For the past two decades, we have been committed to creating a vibrant and rewarding company culture that allows our employees to succeed both personally and professionally. It’s because of this long-standing mission that I’m so proud to share that Walker Sands has been named the #1 Best Midsize Agency to Work For by PRovoke.
The world is a much different place than it was back in February when this award process started. With our agency operating remotely across our three offices, it’s more obvious than ever that it’s not the free snacks, the amazing views or the happy hours that make the agency a great place to work – it’s our values, how we treat one another and the culture we’ve created. Those core pieces transfer well, whether we’re physically together in an office building or far flung across the country.
In addition to making sure our benefits and policies, such as flexible PTO and a well-developed family leave program, live up to the expectations of a best place to work, we’re working to maintain our award-winning culture by keeping our employees informed and connected while working remotely.
We’ve always prided ourselves on maintaining transparency across the agency, and these days it’s doubly important. The leadership team has continued to provide transparency within the agency through virtual all-company meetings and regular company emails addressing the news of the day – everything from agency updates to sharing fun activities our teams are doing.
And we’ve had a lot of fun these past few weeks. The standard Zoom happy hour has morphed to some more interesting challenges as we reinvent office trivia nights and task our creative team to create our logo mark out of food.
Helping our employees maintain a strong work-life balance is also a current priority for us. When your apartment bedroom also serves as your office, it can be a challenge to separate work from your personal life. We’re having a lot of conversations around taking breaks throughout the day and providing access to virtual mental health resources. In order to offer some additional relief, we made the decision to start our summer hours three weeks early this year to give people a well-deserved Friday afternoon to themselves.
As the agency determined how to best respond to the crisis and facilitate a smooth transition to remote working, our core values of “Learn, Support, Do” have really shone through, and we’re still seeing them demonstrated by our teams each day. With new challenges being thrown our way, our employees are constantly learning and sharing knowledge and advice on how to navigate the rapidly changing business landscape. Our teams are also finding creative ways to support their co-workers by mailing margaritas to one another or showing up to celebrate someone’s one-year anniversary with the agency (masks on, and socially distanced of course). And we’re working to support our communities by coordinating our first-ever virtual talent show, with proceeds benefiting local organizations working to help groups that are most affected by COVID-19.
Along with learning from and supporting one another, our teams continue to do fantastic work for our client partners. From our first ever all-remote website launch, to making quick pivots in PR and content strategies to meet the needs of the changing media landscape, our teams continue to do the best work of their careers – working closely together even though we’re apart.
At the end of the day, the dedication of our employees and the never-ending support they provide one another makes me feel proud to work at Walker Sands. This recognition reminds me of the great agency we have built and keeps me hopeful for the future. Congratulations to all of our agency friends who were also recognized for this award, and thank you to all of our employees for making this recognition possible!