Considering A Career at Think One?

Like any mutually beneficial relationship, it has become increasingly common for employees to ask more from the workplace in terms of vision alignment. When searching for a new role, it doesn’t sound unreasonable to expect the place you’re spending a large chunk of your day to share some similarities with your world view, your morals and your overall approach to life, right?

So what happens when the business you work for changes pace, position and plans? How do you reconcile if there’s a gap where your vision once met? And how do we, as a business, attract & retain the very best talent that share in our vision of success? Whilst navigating our own business transformation over the past year, we’ve had to face these questions head-on.

One of the most unexpected but positive challenges we’ve had in growing a company like ours is nurturing & attracting an engaged team who are aligned with our vision & plans. It’s hard work. On both sides. We want our team to feel involved and part of the journey, but we also need to demonstrate that the business is changing and along with that, so are expectations.

Of course, this isn’t about expecting more from the team with the same inputs. It’s about creating a strong change management strategy that shows the team how a renewed business proposition & vision will be as beneficial for their working day as it will be for their career, our clients and our own bottom line.

And this is at the heart of our mission of Creating Better Business; making sure that we start with us. With the talent we attract, the processes we map & implement, the tools we invest in and the benchmarks we set.

Of course, this is still a work in progress. But we’ve had some difficult conversations along the way. We’ve had to lean in to the realisation that our close-knit team will need to hold each-other more accountable, but this isn’t a bad thing. It’s to drive innovation, creativity and inspiration, and to ask everyone to strive that bit closer to an outstanding output.

Ultimately, it’s our team who are the powerhouse of the business, so the employee experience (EX) is integral to our current and future success. In a service-based business like ours, the recipe for success is, after all, surely a win (client), win (employee) and win (employer) scenario.

But what does that recipe look like? Here’s where we’re at right now:

Managing the change, collaboratively

At every step, our team have been involved. From the vision & values to our core mission statement, they have been the vital force.

When we come together to map how we will deliver on our ambitions, the whole team will have their say on what part they want to play. And when we meet and exceed these ambitions, it’s the whole team that will share in the success.

Careers we care about

Career expectations are as unique as the people we employ. So here’s how we help to shape and support our team:

• Collaborative progression plans, acknowledging that everyone has a different path to tread, at a pace that suits them
• Opportunity to discuss a pay review each year
• An open approach to career development – we let our team know that if they see a gap that they want to fill, so long as we can understand the benefit to them and the business, it’s theirs for the taking. We rarely say no. Indeed, we’ve had a recent team member write a completely new job description for themselves, seen the positive this would bring to the business and supported them wholeheartedly to step in and up to this position
• Have tangible demonstrations of celebrated reward & recognition to motivate the whole team, regardless of position

Today, 2/3rds of our management team originally joined as graduates, yet now shape & steer the company’s direction. We have immense pride in this example of investing and growing together.

Perks worth having

We have a long-standing and ever-developing Think Perks scheme. This offers a wide range of benefits to our team, such as helpful short-notice ‘Perk Days’ for when life-stuff happens, earned extra holiday rewards, commission, treats, food, wellness, training & leisure budgets and equipment purchase savings.

We also place special focus on supporting our management teams with thinking space and time; recognising that day-to-day workflow and projects can often hamper bigger thinking about developing services they are responsible for, particularly around team performance and improving the effectiveness & productivity of our services. In fact, we offer our heads a minimum of 5 paid days a year to take time out to learn and grow from new inspiration, whether through clear headspace, courses, conferences or visits.

Similarly, executives with a thirst to learn more, or train on new areas, are regularly supported, typically with allocated time and/or costs covered.

Remote working to suit you

This has become a slightly more complex topic for many. We are taking a balanced approach, understanding the nuanced personal need for time, creativity or collaboration, yet also appreciating how we all yearn for clear and concentrated work periods. As a result, we have huge flexibility, thanks to a superb technical infrastructure and set of virtual tools that helps us manage anywhere, anytime working, and enables our people to stay in touch or connected to key data. This means most team members from across the company can work from home for a regular proportion of the time; but they can, of course should they wish, come to our offices as often as they like (or as regulations allow).

Interested in a career in communications?

We are an unashamedly ambitious company and want to continue to attract people with diverse experience, both in work and life.

Our approach and initiatives are evolving, but one thing is very clear – if you want to work with a diverse and brilliant team to Create Better Business, then we’d love to hear from you.

If you are interested in a career at one of Think One’s communications businesses, visit our Careers page and see what positions we have available. Likewise, if you like our approach, our work and our clients, then get in touch and tell us why we’d be mad to let you go.