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STAFF
Monday 05 Jan 2009
As the credit crunch bites and pitching for client work becomes
more competitive, every creative studio needs to keep staff
motivated, happy and rooting for success.
Design flair can begin to fray, and relations with clients can become
strained and the studio atmosphere can become tense. Talented staff –
catching the whiff of despair in a studio – may begin to look elsewhere.
The fact is that the best designers are always valuable, no matter how
the economy is performing. Not only are sharp creative minds vital to
successful campaigns and helping in retaining lucrative accounts, but any
studio needs creative stars for the longer term.
The best staff aren’t just there to help battle through a difficult patch –
they should be there to help propel your studio upwards when you begin
to hit the upturn.
At a basic level, a ‘thank you’ approach to work shows staff you value
them, rather than communicating a ‘you’re lucky to have a job’ culture.
Low-cost rewards are many – and often fun. Tickets to an art exhibition
or museum, Krispy Kreme doughnuts on a Friday, an iTunes music
voucher, or time off to help with community activies that staff are
passionate about but otherwise wouldn’t have the time for.
You can even bring in a outside help, such as a yoga instructor twice a
week, as an inexpensive way to reward staff, relax them and lower stress
levels. See ‘low-cost rewards’ boxout for more ideas.
This does more than simply foster a sense of community and open
communication within a studio: often ‘non-creatives’ are brimming with
left-field ideas that can lead to better execution of a project.
Ensure that all ideas are owned by everyone, no matter how junior, and
acknowledge creative input from usually reticent staff.
Don’t leave it to the rumour mill, and keep lines of communication open
so that staff feel involved.
Fostering a ‘let’s try it’ attitude is healthy for creative thinking – but it’s
important to give feedback on all ideas, even if it’s a ‘no’, otherwise staff
will be unwilling to toss them around.
BE POSITIVE This sounds obvious, but if all talk and thinking in the
studio is focused on survival, then staff will lose motivation. Instead of
concentrating on the negative, show your appreciation for positive
thinking and keep praise specific, timely and genuine. For anyone working
for a living, there is no such thing as too much praise, especially when
times are tough.
Afterwards, explore what they learnt and creative solutions. It’s amazing
how creative people feel after this type of group exercise.
ALL WORK AND NO PLAY... …makes for dull designers. Designers are
passionate about their work, and will clock up weekends and evenings
churning through projects. By enforcing a culture that advocates personal
time, you’ll boost staff wellbeing.
You can also award extra time off when staff have been working extra
hard, and introduce a culture of not working weekends: your clients are
usually enjoying a two-day break, so should you and your staff.
STAFF TRIPS Remember school trips? Remember the thrill of a day out
visiting somewhere new, as a group and having fun? Recreate this on the
cheap with an away day.
You can arrange for all your staff to take a day out and visit a museum or
exhibition, or hire a minibus and head out to a theme park for some team
bonding. Keep it cheap with packed lunches – the emphasis is on fun and
team-building.
This is fine, but can feel like something of an anticlimax after all your
hard work. Break the tired routine and celebrate project conclusions with
as much in studio fanfare as possible, no matter how small the project.
JOB DONE! And not just jobs – any milestone or to do action should be
collated informally and visually stored so the sheer amount of on-going
progress can be shared. You could create a ‘Done!’ wall that you stick all
to-do flipchart paper and lists as a project progresses, chalking up a
studio-wide sense of achievement.
One idea is to keep your business plan visible at all times – on a wall or
intranet – so it can be downloaded, blended into projects and goals,
discussed and improved upon. Get staff to visually interpret your business
plan, helping them have a vested interest in the ongoing vision for the
business.
Moods can range from relaxed and productive down to stressed and
unmotivated, with stages in between. It gives a studio a means of
articulating feelings and moods, and is a useful heads-up for you so you
can respond to unmotivated feelings as they arise.
Beth Whattam