AdNews brings the stories of those working from home (WFH) in the advertising and media industry during the coronavirus crisis.
Jacqui Abbott is the managing director at Pulse:
From a work perspective, the last eight weeks can easily be summed up in a few words: pivots, proms and a whole new sense of place. With more than 3 billion of us around the world living and working in some form of lock down, there is no doubt the crisis has seemed endless.
But it has also uncovered a lot of positives along the way.
We have witnessed radical collaboration across politics and business. We’ve seen compassion from all corners of society, like the claps for carers in the UK and cheers for frontliners in Australia. And this is filtering into the way we work. In leading a team of more than 40 people dispersed across Sydney and Melbourne, I have seen us become more connected than ever, our people have a more equal voice in how we operate and the ability to pivot at lightning speed for our clients.
The Upsides
One of the biggest upsides is connectivity. We start every day with a Daily Connect for 15 minutes, with the entire agency on Microsoft Teams to talk about the day ahead and start it with a positive mindset. We rotate hosts so everyone in the agency has led at least one. It brings different levels of creativity and weird to the table and allows people to connect with those they don’t normally work with in new ways. We have done everything from a session of chair yoga, a dance off, a game of Would I Lie To You and Guess Who, celebrating the best Overheard moments in lockdown and a collective cook off. It’s my favourite part of the day to see what the team has come up with and something many of them want to keep doing even when we return to the office.
Leading teams across two office locations can be challenging in a normal operating environment, but our sense of place has become completely blurred. Our team in Melbourne has never felt more connected into the Sydney business because of this.
Pivoting
The other biggest upside from all this is speed of delivery. We are now pitching creative in 15 minutes, brainstorming in less than 30 and delivering end to end creative campaigns in less than 24 hours. The crisis has catapulted culture forward and we have to be ahead of that. Brands need to be plugged into what’s making, breaking and shaping culture to remain relevant and covert the changing consumer. Whether it’s the tectonic rise of Tik Tok and more than 25 billion views of the
#quarantine hashtag on the platform or the emergence of the driveway dress-up phenomenon, new cultural behaviours and norms are forming every second. We are building cultural strategies for our clients to both prepare for recovery and embrace the new reality as a result. Real time creative development is core to our evolving service offering and driving a new level of speed and agility to the way we think and do.
The Downsides
The downside is definitely missing in-person interaction. Having the energy of your team and peers around you each and every day is hard to beat. Don’t get me wrong, I love my new ‘co-workers’ (my husband and two kids) but I am counting down the days until we are reunited as an agency team.
Working from home has however given me a new level of gratitude for what’s to come when we do eventually return to the office. Sipping coffee and flicking through the paper in the coffee shop downstairs, a hallway chat, a spontaneous lunch and in person check in with clients or your team, laughter in a brainstorm or pouring over the drinks trolley - it’s the little things we will be so much more grateful for when we return.
Dealing with silence
When you have a three-year-old and a ten-month-old, there is no such thing as silence. I am fortunate to still be sending them to daycare so once the noise of the morning dissipates I go for a run, turn on the radio and get ready to see what our team has in store for our morning connect over a coffee.
My tip is to fill the void with noise. Whether it’s a podcast, music or TV humming in the background, it gifts you with a sense of hustle and bustle around you. And there are lots of ways to lift the energy when connecting with people virtually. One of the best moments over the last few weeks was our monthly Pulse Culture Club meeting, which we held in the form of a prom. Everyone dressed up, we designed a cocktail that everyone had to make, and we had a good laugh at the highs, lows and the just plain weird of the last 30 days.
So a prom, a strengthened sense of place and the energy that comes from endless pivots is what’s getting me through our new normal. Because whether its virtual or physical, it’s your people that drive the culture, not the work after all.
Have something to say on this? Share your views in the comments section below. Or if you have a news story or tip-off, drop us a line at adnews@yaffa.com.au
Sign up to the AdNews newsletter, like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter for breaking stories and campaigns throughout the day.