Employees who are engaged in their workplace tend to be more productive because they’re happier. Despite this, many organizations — agencies included — don’t always see employee happiness as a significant factor in their success. However, by making the organization a more exciting place to work, employees are encouraged to show up and engage with their surroundings.
Agencies primarily rely heavily on the creative skills of their team members. Keeping employees engaged is ideal for stimulating their creative thought processes. These 15 contributors to Forbes Agency Council examine how agencies can make their workplaces more engaging for their team members and why that is such a vital part of the company’s operations.
Members offer tips for keeping employees engaged and excited about their jobs and work environment.
Photos courtesy of the individual members
1. Focus On Values
We have five well-communicated core values at our agency, and this year we’re trying something new: Through peer nominations, we’re awarding five employees each month who exemplify those values. The awards aren’t huge but we’re already seeing employees taking the time to nominate each other, which also gives us greater insight into performance and morale, and helps keep these values top of mind. – Danielle Wiley, Sway Group
2. Create A Culture Committee
Each year we conduct a survey of the agency to assess all the culture-related activities we did in the previous year and solicit input for the coming year — what worked, what didn’t and why, and if there are any new ideas. We give those ideas to our volunteer culture committee to further develop, plan, schedule and execute. People want a say in developing the culture and creating a place where they want to work. – Brian Sullivan, Sullivan Branding
3. Remember That Employees Are People
I plan on making our workplace more interesting by remembering that all of my employees are real people, too. We do all of the usual “improve morale” stuff: plenty of free food, bonding experiences, an open door to management and the like. On top of that, we take breaks when we want and how we want. We’ve found that by empowering the person, we help the employee. – Danny Star, Website Depot
4. Offer Professional Growth Opportunities
We’re laser-focused on developing extraordinary leaders and providing professional growth opportunities for every single person in the agency. We hire growth-minded individuals and work hard to design learning opportunities that challenge them, engage them and make them more successful in their everyday lives. And I believe that makes for a more interesting workplace for the right person. – Anna Crowe, Crowe PR
5. Make Them Active Part Of The Overall Strategy
I personally ask my team members to be proactive and to find new tools, platforms and ways to solve a problem or to optimize a workflow. This way, the work is never boring or repetitive. They are not only involved in the short-term type of activities, but also in the mid- and long-term vision of the company, and we all discuss together the best techniques and tactics to improve our agency. – Alessandro Bogliari, The Influencer Marketing Factory
6. Give Them The Ability To Spearhead Change
Giving employees the power to impact change keeps them engaged and motivated and helps our agency stays forward-thinking. This year, we had an employee who wanted to eliminate excess paper used in the office, replacing it with reusable notebooks and apps. Because of the success of that small program, she’s building out a company-wide sustainability program with full agency support and resources. – Lauren Fairbanks, S&G
7. Make Your People Heroes Of Your Brand Story
A high-performance team is a collection of multiple individuals who become the DNA of the company. A wise leader uses the best skill of each individual and assigns the task that they are best suitable for. This keeps everyone motivated and the company successful. Author Sally Hogshead, in her book “Fascinate,” explains this in detail. Make your people a hero of your brand story. – Qamar Zaman, KISSPR.COM
8. Recognize And Reward Their Efforts
We strive for high levels of employee engagement by simply recognizing and rewarding team members for their efforts. We use creative ways for public recognition including Bonus.ly, sales celebration parties, and more. This year we’re aiming to give rewards on and even grander scale by offering more experiences to our team members that help to bring teams closer together. – Marc Hardgrove, The HOTH
9. Do More To Support And Promote Creativity
We are producing more video and podcast content and including our team members wherever possible. There has been and will continue to be an “open-door” process for creative ideas, writing, and even producing when it comes to this content. We want our team to know and feel that they are truly part of our new creative direction. It’s vital to support and promote creativity. – Bernard May, National Positions
10. Strive For Purposeful Profits
In today’s era of increased consciousness, as leaders, we must recognize that our talent are people first, before employees. That said, our incentives and performance models ought to be inclusive of the areas of passion and purpose that move and motivate our people. At CIEN+, “purpose” is not only in our strategic plan but also part of people’s reviews. – Lili Gil Valletta, CIEN+
11. Work With Compelling People And Stories
In an agency setting, culture and benefits are important, but the quality and character of clients and nature of the content are what interest us most. My agency career lows have always been when clients were uninterested in partnership and/or their brand, product or services were boring, frankly. So, we will continue to make our agency interesting by working with compelling people and stories. – Erik Clausen, CG Life
12. Enhance Your Social Impact Strategy
Considering that two-thirds of employees believe people are more motivated and engaged because of the strong company mission, they need to develop social impact strategies that enable their employees to proactively advance the company’s corporate commitments. Whether by embedding impact into their work or by engaging employees in regular volunteer activities, help them embody your corporate values. – Theresa Schieber, Givewith
13. Emphasize Unique Experiences
We have a “people first” culture and aim for unique experiences that bring our team closer together. This summer we’ll begin our annual tradition of team building in Croatia with “The Yacht Week” — an exclusive seven-day floating festival for (kind-of) grownups that involves sailboats and networking with diverse professionals from around the world. As the saying goes, “work hard, play hard.” – Travis Peters, EightPM
14. Organize Creative Wellness Events
In 2020, I launched the Mekky Media Wellness Series. On a monthly basis, we are holding creative events based on health and wellness for the team. Aside from monthly staff yoga classes and healthy eating events, we are going to a spa and meditation center one day to get aura readings, we will bring in people to do a vision board, we will have some creative workouts like Animal Flow and more! – Michelle Mekky, Mekky Media Relations, Inc.
15. Send Them On Inspiring Adventures
Keeping the mind fed in unexpected ways can help your workforce be inspired and create bonding opportunities. That’s why we’re sending our people to creative conferences and events across the city and the country. From expanding their learning at Magenta Loves, to finding inspiration at SXSW, our employees are exploring and growing together, and bringing these experiences back to the office. – Howard Breindel, DeSantis Breindel
