HR Pulse

When Culture and Purpose Collide

Do agency culture and purpose really matter? As a long-time employee of VMLY&R South Africa, Natalie Pool says: ‘hell yes’. ‘Culture’ and ‘purpose’. Two buzzwords essential for any good TED talk, company website, pitch presentation and recruitment process.

But as these words continue to gain prominence in agency word clouds, their meaning is often reduced to lip service, with most employees and clients feeling conned by deceptive job interviews and slick PowerPoint presentations.

I can honestly say that VMLY&R is the exception, in my opinion and in my almost eight years’ there. Of course, an agency is run by humans and not robots (something our CEO Jarred Cinman is still disappointed by) and no office environment is perfect. There are tough days, decisions I disagree with and people frustrations. But that’s life. This is not a holiday camp. It’s a place of business. And one I still belong to because of culture, purpose, and people.

Day One

I joined the agency in 2012 when it was Native and just about the coolest place I’d ever stepped into. I started on April 1, convinced that it was an April Fool’s joke and someone was going to escort me out of the building and send me back to a beige office existence of Styrofoam cups, cockroaches and not-so-subtle backstabbing.

It never happened. Instead my mind was blown by a welcome pack on my desk, suspiciously friendly people and a culture of learning, hard work and dress-up parties. The entire agency joined transparent staff meetings, which everyone looked forward to – even when the news was less than rosy.

In these staff meetings, very smart people presented inspiring work and spoke about our agency culture. I was confused. Even sceptical. I couldn’t understand why a company would spend so much time and money on making sure employees were happy, inspired and growing.

What’s the catch?

I waited for them to get bored with it. But they never did. They introduced ‘Native Values’ like ‘caring’, ‘hard working’ and ‘sound judgement’ and we were rated on these values by our managers and our peers.

Every Thursday, Native Axe sessions were run by different speakers – internal and external – and we learnt about everything from AI to aliens, cultural appropriation to critical thinking. They even provided snacks. I was stumped.

As the years progressed, more initiatives were added. The Native Play team continued to organise parties, braais and our famous lip sync battles. A Diversity Council was founded to make this a priority, raise issues in a safe space and create scholarship opportunities. A Pebble System was introduced to give points to employees who learned new skills, shared skills and attended industry events. These points could then be used to pay for new courses and events.

The Sabbatical

Three years later we became Native VML and I was stuck. I went to Jarred and confessed I didn’t want to leave but had lost focus, purpose even. I asked for a sabbatical. After a few meetings and a lot of planning, I took two months of unpaid leave. One month was spent with my sister in Houston, Texas. And the other, at our global VML headquarters in Kansas City, Missouri.

My first day there happened to be Foundation Day. A day all VML offices around the world close their doors to give back to causes close to their hearts. I was familiar with the concept as our office had been doing this for years. As I anxiously arrived at their office (a magnificent, refurbished airport building), I was handed a T-shirt and directed to a bus. On that bus I met people who would become real life friends and we spent the day packing boxes for a foodbank.

The rest of my time there was spent shadowing different teams, getting inspired and learning about their tools, processes and where to go for the best barbeque in town.

My suspicious nature was in overdrive. Why are these people so nice? How did they get so smart? Why are they sharing their trade secrets with me? Did the Global CMO Beth Wade just invite me to Book Club in the ‘burbs?

And while everything was on a bigger scale, I was struck by just how similar our cultures were. People genuinely care about each other and doing good work. And not just work that looks good. Work that does good.

Purpose in Practice

Our mantra of ‘purpose-driven work that lives in people’s lives’ is something I came across in my early days at Native, editing yes, pitch documents. I took great pride in adding a hyphen and apostrophe to the phrase that kept popping up.

It was used to introduce case studies for water saving initiative Close the Tap, e-reader app Bookly and Nedbank Cup Ke Yona Team search.

As the years passed and our name evolved, we continued to add more purpose-driven case studies to the docs.

We launched #Today with Standard Bank, inspiring South Africans to replace procrastination with action. We created a Twitter bot for PASSOP that replaced the word ‘refugees’ with ‘human beings’ and we turned the idea of beauty on its head with the Edgars I’mPerfection film.

Purpose in Lockdown

But it wasn’t until lockdown and a global pandemic that our culture and purpose would truly be tested.

A week before the mandated lockdown, VMLY&R South Africa shut our office doors and people began to work remotely. The IT department made sure everyone was connected and we didn’t miss a thing. Our People Operations department upped the free counselling services to support anyone struggling with loneliness and anxiety (anything really), Axe sessions became half hour, remote Rel-Axe sessions and our staff meetings moved online. They continued to be transparent, uplifting, but also tough. We lost clients. We lost people. But our culture and purpose grew stronger.

This year, Foundation Day went ahead with remote projects working on NGO websites and campaigns, and socially distanced events packing food, baby boxes, dignity handbags and more.

We have won some new clients and continue to strive to make a difference with our current ones.

It’s not easy. Purpose-driven work times time. It’s not always flashy. And it doesn’t always make money. But if anything, this pandemic has given us the time and opportunity to focus on what really matters – people, culture, and creating work that makes us proud and that makes a positive difference.

Next time a LinkedIn recruiter asks me why on earth I am still at the same agency eight years later, this is what I’ll tell them.