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By Alex Cramer
Remember when we had to work from home all the time? It was great! You’d roll out of bed in the same pair of sweats you’d worn for the last five days, wander over to your desk/kitchen table/child’s classroom and no one would judge you if you had pop tarts for lunch….and maybe again at dinner.
Ok, so I exaggerate slightly, but while there were definitely some nice perks to WFH life, there were some real downsides as well and to be real, sometimes it just feels nice to put on some fresh clothes, comb your hair and go to a place where you don’t have to share your workspace with a child/roommate/pet cockatiel/neighbor who watches telenovelas at max volume all day.
That’s why Advertise Purple introduced our flexible hybrid work model. Since March, all of our employees work from the office for at least two days a week and are then free to work from home the other three days.
Teams are either coming in on Monday & Tuesday or Wednesday & Thursday and everyone stays home on Friday which makes it even easier to enjoy our weekly summer Fridays!
And because gas prices have taken off like a SpaceX rocket since the last time we were at our desks, Advertise Purple has gone the extra mile of reimbursing all of our employees for their mileage to and from the office.
We’ll admit there was some trepidation at first about how people would react to returning to the office after a multi-year break, but the reception to our new two days in/three days out schedule has been off-the-charts positive so far.
Becca N. shared what she thought was the biggest benefit to finally being back in the office.
“Team collaboration! The content team works on a very individual basis which, from home, resulted in minimal meetings aside from a short team meeting check-in and a couple of minutes of weekly 1-on-1s. By meeting in person, we have much more to discuss and have quickly identified issues in our processes that we never would have reflected on when we weren’t collaborating and communicating in person.”
Ben J. agreed that there just isn’t a replacement for being able to look people in the eye and interact in a more personal way.
“I think it’s imperative to have face-to-face time each week for the subtle reminder that we’re all human and all trying our best. Body language is a huge factor when managing a team. It’s not about prying and correlating performance to standing up straight, but just asking your team a simple “How are you doing?” can go a long way.”
Every office is different and some people may work better when they’re on their own, but when you walk into AdPurp’s Santa Monica office, you can feel the buzz in the air and the energy created by our teams coming together to build out strategies and recognize new opportunities and optimization for our clients.
It’s the kind of vibe that can only be created when we’re actually around each other and able to connect and it’s a foundational part of our successes.
“Culture is a huge part of Advertise Purple,” Becca adds. “That culture was sacrificed pretty heavily when working from home because people hired during Covid never got the chance to get to know their teammates outside of work. We work much more efficiently when we talk to each other openly about challenges and solutions which can only happen efficiently face to face. Advertise Purple also has a fast-paced and ever-changing working environment, so it is important that all employees feel that they are invested stakeholders, which is a tough mentality to foster from home.”
Advertise Purple believes in creating and nurturing a strong, employee-focused culture. Sometimes that means doing things like going to baseball games and movies together, but it’s also just as important that we have the chance to work, learn, grow and really spend time with each other in the office, both for the benefit of our team and for the clients we work tirelessly to serve.
And, as we mentioned at the top, this is still a hybrid schedule, so if you’re having the kind of day where you just need to skip the shower, work from bed and have last night’s takeout for lunch, that’s still an option.
