Talent & Recruitment Archives | Page 7 of 13 | Bristol Creative Industries

An outstanding achievement and something we are very proud of.
Back in 2019, ADLIB Recruitment was one of the first recruitment businesses to certify as a B Corp with a score of 82.8. Our belief is that B Corp provides a structure and measurement to improve, certification is the start of the journey. We set out our intentions publicly through annual impact reports and set the bar high. This approach ensured we maintained the focus and accountability needed to make change happen.

Since our initial certification, we’ve held ourselves accountable to improve year on year. We’ve become a 100% employee-owned business, created a Trust Board, Employee Council and gifted each of our existing employees share options with a clear route to realisation.

We’ve donated many thousands of £ to charities and NFPs, including Feeding Bristol, Grassroots Activation Project, St Mungo’s, Julian Trust and Forest of Avon Trust to name a few brilliant organisations.

Internally, we have created MotherBoard, a business charter, community and event series that drives tangible change for mums working in the tech industry. We’ve also vastly improved our maternity leave policy and delivered D,E&I training, lived out through a healthily balanced team. The team have played lead roles in advancing GreenTech South West and Tech Ethics meet up groups. And that’s just for starters.

Today we celebrate the hard work that has gone into achieving our recertification. Focus will soon turn to our next recertification and setting the standards to a whole new level.

Culture eats strategy for breakfast: retaining and attracting talent in difficult times.

A change in economic climate will inevitably lead to some businesses downsizing to stabilise, some recruiting to take advantage of new opportunities, and others taking stock with their current team.

Wherever you fall, it’s really important to create an environment where your current team and future recruits can thrive.

But when the world is in a state of flux, when individuals are naturally distracted by external factors, how can you keep your team motivated and producing their best work?

Workplace benefits are a great way to keep engagement high but with new ways of working it’s harder to offer the usual perks like remote or flexible working and increased holidays.

Increased salaries and extra holidays are motivating factors, but only to a point as Dan Pink shows us, it’s companies who can keep their culture alive, despite a distant and physically separate workforce that will prosper.

Organisations that invest in ways to get their teams face-to-face safely, to foster a feeling of togetherness, and make employees feel united by a common cause will thrive, rather than just survive.

Finding innovative ways to connect your team to your vision and values will help to nurture a sense of connection and alignment behind your purpose.

Strategies like these can help:

Send vision boxes

Your team aren’t in the office, so why not send them tangible reminders of your organisation and vision? Send vision boxes to each team member and make it personal if you can – tools to help them complete their work, their favourite food or wine and little reminders of past projects and successes. Consider including gifts for family members, like LEGO for kids and vouchers for family days out too. This shows you care about their quality of life beyond the office. Vision boxes help your team stay connected to your brand and what you stand for in a meaningful way.

Have safe in-person gatherings

It might not be the right time to have everyone working in an office but don’t give up on in-person meetings altogether. Instead, when you can, have regular, small, and safe in-person gatherings so people can socialise, catch up, and bond as a team. We’re social creatures and while connecting via video conference is useful zoom-fatigue has definitely kicked in and it doesn’t give us the same boost a face-to-face gathering does. Consider hosting outdoor happy hours where people can move around and talk with plenty of room to be healthy and safe. These can include organised activities and structured team bonding or just provide a safe space for socialising and touching base

Host virtual lunches or study halls

If online is the only option, don’t just gather everyone virtually for company meetings or to discuss upcoming projects. Think about creating a virtual space where people can spend time together in informal social or work gatherings.

Consider hosting a Friday lunch each week, where everyone logs onto a video conferencing platform and enjoys lunch together while catching up on the past week. Or try setting up a weekly or bi-weekly study hall where people can hop in a video conference room and keep the video open for casual chat while they work.

There is no pressure or need to communicate but this can create the feeling of a communal workspace and a sense togetherness. Study halls can also boost productivity and get problems solved more quickly than using email or waiting for set meeting times.

Keep offering your perks

Even when the office is remote, you can still offer ‘workplace’ perks. Consider keeping things in place like childcare support, health and wellness classes, or training and development opportunities. This shows an authentic commitment to the welfare of your team, that your values remain important regardless of outside factors, and that company culture goes beyond the office walls.

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In short, working on keeping your culture alive might not seem like top priority in tough times but it’s more important than ever. A strong and distinctive culture is key to helping your current team stay engaged and motivated and attracting the right people to join your team.

We are proud to share the first annual impact report from MotherBoard – the non-profiting initiative that is powered by ADLIB and sponsored by Not On The High Street. MotherBoard is a Business Charter, Event Series and Community that is creating real long-term change for mums working in the tech industry.

Over the past 12 months the MotherBoard Community and Charter have offered a platform for people to connect and discuss taboo subjects, whilst our growing signatories have committed to, and achieved change. Topics include:

• Mentorship • Promotion & leadership • Coding courses & funding • Infertility • Pregnancy • Sexism • Racism • Parental bias • Miscarriage • Menopause • Toxic cultures • Still birth • Redundancy in pregnancy • NDAs

Within the report you will see the positive impact MotherBoard have achieved since launching in 2021, we are excited to see what the next year holds!

We hope you enjoy having a read, if you would like to hear more about MotherBoard please email the team at [email protected].

View the MotherBoard impact report.

MotherBoard is a Business Charter, Community, Event Series, and Podcast driving tangible change for mums working in the tech & data industry. We are on a mission to transform the industry to be more inclusive of mothers by tackling stigmas and supporting employers who want to create real change.

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All featured Talent have been trained to BRAVA’s high standards and have cut professional voice reels, with high quality home studio capabilities to deliver work. Functionality includes the ability to download mp3 reels as well as view individual profile pages and submit full casting calls online.

Commenting on the launch of the new BRAVA Casting Database, founder & director, Melissa Thom, said:

‘Over the last year, we have been overwhelmed with calls from producers, casting directors and content producers and we have created the BRAVA Talent Database in direct response to this need. Our Talent have been trained to the highest possible standards across narration, commercial and characters and are voicing across a range of client projects, with enquiries increasing significantly. We are thrilled to showcase and support out Talent in this way.

BRAVA has already successfully cast a range of roles, including feature films, national commercials, online radio, audiobooks and more. We will continue to add further functionality and Talent this year as we grow. Our aim is to continue to connect our highly skilled voice actors with clients locally, nationally and beyond, in Europe and America’.

BRAVA works alongside some of the most prestigious global names in the industry to offer personalised online training in the art and business of voiceover. The Academy is specifically aimed at professionals from the fields of broadcast, digital, corporate and commercial, who are interested in adding voice acting to their skillset.

Core learning takes place online, meaning students can learn at their own pace, wherever they are. Training is offered as personalised 1-1s or group sessions and covers a wide range of topics, including Getting Started in VO, Corporate, Commercial and Narration, Characters, Audiobooks, Performance Techniques, Home Studio, Marketing, Vocal Health, VO & Shakespeare and Presentation Skills.

Eight new recruits, including Business Development Director, Marketing Manager and Medical Writer join Create Health.

Bristol-based healthcare marketing agency Create Health is strengthening its team across the board with new appointments across departments, welcoming eight new team members in total.

Carys Richards brings a wealth of experience from the Pharma sector to the Create Health team as Business Development Director.

Meanwhile, Sean Quay joins the team as a Medical Writer. He comes from a clinical background, with time spent in pharmacy and primary care working on regional level pharmacy projects like driving medicine optimisation and public health campaigns.

Junior Graphic Designer Amelia Horner initially joined the agency as an intern, taking advantage of Create Health’s apprenticeship scheme to secure a full-time role.

In addition, the agency welcomes, Charlie Culverhouse as Senior Account Manager, Kate Wells as Junior Art Director, Jasmine Freeman as Marketing Manager, Joe Wilson as Motion Graphics Designer and Rhi Wheeler as Account Executive.

Managing Partner Ed Hudson said “The Create Health team growing at such a rate signals the exciting times ahead not just for the agency but for the healthcare communications industry. We’re thrilled to have brought on board a roster of talented individuals who will help us to push the boundaries of creativity and make a positive difference to healthcare professionals and patients alike.”

Medical Writer Sean Quay, added “Healthcare communications is booming and being part of Create Health feels like I’m aboard a rocket about to launch.”

Recruitment is underway for a number of new roles within Avon and Somerset Police’s multi-award-winning Corporate Communications team. Opportunities will be available across the news, strategic communications, internal communications, multimedia and design teams. Roles currently open to applications are:

Successful candidates will join a friendly, supportive, and highly motivated team dedicated to helping keep people safe, combatting crime and building the trust and confidence of both the public and our 6000+ workforce.

The roles benefit from blended working across home and the office (primarily Police HQ in Portishead) and enjoy a fast-paced, forward-thinking environment in an organisation which values its people and giving them the autonomy to be creative and try something new.

Avon and Somerset Police serves a population of around 1.73 million people across more than 1,847 square miles, with a mission to serve, protect and respect the diverse communities it serves.

Its stated ambition is to deliver outstanding policing for everyone and as it works towards this goal, the Corporate Communications team is pivotal. In an average year, they handle 4,600 media enquiries; issue 1,400 press releases, manage strategy and content across 4 corporate social media accounts; coordinate 150 officer-led social media users; and deliver around 15 proactive internal and external campaigns.

Head of Corporate Communications Zoe Hebden said: “In policing communications, no two days are ever the same and we have the privilege of being able to make a real difference to the lives of the public and our officers, staff and volunteers. Our team is constantly rising to new challenges using engaging, and innovative communications and evidence-based creative campaigns to reach our many and varied audiences in the most appropriate ways.

“We’re looking for specialists in communications, design and multimedia who share Avon and Somerset Police’s core values – caring, courageous, inclusive and learning – to join our dynamic in-house corporate communications team. We’ll be releasing a number of new roles over the next couple of months so I’d encourage you to keep a close eye on our recruitment pages.”

In 2021, Avon and Somerset Police’s corporate communications team won an impressive six industry leading awards, including the CIPR Excellence Awards “In-house PR Team of the Year”, the PRCA Dare Awards “Integrated Campaign of the Year” and IOIC Awards “Best Public Sector Team”.

Five new recruits, including Business Director and Media Director, join UM, McCann Bristol’s media operation

UM Bristol, part of McCann Bristol is strengthening its media operation with the appointment of five new team members, including a Business Director and Media Director, following a successful first half of the year for the agency.

The media team form part of the overall integrated creative services offer at McCann Bristol and provide media buying consultancy and delivery across all channels.

Georgia Vine-Thomas joins the team as Business Director, bringing with her a wealth of experience working in planning and managing media buying for a number of leading global network agencies across clients in entertainment, automotive, banking, tech, retail and travel. Her experience includes working with blue-chip brands such as P&O Cruises, Netflix, HSBC and Paramount.

Meanwhile, Aled Schell joins as Media Director, bringing over ten years’ experience working at independent media agencies and media owners.

In addition, the agency also welcomes Grace Perrett as Senior Media Manager, Beth Cooper as Media Executive and Shabrina Hidayat as Digital Media Executive.

Managing Director at McCann Bristol, Andy Reid, said: “The Bristol media operation has achieved great things so far this year and these new appointments are a reflection of the success and growth we are seeing in the business right now. It’s great to welcome five new members who will strengthen the Bristol team and drive even more success in the future.”

Georgia Vine-Thomas added: “I’m really excited to have joined Bristol’s media operation. It’s a brilliant opportunity to be a part of a growing media team which is producing excellent work for its clients, whilst evolving with a number of new joiners. Together, there is huge enthusiasm for what’s ahead!”

Having a strong organisational structure in place is key to growing your digital agency.

Whether your agency is brand new or has 100 employees, the structure of the team is going to have a direct impact on your overall efficiency, culture, client satisfaction, and scalability. Without a considered organisational structure in place, many agencies suffer from poor communication and frustrated team members and clients.

So, what are your options when it comes to structuring or restructuring your agency? How do you know which structure is going to guarantee both employee and customer satisfaction and give you the permission to scale your marketing agency?

Get more brilliant advice from Janusz at the 12-month Mastermind group for agency leaders. Gain momentum, resolve and focus to achieve your goals, with the support, accountability and insight of GYDA experts and like-minded peers. Find out more.

The Five Most Common Organisational Structures For Marketing Agencies

A flat team structure is common in smaller agencies and start-ups. Flat structures have only a couple levels, if any at all, between management and employees. These organisations tend to require employees to ‘wear many hats’ and as such, often produce a lot of generalists but no specialists.

Then we have functional structures — in which teams are organised by services. For example, a digital agency with a functional structure could have a Social Team, an Email Team and a PPC Team, and so on.

A functional structure concentrates the expertise and knowledge within those services or groups. As such, this structure often falls down when the client requires more than one service from the agency, forcing disjointed communication between the executives in each team.

As the agency grows, communication and coordination between these teams is only more and more convoluted and scaling becomes very clunky and difficult.

A matrix structure is similar to a functional one, with added levels of management and communication weaved into the mix, hence matrix.

This structure involves side-ways communication between team members, like account managers who coordinate other functions. Like the functional structure, the matrix is limited to a team of a certain size, as this web of communication is difficult to scale.

Holacracy organisational structure is where there are no clearly assigned roles. Employees are given the flexibility to take on any duty or role and move between teams freely. A holacracy can work well within some industries, but broadly speaking, this structure is a poor fit for all digital agencies as having expertise and specialism within your personnel is essential.

A pod organisational structure is where an agency arranges their teams by client type or sector, rather than the agency function or service.

This creates specialist teams, which function similarly to sports teams. For example, each ‘Pod’ would have a PPC expert, an SEO specialist, and a Social Media manager and this pod would service a particular category or type of clients, such as Automotive Clients or the Legal Sector.

Why A Pod Organisational Structure Is Best For Your Digital Agency

Utilisng a pod structure allows you to lean into your niche and achieve a deeper level of industry or sector specialism from each pod.

Pod structures also have no dependencies on other teams within the agency, thus there is no web of complex internal communication. This creates friction-free workflows within your teams and an enriched experience for your clients at the other end.

Finally, a pod structure creates accountability and responsibility among your team members. As employees are being regularly challenged by exciting projects within their specialism, they are likely to have increased job satisfaction levels.

Maintaining A High Level Of Expertise Within Your Pods

At Digital Agency Coach, we advocate running weekly or bi-weekly workshops for all specialist executives, hosted by a technical lead. Keep the agency focused on strategy, process improvement and professional development and create a conversation the other experts from each pod.

Regularly hosting these casual, friendly and engaging workshops with employees of the same skill set promotes an easy and productive conversation with relevant learning and take-homes for each employee.

Final Thoughts

There’s no denying restructuring your digital agency can be a disruptive process in the early days and it probably won’t happen overnight. But once the hard groundwork is done, growing and scaling your agency can simply be a matter of copy and pasting a new pod.

This team structure eliminates the complex web of communication just as effectively as if you have a team of 30 or a team of 300 people.

If you are a full-service agency and your clients are purchasing multiple products or services from you, perhaps it’s time to reconsider your organisational structure.

If you feel you’d like any help or guidance with restructuring your agency, get in touch with Digital Agency Coach to arrange a consultation, we’d be delighted to help.

Over the past decade I have painstakingly built a remote dev team. It took me from being a cash- and time-poor freelancer to owning something I can respectably call a web development agency.

But the process is far from straightforward, there are many pitfalls for the uninitiated, so I’ve put together this checklist for hiring remote devs.

Of course, if you’d rather not build your own dev team, you can always use ours! Our contact details are below.

The checklist:

✅ Be very clear about what you’re looking for

This sounds obvious but the first time I did this I made the mistake of just shortlisting loads of candidates without being highly specific about what I was looking for. Whatever criteria are on your list, make sure these items are too:
1️⃣ Reliability. Obvs!
2️⃣ Communication skills. It doesn’t matter how good someone is – if they can’t communicate well with you, your team, and your clients, then it isn’t going to work.
3️⃣ Adequate equipment to do the job properly. A good enough computer, connection, work room etc. etc.. Figure it out in advance.

✅ Respect your applicants. Create and share a clear protocol.

Tell people in your first contact with them how you plan to conduct the hiring process.
Respect their time – you’re likely to annoy good candidates if you forget that they’re busy people just like you.
The relationships you form should be mutually beneficial & respectful.
So do not allow the availability of plentiful skilled foreign labour at low rates (by your standards) give you a power trip: this leads to the worst kind of neo-colonial attitudes & will make you a terrible employer.

✅ CVs are meaningless. Create a test.

Interviews can tell you whether or not a person can communicate, and MAYBE whether they’re going to be fun to work with.
But for determining skills and abilities, they’re useless.
So set them an arthurian challenge. If they can successfully complete x then they get the job. Make it fun.
But … DO NOT be tempted to let candidates loose on client work (even if you’re paying them). For all you know they might wreck something, possibly your reputation.
Dan Norris (author of The 7 Day Startup and the man who launched WPCurve in a week: a very inspiring guy) talked about creating a dummy website similar to his clients’ sites and having candidates log in and perform various tasks on that as an aptitude test.

✅ Accept some level of risk – but always protect your interests

Even after 1) checking someone can communicate and 2) putting them somehow to the test, you still don’t know very much about this person.
There is still a good chance that they’re not the right fit. And there is a chance (very small) that they might be actively dishonest.
Tread carefully, especially at first, and protect yourself. Use your common sense. I would suggest not sharing client contact info or server/service passwords.

✅ Create a corporate culture you feel proud of

If you are transitioning from a 1 person company to a 2 person company then for the first time you’ll have to think about “culture”. It’s down to you to create one! How you behave towards your team not only creates the atmosphere in which you must (all) exist during your working days, it permeates your client relationships and your supplier relationships as well.
This is your legacy. Consider it.

✅ Build the relationship

Your relationship with a remote worker needs to be built up gradually, but this process takes place over strange, de-humanising platforms like video, text chat and project management software.
You are aiming for a situation – and this won’t happen overnight – where you can trust each other with money, client contacts, server credentials etc., and where you know that you can depend on each other when the pressure is on.
This cuts both ways.
In the early days a big risk is that your new worker will ghost you.
This is rude and annoying but sometimes people find it easier to just vanish (and lose their job) than to ask difficult questions or admit that they don’t know how to do something.
You can mitigate this risk by being super-approachable yourself and by fostering a culture where people are open and safe to expose their vulnerabilities.
This takes bravery and hard work – emotional work.
It will pay off in lasting relationships and decent behaviour all round.

✅ PAY (and I can’t stress this enough) ON TIME. EVERY SINGLE TIME.

In all relationships, but especially in trans-continental, electronic ones, you’re only as good as your word. So if you lost that, that you’ve lost everything.
Don’t make excuses.
Pay on time.
There have been times when the rest of my life has been collapsing around my ears and I’ve had to sell investments at the bottom of the market in order to keep to my word, but I did it and so must you.
This is about self-interest sure, but it’s also about not being an asshole.
As someone’s boss your scope for making someone’s life undyingly miserable is pretty much as high as it’s ever been (kind of like being a parent).
Don’t forget that and don’t abuse your power.

✅ Practicalities

Decide in advance – so you can answer questions – how you’ll handle practical issues such as
👉 Hours. Do you care, or will it be results oriented?
👉 Public holidays. Obviously they’re different in different countries.
But to avoid misunderstandings your employment contract (did I mention that? you’ll need one, even if you don’t “need” one, then you need one) should stipulate exactly which days are to be worked and which not.
👉 Sick leave. It’s a thing.
👉 Annual leave.
👉 Payment frequency (I suggest weekly for the trial period to build mutual trust then monthly or twice a month to keep transaction costs down)
👉 Payment method. I’ve used worldremit.com (not affiliated). This works great but once on a work trip to Hong Kong I found out (on pay day) that it didn’t work from there. I had to trek across rush hour HK at the last minute to find a remittance centre which would take my money. This was the closest I’ve come to missing pay day & not a nice moment.

✅ Systematise everything (but not too soon)

A good motto (for lots of things) is “Don’t a dick to your future self”. Document everything you learn. You don’t know when you’ll need it.
But don’t make the mistake of over-systematising or systematising too early. Figure out the best way to onboard new hires manually, and simply make notes. When the time comes that your hires are making hires, these notes will come in very handy.

If you need to get some development work done and would like to skip the time, expense and risk of building your own team, use ours! Ugli is a multi-disciplined web and software dev team with all the skills you need to get your projects out the door, on time and at very competitive rates. Get in touch any time on [email protected].