THE CONNECTED COMMUNICATORS

Adaptable and agile agencies We recently canvassed media owners on how they adapted to a virtual working model. This time around, GLENDA NEVILL asks media agencies how they connected with clients and kept staff sane.

We asked agencies about how they created virtual teams and the challenges they faced in doing so. We wanted to find out how strategies had to change to deal with the new circumstances, and what methods were used to keep staff motivated. We looked at value, and whether or not remote work would play a part in a post-pandemic future. Responses from senior media agency leaders were extensive, and we don’t have enough room in the magazine to run them at length, but we will be posting them in full on The Media Online over the next few weeks.

ASHISH WILLIAMS, CEO OF MEDIACOM

MediaCom’s leadership believed that before implementing any operational or technological steps to transform an office-bound team into a virtual one, we needed to change mindsets first. Business focus became less about input (hours) and much more about the output (results), which was the value clients were seeking.

Then MediaCom essentially had to recreate an office environment and experience for each staff member as much as possible. We believe that if our people and their needs are prioritised, the operational results will follow.

Ashish Williams

A key strategy was utilising the insights and learning from the global network available to us. We connected to CEOs at our Chinabased offices at the beginning of the outbreak to ascertain what we could anticipate when it reached South African shores. These conversations enabled us to predict beforehand what the challenges would be, where the vulnerabilities lay and what our clients would need most from us.

Our biggest challenge was maintaining what others may see as the ‘softer’ side of running a business – employee morale, retaining company culture and encouraging social interaction. Consequently, we launched various digital-friendly, staff-orientated workshops centred on creating connections and team spirit. Effective and consistent internal communication helped staff feel supported.

Our transparent communication activities extended to media owners, as we also made the effort to advise proactively on how investments could be managed and budgets might be affected and made even stronger.

Motivation can be negatively affected by monotony, fatigue and stress. To counter this, MediaCom created two well-being champions, who were assigned to support and assist staff on a wide variety of topics such as debt, pressure on family life, depression and so forth.

Adding value played a significant role. Some clients needed advice on budgets, while others needed support or for us to step up and find innovative digital solutions to reach their audiences even more effectively. Our ability to adapt to each client’s new perception of what value meant to them translated into strengthened customer relationships.

The three biggest lessons for us were: focus on people; be adaptable to any challenge; and share and reapply (learn from other markets and reapply to your own).

Moving forward, because we are so focused on output, it doesn’t

matter where staff work from. Our productivity climbed significantly when we adopted a remote working model. This clearly demonstrates that the new way of working complements our employees’ worklife balance, and the freedom to work remotely provides staff with various time-management perks that translate into operational efficiencies that can’t be duplicated in an officebound environment.

RICHARD LORD, MEDIA AND OPERATIONS DIRECTOR, AND KAGISO MUSI, GROUP MD OF META MEDIA

Our policy prior to Covid-19 was that people could work from home when they needed to do so, so we were actually quite well placed to move to that setup. Staff all had laptops and 3G modems, and all of our systems and network folders could be accessed via VPNs.

The biggest challenge was data, as the deals we had purchased were not big enough to handle full-time remote working. We addressed this quickly by increasing data allowances, and have since put in place subsidies to contribute to employees’ home fibre.

We have made a psychologist available to all staff at no cost, to whom they can chat to about anything. This service has been extended to their families as well. We also schedule regular fun team activities (all virtual of course) just to keep people’s spirits up.

At the beginning of lockdown, we found ourselves losing touch with our media-owner partners. We always had regular, day-to-day interactions and an open-door policy, as these are invaluable in building relationships and understanding each other’s business. So we implemented a couple of initiatives. Firstly, we made it compulsory for all of our strategists and planners to attend various media-owner meetings and webinars via Zoom. Secondly, we implemented regular catch-up meetings with media owners at a management level where we chatted about the big issues and fixed them.

Clients are pushing hard for more and more value. There are many ways in which value can be given and we pay attention to all of them – whether it is upping our client-service game, or sending out proactive information or media ideas to clients, training, or even more savings.

The one thing lockdown has taught us is that our people are more than capable of continuing to deliver excellent service to our clients while working remotely. Empowered with the right IT infrastructure and data requirements, our team have really come to the party and leaned in to this new reality in which we find ourselves. Once everyone is vaccinated and lockdowns are hopefully a thing of the past, will we ever go back to the way things were? We don’t think so. We still need to do a lot of work in deciding what the

Richard Lord

new normal looks like, but the days of nine to five, Monday to Friday in the office are a thing of the past. We will likely adopt some kind of hybrid model where people spend some time in the office but continue to work from anywhere. They have proved they can!

NIC SIMMONDS, CO-CEO OF CLOCKWORK MEDIA

The first thing our central operations team had to facilitate was the rapid adoption of basic digital platforms such as Microsoft Teams and Zoom. We had been using these platforms here and there, but we very quickly had to get 130 people up to speed and comfortable using them. We also had to ensure everyone had access to a safe place to work and a reliable internet connection.

The biggest challenge was probably the mental health and well-being of our people. There was a lot of anxiety around the sudden change, and because people are inherently social beings, most of us were to some degree emotionally challenged by the isolation. We’ve since introduced a number of internal employee wellness programmes such as regular desktop yoga sessions and mindfulness training.

Our main focus early on was to ensure stability and business continuity in order to protect our clients’ marketing objectives and the livelihoods of our people. We achieved that by ensuring our leadership Nic Simmonds maintained calm,

open communications and dealt with individual challenges in a collaborative, head-on manner as they came up.

Our strategy hinged on increasing customer-centricity, as we reasoned it was more important than ever to listen really carefully to our clients so that we could be agile and responsive to their needs. Fortunately, many of our largest clients are in the technology space and were not affected by the pandemic – in some cases they even benefited. Others, however, were hit pretty hard so our approach was to adopt a partnership mentality. We adjusted scope, provided discounts, and worked with reduced budgets to help them navigate the challenged landscape.

It was really important to get our leadership team aligned. It can be easy to slip into action mode and try to rush through meetings when they are online. We have launched a senior leadership platform that upskills our managers to be better listeners and communicators. Currently we are using Nancy’s Kline’s work on Thinking Environments to upskill in this area.

We learned we can give our people time by not insisting they come in to the office or drive to client meetings. I’d rather they use that time in a way that makes their lives more happy and fulfilling. Having said that, working remotely can see people struggling to separate their home and work lives. This can lead to overwork, burnout and a general sense of despondence, which need to be carefully managed.

We will not go back to working the way we did before Covid-19. We’ve seen too much disruption and learned too many lessons to revert to what are now outdated ways of doing things.

KEVIN NDINGURI: MANAGING DIRECTOR OF UM AFRICA

We allowed our staff to take home screens and office chairs from the office to ensure they could create a suitable home office setup. We then equipped all our staff with an internet solution that would allow them to be online even during load shedding. Our IT team was critical to ensuring everyone had the right tools, and continue to provide invaluable support as we navigate changes to work culture and environment.

The pandemic presented us all with a set of unprecedented circumstances. As humans we are social beings and thrive on human contact, especially in our industry, where collaboration with colleagues is fundamental. This was a massive challenge. As a first step we encouraged all our staff to engage on platforms like Teams with their videos on so that they could still see each other. Talking to a black screen can feel disconnected and doesn’t really tell you whether the other person is listening to you or just scrolling through Instagram. Secondly as a management team, it was important that we engaged with our people on a regular basis through video check-ins, a routine we’ve continued throughout this period.

We thought productivity levels would be a challenge but we are incredibly fortunate to have great teams. Productivity actually shot through the roof. It’s nice problem to have when your biggest challenge is ensuring your people maintain a work-life balance and set boundaries for working from home. Moving forward, we will move to a hybrid work model where there is a healthy mix of work from home and work from the office.

For our clients, it was about keeping them up to date with the changes in consumer media consumption and the media landscape as frequently as possible, and optimising their strategies and plans to take these changes into account. We shared monthly insights highlighting key changes at a local, pan-African and global level. We leaned heavily on our relationships with media partners to make the necessary changes and, where necessary, negotiated them out of commitments with as minimal monetary impact as possible. Having open and transparent relationships with media-owner partners was crucial to navigating the impact of the pandemic on our clients’ investments.

The biggest lessons for me over the past year have been firstly that we really don’t know it all and we need to stay curious every day. Secondly, building a great team is critical to ensuring you can thrive in an unpredictable environment, as those will be the people you rely on to go through the trenches with you. Lastly, mental health is too often overlooked and downplayed, especially in the high-paced environment in which we operate.

Kevin Ndinguri

LWANDILE QOKWENI, CEO OF WAVEMAKER SOUTH AFRICA

The single and most important step was to get all employees set up on an online conference system (Teams, Zoom, BlueJeans) because we knew our industry is one of collaboration. We also had to learn to switch off the mute button! What we did not recognise was the need to train staff on how to use these systems to their full ability so they could collaborate and not just communicate.

Now more than ever, we have found that it is important to acknowledge the impact of work on the whole self: to understand that for some work from home means solitude and being cut off from the world because they live on their own, while for others it means not being able to separate work from home, potentially causing distress in domestic relationships and challenges in time-management capabilities.

Maintaining motivation and team culture was possibly the most difficult. This culture is encouraged to flourish through face-to-face interactions where each member can illustrate their adherence to the compact. It is also driven by interactions between the senior management team and the rest of the organisation.

Media-owner relationships were much less predictable, as these are built and maintained through continuous face-to-face interaction. Many media owners took a long time to set themselves up for remote working, but once they were up we resumed our normal routines, albeit under strained conditions with limited collaboration.

Value in all senses of the word is important when we are challenged like this. Not just the perceived value we offer to our clients in delivering efficient and effective media solutions, but also that of being flexible, accountable and available to make necessary changes at the drop of a hat with minimum fuss and cost.

The truth is, for the last year it has been hard to plan for clients as they have been challenged by legislation like alcohol bans, curfews, product sales restrictions and mobility restrictions, and challenged by events beyond their control like load shedding, import and export closure, shortage of raw material to produce products, and more recently riots.

It was good to see that staff can be trusted to work remotely, regardless of role. However, purely remote working does not allow for easy collaboration, which is why we believe the future is a hybrid solution.

Finally, adapt or die. I have been amazed at our team members’ ability to adapt and find solutions to what we would have previously viewed as impossible. The human spirit can be shaken but still find a way to adapt and grow from that change.

Lwandile Qokweni

Dashni vilakazi DASHNI VILAKAZI: MANAGING DIRECTOR OF THE MEDIASHOP

In March 2020, The MediaShop enabled 142 people to work remotely while still servicing our clients optimally. This was accomplished within a matter of days so that we could preserve our client-centric focus and provide them with reassurance. It was a significant accomplishment for our operations and IT teams.

We worked to maintain a collaborative team dynamic and morale while emerging into a migrated company culture of deep empathy, bringing teams closer together through regular communication and feedback forums, as well as access to psychological support where required.

On-boarding new team members was challenging, especially supporting a team of Gen Z and millennials from our internship programme, who were supported over this period by a thorough training programme that ran over seven weeks.

High-frequency, sustainable client and media-owner engagements managed to preserve our long-standing relationships, which were cemented through business unit and senior leadership management contact. This was executed at high levels of accessibility for personal, one-on-one interactions, plus innovative ways of engaging with teams like virtual

cocktail-mixing events and our Media Intelligence Insights series.

The economic impact of this period challenged our billing processes, but our strategic decision making, pioneering implementation strategies and speed-to-market campaigns gave us the platform to apply brilliant tactics at cost-efficient budgets. We leveraged our valued relationships with stakeholders and explored alternative media channel options that helped us succeed through the challenges we encountered.

There is no blueprint for how to work during this period, so together with clients we designed a new way of working regarding effective communication, turnaround times, strategy and planning, creating a bespoke package for each brand. Regular contact ensured we remained relevant, and agility allowed us to change direction.

Value has always been key in our industry, but we need to remember that value means so many different things, so it’s important to create common understanding when talking about it. Value needs to be defined among partners to ensure that real value, not just the perception thereof, is achieved.

Speed to market, innovative processing and empathy were and still are our biggest learning curves. Empathy in particular – towards our employees, our suppliers, our clients and their direct consumers (the target audience) – is so incredibly crucial.

People clung fiercely to their old world, but this period has facilitated compassion and consideration for our clients, employees and colleague’s welfare as they move more into the driving seat of this new world.

Perfecting connectivity, working remotely, gathering information and entertainment technology have been central to our ability to cope. WhatsApp, Netflix, YouTube, Instagram and Facebook have earned their estate as vital services on par with water and electricity.

RENÉ FOWLER, HEAD OF AD OPERATIONS AND DIGITAL INVESTMENT FOR AMPLIFI, A DENTSU BRAND

We were in a very fortunate position at dentsu from an IT perspective, as the majority of our employees were already equipped to work from home. Teams, OneDrive and SharePoint assisted in collaborating on projects even though we were working remotely.

The teams were under immense pressure, which often resulted in overworking. The expectation to finish a task or respond was always looming. It was difficult to overcome this and it remains a challenge, but we have set up Cortana, which has helped us manage our calendars, set aside time for breaks, and catch up with mails and so forth during the day.

As a manager dealing with employee’s unsettled feelings around job security and mental wellbeing, I strived to communicate as often as possible with the team. Reassurance does not come with having all the answers, but rather with always being there to support and encourage my team to take breaks and time out.

Given the changes to the landscape with regards to regulations such as alcohol bans, loss of exposure in certain instances, and consumer behavioural changes such as curfew times and the growth of digital adoption, we also had to be mindful of how consumer needs and behaviours were and still are changing, to ensure our media strategies were aligned and providing value to consumers.

If you can choose the right combination of marketing across product, price, promotion, place, people, process and physical evidence, your marketing strategy is more likely to be a success. You can accelerate digital, tech and analytics by enhancing and expanding the digital channels.

In terms of internal communication, I always try and make people feel they are needed and an asset to the team and business. I try to involve everyone in everything that is happening, especially when there are changes in processes and protocol. I try to maintain a positive attitude as much as possible, as this has been proven to keep the morale up within the team.

We have had to trial and test a lot, so another lesson during this time was to trust in the power of failure because it gives you the opportunity to grow both personally and professionally.

I’ve learned that you can have every tool and structure in place, but if you don’t have a team with shared goals none of that matters. Having one vision is essential to successfully implementing radical collaboration. Showing up is the first step, but when a team comes together you can achieve extraordinary things by leveraging collective expertise.

René Fowler