ bandwagon gains momentum, our agency is taking a slightly different approach.
Three weeks ago, the leadership team reviewed our ‘reboot’ plan. It had all the essential elements – social distancing, hygiene, a phased return to work etc. But something was missing. It didn’t feel right. Someone suggested we flip the paradigm. So we asked ourselves a question: ‘What do we like about lockdown?’ And suddenly, the ideas flowed.
The Hallway won’t be forcing employees back to the office
We realised something special. Lockdown has made our business better. We communicate with each other more. The quality of our communication has improved and we get to better outcomes, faster. Yes, we’re in more meetings, but we spend less time in meetings. And with no commute, or travelling to meetings, we have more time.
Most importantly, we’re using that time to do more of the things that humans are brilliant at avoiding – thinking. We’re firing up the (often reluctant) System 2 part of our brains and analysing situations. And then we’re allowing the System 1 brain to synthesise the thoughts to create new answers, quicker and more consistently. We’re being more creative.
This was powerful stuff. And it was surprising. Like many ad agencies, we over-index on extroverts. And us extroverts like having company – we thrive on the energy of others. Which is the opposite of lockdown, isn’t it? Except it’s not – because of the technology. Especially the ease of video calls with all of our colleagues – thank you Google and GSuite.
So then we asked ourselves another question: How do we codify these learnings?
Rather than policies and processes, we agreed on a principle: In the old world, work was somewhere you went. In the new normal, work is something you do. And in our new world, we’ve discovered that it doesn’t matter where you are.
What does matter, above everything else, is the way we communicate as a team.
For the past 10 weeks we’ve had a meticulous communications rhythm. We have two all-hands video calls every day – the ‘9 o’clock news’ and the ‘5 o’clock news’. The 9 o’clock news focuses on the work and the day ahead. The afternoon meeting is a team check-in; it’s light hearted, focuses on the people and always includes a poetry reading.
The meetings are 10 minutes long. Simon Lee (ECD) and myself (CEO) host the meetings, alternating days. This means we each get a chance to focus on everyone else – looking for the visual cues – then drawing people into the conversation when we are hosting, working to ensure everyone is involved.
After the 9 o’clock news we go straight into team standups. And at lunchtime, the leadership team has its daily standup.
This might sound like a lot of meetings. In terms of ‘quantity’, it is. But the magic lies in the total time we spend in meetings, which has reduced dramatically. Because we are communicating better, everyone knows what they need to know. Conversations aren’t repeated. Responsibilities are understood and actions efficiently executed.
All of this brought us to a surprising conclusion. We went into the meeting to discuss ‘returning to work’, which meant back to the office. But during the meeting, we realised that wasn’t the answer.
So, we won’t be asking our team to return to the office. We are doing phenomenal work from all sorts of different places – be it bedrooms, lounges, or studies. Wherever. And we like it.
A team survey from earlier this week shows that 97% of us enjoy working remotely and 77% don’t want to return to normal office working. Productivity and flexibility were the two main reasons.
The non-negotiable is our communications rhythm. This will continue post-COVID. It’s better for our team. It’s better for our work. And it’s better for our clients as a direct result. And we’ve learned that it keeps our culture alive.
So what was the output of the meeting? We kept the hygiene and safety guidance. But we ditched the blue team/red team idea of phased attendance.
Instead, we documented the principle that sparked our pivot: Work used to be a place you go. Now it’s a thing you do. It doesn’t matter where you do it. Provided we maintain our communications rhythm.
Does this mean The Hallway won’t have offices? No, it doesn’t. Does it mean our team is being forced to work from home? Categorically not. There are plenty of times where face-to-face human interaction is critical, and better.
So our offices will be available for people to use if they want to. But we’ll almost certainly use our offices differently. Exactly how will be defined in practice. But the principle is liberating and exciting.
Jules Hall is CEO of The Hallway
Fabulous Jules! Love your thinking. Work from anywhere rather than work from home is such a liberating principle.
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I love this! I’ve been lucky enough to have a business that I’ve been able to run from anywhere for over 15 years, so my reality has barely changed. But now my team are really enjoying the freedoms & flexibility that come with WFH, so I’ve ditched the office and decided once everything is normal we will spend every Wednesday all working, lunching and bonding together. It could be a co-working space or even from a different Social Diary member’s office each week with many already keen to host us! I believe this is the flexi-future and it’s very bright.
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I don’t understand why, however speaking with other professional peers, it would seem that this train of thought is unique to our industry.
Our “leaders” often shuddering at the idea of WFH, for a variety of reasons, if not only to “show our client’s that we’re open for business!” – Perhaps they’d do better to ask what their clients and agency members want from a post-COVID world? Perhaps it’s not the facade of “being open”, rather develop more fulfilling and meaningful work that can be derived from flexible practices.
Brilliant to read that there are those who finally “get it”, will adapt and see the value understanding of flexible working. There will always be a place for contact in the flesh – it’s just not always the answer.
Hoping other agencies follow – because we know what happens to dinosaurs…
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Jules how many full time staff do you have? Interested to know what size office it is. If you have 3 then obviously no office required. A cafe will do. If you have 300 it’s a different matter – and much harder to manage complexity. I
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Better late than never Jules to make this switch.
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Agree with this. I think it will be harder for some agencies. But for others (and as a tech business we benefit here) I think it is worth looking at.
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Love this!
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Kudos.
And makes a tonne of sense.
I suspect many agencies will be following suit.
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Three meetings a day suggests that you’re struggling to let go of the overseer-management role, even though that is precisely the difference between an office-based work environment and a productivity-based work culture. We started with 2 a day and realised that the second one was unnecessary to productive outcomes. So we’re down to 1 a day and then we have a meeting once a week to catchup with each other.
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Some great points in this article and sure working under covid has been on the most part surprisingly successful, but I feel we need to be careful what we wish for.
It feels like this could be the final piece in the corporate nirvana of muddying the boundaries between our jobs and our lives, that was initiated by the smartphone. Will we ever be able to ‘turn off’ ever again, or like the ubiquitous content strategy recommendation, will we be always on?
Then once we’ve help prove our businesses can operate remotely, won’t some overpaid consultant suggest our jobs are outsourced offshore?
Can we effectively work from home? Certainly.
Can our industry workplace be more flexible? Definitely.
Is working from home good for us? Not convinced.
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At last, some true, actual, real leadership!
Leadership isn’t returning to the status quo (as so many businesses are itching to do – in this sector and many others).
Leadership means assessing the new normal, whatever that means, and deciding what is the best use of resources, in that context.
All of the bosses forcing their employees to come back to the office as soon as they are able are failing leadership 101…
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What a great place to work.
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I love this Jules. SO much of this thinking going on in so many businesses. I love to see it articulated so clearly. I’d also love to hear back from you guys in 3 months, 6 months 12 months to see how the momentum carried, and what unseen challenges emerge – if any.
Bravo.
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The point is it’s not a ‘place’ anymore.
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Are we astroturfing our HR policy now?
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Really well considered and articulated article Jules thank you for sharing. As we all grapple with how we manage our agencies moving forward to build back better your approach stands out in leadership and principle. Exciting times indeed but ensuring how we manage and track the mental health of our teams will need to be considered as new opportunities and deficits develop around such flexible working.
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I’d love to work in a place that thinks like this instead of the kneejerk ‘back to work’ mindset
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I’d love the freedom to work ‘wherever’ and am impressed that you’ve really thought about what’s happened over the past few months, making a concerted effort to learn from the experience. Would love to read a progress report in a few months.
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Stop saying PIVOT!!!!!!!
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