One of the worst experiences of my early work life has been working for an agency where the company culture was so toxic that its attrition rate skyrocketed – the micromanaged employees were leaving the company at the slightest opportunity.
I was even ready to swallow a pay cut to get a job at just about any other company. Luckily, life had other plans for me as I was able to find my next job at a popular eCommerce company and eventually launch my own startup agency in London. My co-founder, who had also been a victim of a negative culture, and I decided that we will do everything possible to build and inculcate a healthy culture in our agency from the very beginning.
It gives me immense pride to look back and admire the agency culture that we have built at NOVOS – the sudden shift to remote work has, in fact, strengthened it! It has allowed us to grow our team by over 50% during the pandemic and made the remote onboarding smooth. Recently, we have been nominated for two categories at the Company Culture Awards for ‘Best Agency Culture’ and ‘Best Agency to Work For’ categories.
As I continue to see the benefits in my company, I am writing this article with the hope that it will help other agencies.