Organizational culture is important in any industry, and especially so for agencies. Even if we can’t come to a consensus on how exactly to define it, the value is well agreed upon. Creative collaboration, talent retention and client relationships all benefit from a strong organizational culture and are crucial to agency success. We’ve experienced this through on-going partnerships with clients we’ve worked with for up to a decade, and employees that have been here even longer than that.
Like many in 2020, we transitioned to remote work out of necessity. And what we learned during that time was not only could we make it work, we could make it work well. And in 2023, we moved to full time remote status. We’ve refined our process along the way, and tapped into what defines our culture and how to preserve it.
Work Life Balance
Agencies are notorious for glamorizing long hours to account for tight deadlines, changing priorities, and high stress situations. This is not the case at Redonk, and transitioning to remote lends itself to blurring the lines between “work time” and “personal time” when your physical location remains the same. Leadership and Project Managers have become especially diligent in monitoring when folks are online and working, and are quick to start a conversation when someone is repeatedly working “after hours.” Whether a project needs to be better defined, reassigned, or the circumstances are temporary – leadership works hard to preserve the work life balance we experienced before moving remote.
Strong Employee Camaraderie
We’ve always connected at work on personal aspects of our lives. Now we lean on technology more to facilitate those discussions and experiences. Some of the ways we do this are by:
- Having Slack channels dedicated to non-work topics – favorites include “inspiration,” “recommendations,” “fantasyfootball,” and of course, “lunch.”
- Collaborating on Spotify playlists.
- Ensuring the annual Redonk Fantasy Football league through Yahoo Sports includes time to draft together during the work day, with plenty of mid-season smack talk and awesome prizes on the line.
- Setting aside time during every Monday Morning meeting to discuss weekend highlights.
IRL Face Time
Spending time together out of the office has always been a component to Redonk’s culture, and we emphasize it even more now that we work remote.
We schedule in-person meetings, team lunches and outings to further grow our relationships within our own team and with our clients. We use WeWork office spaces to meet with clients. We schedule team lunches at least twice a month for folks in Dallas. We donate our time together every holiday season to do good for our community and our bond as a team. We enjoy the benefits of working remote while acknowledging and honoring the value in spending time together in-person to improve our work and relationships.
Maintaining a healthy work-life balance, encouraging employee camaraderie and ensuring we get face to face time together has helped us transition to full-time remote work without losing the special sauce of what makes Redonk unique and successful. As our work landscape grows and changes, Redonk will continue to adapt to ensure we’re doing the best possible work with the best possible people.
