Taja is Founder and CEO of Pulp+Wire, an award-winning, full-service consumer packaging, branding, and marketing agency in Portland, Maine.
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The pandemic has completely and, in many ways, permanently changed how people think about work. Working from home for over a year while communicating and collaborating over Zoom has opened people’s minds to the many different shapes their jobs – and their careers – might take. We now know that we don’t always have to meet in person to share our creative energy; in fact, we’re often able to be more creative by collaborating with people all over the world.
As the founder and CEO of a full-service, CPG branding and marketing agency, I approach my team with the same openness and flexibility that I extend toward my clients. Having started my company as a freelancer with a lot of people supporting me, I have learned that creative alchemy comes from nurturing talent as they grow and change, and bringing them on board – or encouraging them to explore on their own – as it suits them.
Here are a few ways leaders can approach the rapidly changing work landscape with openness and flexibility that benefits employees, clients and the entire agency as a whole.
Encourage employees who want to branch out.
If someone on my team wants to explore branching out on their own as a freelancer or even the founder of their own agency, I encourage them to have those conversations with me. Knowing these conversations can be difficult for employees to initiate, I usually preface the discussion by saying, “Yes, I’m your boss, but that means that I want you to be in a role where you feel fulfilled.”
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That old adage that says happy employees are the best employees is true, and this means that sometimes you have to help your employees facilitate their own change. I call this “growing on” in my company, because it’s my hope that I have given my team the opportunity to learn something valuable that inspires them to grow. Sometimes that growth happens within the company and sometimes that happens as a freelancer or in another role that better suits their strengths.
Embrace freelancers from around the world.
As leaders give employees space to explore their own career paths, we have the opportunity to hire freelancers from all over the world. Being open to this sort of talent osmosis, where you’re letting things flow in and out as they serve your company’s ecosystem, opens you to every creative possibility, while cultivating a truly fulfilling work culture.
Freelancers can be a huge asset because not only have they honed an exceptional skill; they understand the different facets of owning and running an emerging business. When I hire a freelancer, and as we get to know each other’s working styles and talents, they eventually might want to bring their amazing ownership and leadership skills into a full-time role with my company. This is truly what gets me excited about nurturing talent outside of my agency, because it opens me up to future long-term team members whom I have already seen flourish creatively.
Extend the benefits of a blended team.
Freelancers must be exceptional at managing their work, just as my full-time designers are dedicated, consistent, strategic thinkers. Nurturing a blended team of outside creative thinkers and full-time employees benefits both sides. Full-time employees are able to grow in multiple capacities with the support of freelancers and freelancers have the opportunity to collaborate and grow with a team. The goal for leaders of mixed teams is to ask themselves, “How are we ultimately all better for working together?”
This, of course, also extends to our clients. Some brands do everything in-house. This is often seen as ideal. But bringing in outside talent to supplement your core, in-house team very often works to your clients’ advantage, because projects are able to move more quickly and efficiently while the client still benefits from working with a team that closely understands the client’s needs and manages the project to meet those expectations.
Ultimately, incorporating more diverse perspectives from a blended, diverse team improves the client and agency experience, because it deepens the pool of creative resources you’re mining to present a solution to a client, and expands your own internal creative bench. Being flexible and open to all possibilities allows my entire agency to not only change to fit the times but to truly evolve into something greater than the sum of its parts. And greatness is what every agency should strive to offer its clients.
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Author: Taja Dockendorf, Forbes Councils Member
