At an office in Arlington, Virginia, some employees are splitting their time between watching daytime dramas and playing pre-release video games on plasma screen TVs. One worker who is at her desk has been looking at pictures of soccer star David Beckham for hours on end. At the end of the day all employees head to a company-sponsored happy hour with an open bar, which takes place once a month.
The question begs to be answered: Is this a real workplace?
In a word, yes. At New Media Strategies (NMS), an 8-year-old firm founded by 2006 Winning Workplaces Best Boss Pete Snyder, the job of his 68 employees is to serve as the "eyes, ears and voice" of some of the biggest and best-known brands, including American Airlines, McDonald's and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The work is part of a new industry segment – online brand promotion and protection – that Snyder, a nationally known pollster and media consultant, helped pioneer.
With brand-generated pop culture and product fare everywhere at NMS, one might think it's light work, but there's a lot more to it. Day in and day out, employees are helping to safeguard their clients' products and services from the effects of negative perceptions and attacks. It's a daunting task, but one NMS employees take in stride. They draw inspiration from their leader, whose management philosophy is "Eat your own dog food."
"We have kind of a UPS mentality to our workplace," Snyder says. "In our Client Services division, which is our biggest division, anyone who's starting in their roles has to learn, for their first couple days, what our entry-level people do so they understand our process. That goes for me as well. We try not to just preach in platitudes and have everyone else do the grunt work at NMS."
This all-in approach is reinforced by the types of employee practices in place at the firm, especially those centered on recognition. Whereas at other companies outstanding workers are named "employee of the month," at NMS they're deemed "Ass Kicker of the Month" – an honor that comes complete with a donkey trophy and the honor of signing a NASCAR-like cup.
When it comes to time off, the leadership refers openly to "mental health days" and requires that all employees take one each quarter. And supervisors check up on their staff to make sure they're taking them. "I think the biggest thing I do as a director when it comes to mental health days is that I not only encourage my most junior-level employees to take them, but I actively encourage their managers to do that," says Christal Cipriani, director of NMS' corporate practice. "I think that leads by example for them, and then they feel more comfortable."
Within the hours-heavy, deadline-laden environment of today's advertising industry, "comfortable" is a word that's used more often in product copy than in the workplace, yet you hear it a lot at NMS. For Matt Bado, who joined the company 16 months ago as an online analyst, comfort was a necessary quality, as his previous experience had been in a more traditional line of PR work. He needed to feel at home in NMS' burgeoning online world in order to excel.
During his first week, the company hosted a happy hour, pizza party and employee meeting, which all helped get Bado acclimated. After that, close contact with his supervisor around goals and objectives as well as opportunities to display his skills helped him get a promotion to senior online analyst. "My supervisor personally helped me gain more exposure in the company by asking me to do presentations and giving me the challenge to step up," Bado says.
One of the things the company does at a high level for all employees is turn its measuring focus for its clients inward to its employees. NMS surveys workers quarterly on training, gauging their assessment of currently offered programs and how they've benefited from them as well as what they'd like to see in the future. Management pores over the data looking for trends and what works.
In addition, although the company is growing quickly, Snyder likes to stay personally connected to employees by meeting with small groups of them every quarter. With the group size being no larger than 10 people, he says it can take a little while to meet with everyone, but the end result is worth it.
Heather Levedag, a four-year employee who helps manage both human resources and finances, echoes the importance of these quarterly CEO chats with employees. "It's an opportunity for [Snyder] to say, 'You're all stakeholders in the company. Here's what we're doing, here's how we're doing and let's just discuss any needs that you see are worth discussing, including where the company is going,'" she says.
This closeness with his employees allows Snyder to be just one of the team, whether the instance be serious or fun. The CEO was even recently one of the team when he joined employees in dressing up in period costumes for an externally delivered workshop by Movers & Shakespeares that used the wisdom of the Bard to convey leadership insights.
"The whole company was involved in doing skits," Bado says. "It was a great experience and an innovative way to think about strategy."
Company: New Media Strategies
Website: www.newmediastrategies.net
Industry: Online business intelligence
Location: Arlington, VA
Number of employees: 68
Sales: $12 million
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