At Havas, we’re fortunate to be part of one of the world’s largest marketing and communications groups. Havas People is one part of that, and we ourselves are global, with colleagues spread around the world from Melbourne to Austin, and at many points in-between. By the very nature of a global crisis, we’re experiencing this pandemic together.
Recently I picked the brains of some colleagues in different regions about their take on ‘pandemic working’ and how their lifestyles are changing. Some cultural differences were apparent, such as existing attitudes to remote working in different regions, which range from it being extremely rare to the norm. Of course, we’re all at different points on this weird and uncertain journey. While things are just starting to reopen in my home state of Texas, colleagues in Singapore have been in and out of lockdown, and are now back under lockdown for the second time, and for the next few weeks.

We’re in the same storm, but we’re all in different boats. However, certain things seem to ring true across our regions. I asked my colleagues what has surprised them most. Below, I share some of their responses. If you’ll please allow me a moment of intense cheesiness: we might be going through this in different corners of the world, but in some ways we’ve never been closer.

You can see and hear more from our global team by following Havas People on Instagram, where you can check out #HavasAtHome, and our #QuarantineRoutines.

Eleni Konstantinou – Berlin, Germany
The most surprising aspect for me has been a little piece I like to call #coronacomms. And by that I don’t just mean corporate communications, but also the increase in communications with friends and family. My husband and I both live abroad. He’s from Iran, which is heavily impacted, and I’m from Greece, so catching up with loved ones has become a part of our daily routine. This includes the challenge of caring remotely for our parents – helping to set up online grocery orders and prescriptions while keeping up with the latest rules and regulations. All with a smile on our faces as we need to keep their spirits up!

It’s been interesting to see a sense of camaraderie evolving. Somehow distances no longer matter. People seem to be much more understanding and willing to support others.

Tim Middleton – New York, USA
It’s not a surprise to me, really. We already had a strong culture and great working relationships, but I think we’re expressing it in different ways now. There’s an appreciation for having one another. For experiencing something unknown together. Seeing people thrive, or adapt, or just maintain is inspiring. People’s resilience is wild!

That said, no matter what, losing a sense of close proximity is extremely difficult. Your synapses just don’t fire the same way having a conversation over Teams vs. doing it in person. But as long as we keep making it a priority to care about each other, I think we’ll come out of this with an even better appreciation of each other and how we fit together.

​Charlotte Fenney – Manchester, UK
I think people are being nicer to each other! Whether on email or over the phone or video conference, there’s a very friendly attitude and an interest in each other as people – an appreciation of what people are coping with. I’ve had meaningful conversations with people who I haven’t spoken to properly in six months.

We’re pretty resilient in Manchester. Our sense of humor continues to shine through! And I do see people becoming more considerate and thinking of others. I’m a Trustee at Manchester Central Foodbank, and the generosity we are seeing right now is incredible. Let’s hope that continues once things return to normal.

April Bryce, Havas People North America
Creative and Strategy Director

As we accept working from home as the new normal, we asked a few of our US colleagues what their routine looks like, what gets them through their day and what they miss from an office environment. Hint: its people – it’s always the people.
 
Over the next few weeks, we’ll be sharing the routines and highs and lows of our current working situation.
 
First up: Megan Scott, Account Supervisor
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If you could describe your WFH self in ONE WORD, what would it be? Hydrated
 
What does a typical WFH day look like for you? Do you have a set routine that helps you focus? I wake up at 7:30am and work out for an hour. Then I take a shower and put on clothes that are *not* the pajamas I wore the night before. I make my hot lemon water and yogurt and get to work around 9:00am.
 
At 10:30am, I’ve gone through my emails and made my list of things to do today, so I start cracking on with it.
 
At 10:45am, George (my cat) is probably bothering me to play, so I pull out his favorite shoestring and run around the room with him to tire him out.
 
At 12:30pm, I make myself some avocado toast with egg. Ideally, I’ve drank 33oz of water, so I fill up my water bottle again (have to meet the 90oz quota!) I go back to work ~1pm.
 
Around 1pm, George is probably acting up again. Out comes said shoestring.
 
At 3:30pm, I make myself a snack – apple with peanut butter (Jif and crunchy, duh).
 
At 5pm, I start thinking about dinner. But at 6pm I actually put my computer away and cook. Around 7pm, my family starts watching West Wing (I’m only up to S1 E7, no spoilers!)
 
Tell us more about what your "set-up" looks like! Primarily, I’m set up in a bedroom upstairs with a vanity (using it as a desk). It’s cold and boring, so I like to switch it up by moving outside to the lanai, or outside of the lanai in the sun. My computer charge doesn’t last too long, so I usually only get to do that for a couple of hours before being forced back into the bedroom upstairs.
 
What's your go-to to beat the afternoon slump? Matcha! My mom bought bags of Lipton matcha – it’s no Maman, but it does the job. If that doesn’t work, a strict timer of 30 minutes on TikTok.
 
What's one thing you now know you took for granted about working in an office?  MAINTAINING RELATIONSHIPS WITH YOUR COLLEAGUES!!! When you’re in the office, you don’t have to work very hard to remember to say hi or participate in passing convos. Seeing people triggers you to have friendly conversations. But when you’re working virtually and you’re NOT seeing people to trigger those conversations, you have to make a real effort to ask people about their weekends, or what they ate for dinner, or how their significant other is.

For the past five weeks I’ve been sharing insights on working from home through our Remote Working Blog Series. As someone who has worked remotely for the past two years, five weeks ago I considered myself a bit of an expert at this whole thing. I have my workspace set up just how I like it. I live my life through conference calls and video meetings. I know to avoid the fridge at all costs. I was all set. What I didn’t realize was that I am no longer working remotely: I am working remotely during a global crisis. In my case also working remotely with a ten-month-old baby at home. I know others are doing the same, or working while homeschooling, or coping with the daily challenge of living alone in this climate. Let’s be clear – there is nothing normal about this.
 
I’ve learned that, while a lot of my standard advice on remote working still applies (and I hope if you’ve read any of it you did find it useful), I myself have significantly shifted my expectations. Not just in the way that I work, but the way that my colleagues and clients are working too.
 
Throughout this blog series I’ve also focused largely on people who, like me, would otherwise be working in an office environment. So I want to take a moment to give a shout out to the teachers who are teaching remotely, healthcare workers who are providing telemedicine, trainers who are running exercise classes over Zoom, and all the inventive, energetic people who have found a way to make things work from a home office, living room, or kitchen table.
 
Last weekend Saturday Night Live was broadcast not from 30 Rock in New York City, but from its cast’s homes. OK, it wasn’t actually live. It was filmed in advance and edited. But the cast were all working from home to produce the show – a first in its 45-year history.
 
Tom Hanks opened the show from his kitchen (it’s a very nice kitchen), and set the tone immediately, “Will it make you laugh? Eh, it’s SNL. There’ll be some good stuff, maybe one or two stinkers. You know the drill.” Alec Baldwin impersonated President Trump, but without hairstylists and makeup artists to physically transform him he played the role through voiceover in a sketch about a phone call from the President. Kate McKinnon made me laugh as Ruth Bader Ginsburg, with homemade props and her cat playing the role of RBG’s personal trainer.
 
Adaptability was the lifeblood of the show. But did it work? Make no mistake, this was not the same show. However, the rough and ready nature of it conveyed a sense of resilience. It made me feel something. And it fulfilled a need that we have right now – to find humor in the world around us.
 
The cast of SNL are not alone in this adaptiveness. The weekend also saw ESPN broadcast NBA players in a virtual game of H.O.R.S.E. from the safety of their own homes, and home basketball courts. From what I’ve read, it was no substitute at all for a basketball game, but – hey – they gave it a try to at least attempted to fill the hole left by sports. And for that reason, people did watch.
 
Talk show hosts and news reporters are increasingly filming without the polished production values we are accustomed to. Chris Cuomo has been broadcasting his primetime show from his basement since being diagnosed with COVID-19 himself.
 
None of this is the same as it was pre-COVID, but we’re sure grateful to have it. Our expectations as an audience have changed, just as the expectations of professionals everywhere have.
 
At Havas People one of our values is, ‘We find a way’. Perhaps it’s never been more of a mantra. Now, mantras are great to steer you right and keep you going, but how do we actually do it? How do we find a way through this? 
 
I think we do it by leaning into another one of our values, ‘We work together’. We need to realign our expectations of everything, including those we work with. And to do that, we need new depths of empathy. Because this affects us all, but in different ways.
 
Empathy is stronger than sympathy because it requires you to actually see things from someone else’s position. The best way to do that is to learn what that looks like. Ask the important questions like, “How are you feeling today?” and be curious and aware enough to follow up on that. Know that if someone tells you, “I’m fine”, they might not be fine at all. Because if anything is normal right now, it’s feeling anything but.
 
Over the next couple of weeks we’ll be using our blog to share some experiences of our teams at Havas People while working remotely during the COVID-19 crisis.
 
Spoiler alert: nobody has a kitchen quite as nice as Tom Hanks does, but we do have a lot of cats. 
 
Stay safe, stay well, and stay connected.
 
April Bryce
Director of Creative and Strategy, Havas People North America

I’m writing this post on March 22nd. The specific date matters, because by the day – if not the hour – our reality seems to shift as the Coronavirus Pandemic changes everything. Perhaps the workplace is one of the pillars of modern life most affected. Of course, for many the workplace is a hospital or doctor’s office, grocery store, water or power plant, or another essential location where workers don’t have the option to work remotely. To all those people – thank you.

But for those of us who can work from home, an extreme experiment has begun very suddenly, and on a massive global scale. While tech giants like Oracle, Apple and Google were some of the first to urge all employees who can to work from home to do so, it’s now the norm, if not a requirement. Banks are installing trading equipment in employees’ home offices. Lloyd’s of London has closed its underwriting room for the first time in its 330-year history. Universities have moved to online learning. Netflix yesterday held its first video conference table read for an upcoming production. Things that might otherwise have been piloted and cautiously integrated are suddenly mandates. It can feel overwhelming, even disorienting.
 
So at a time of such uncertainty (and, let’s be honest, anxiety), how can you harness the power of your remote workforce? Not just to ensure productivity, but to help your employees through this time. I’ve been working remotely for the past two years, and am exploring this and other questions in a Remote Working Blog Series over the coming weeks.
 
At the best of times, working remotely can be incredibly effective. It can even be fun. But there’s one major challenge. Loneliness. Soon after the invention of the computer, thought-leaders of the time predicted that we would all shortly be working from home. It did not happen. A 2016 study in China gave employees at a travel agency the option to work from home. 50% volunteered to take part. At first, it proved a huge success with high employee engagement, productivity, and reduced costs from reduced office space. But when the initiative was rolled out to the whole company it ultimately failed because of one major complaint: loneliness. For the same reasons, shared work spaces such as WeWork have seen success in recent years alongside the rise of remote working in the US. In the words of my hero Brené Brown, “We are hardwired to connect with others.” That’s why even in the perilous times of a global pandemic, we must fight the very human instinct to find comfort in being physically close to others.
 
None of us know how long we’re going to be working in these new ways. And loneliness poses very real risks to productivity, creativity, engagement, and ultimately the mental health of your workforce.
 
So my advice to employers at this time is to over-communicate. With your internal communications and realigned culture, make loneliness the enemy. Make health and happiness the goals. Business maintenance and productivity cannot follow without these.
 
How do you do that? The human brain is a complex thing. But it helps to think about the things that matter to us. The things that help us to feel healthy and happy. So here are some tips, aimed at promoting different aspects of employee wellbeing.  

1. Be social As someone who has worked remotely for two years, let me tell you what I miss most: random office interactions. Chatting at the coffee machine. Morning catch ups with my team. Yes, even those awkward moments in the elevator making small talk about the weather with the guy who sits on the third floor and you can’t remember his name. Recreate those moments. I encourage you to turn on video for work talk and meetings, but make some rules about times when there must be “no work talk”. Schedule regular catch ups to check in on how everyone is doing and talk about what you’ve been streaming, any anxieties people have, good things that have happened, strange things that have happened, and – yes – even the weather.

2. Encourage physical health OK, OK, it’s not your place as an employer to mandate an exercise schedule. But there is a direct link between physical activity and mental health. And right now some of us aren’t sure what to do when our favorite workout class shuts down (I miss you, Orangetheory!), or you can’t go to the gym or play in your regular sports league. What can you do as a community of employees? Coming together to take on a running challenge, taking part in a video yoga class, or checking in on everyone’s Fitbit steps are all ways you can unite your people while giving them a healthy outlet. Camaraderie and team-building should follow. Have your people post their workouts or results on a social or internal channel. Build a community that gives people a meaningful and healthy resource.

3. It’s an emotional time There’s no point in ignoring the very large and scary elephant in the room. We’re all feeling new kinds of stress right now. I’m currently wondering how my work schedule now includes the care of my 9-month-old baby. I know I can make it work and Havas will support me to do so, but I’m definitely feeling more emotional than usual. As an employer, you must acknowledge these emotions. Help your colleagues to work through their feelings, because productivity and wellbeing can be real struggles otherwise. Managers should regularly check in one-on-one with their people. Remind employees of any additional support that is available. Allow people to be vulnerable and honest by creating a culture where they feel they can be. That can start with simply asking people, “How are you feeling today?”

4. Over-communicate In times of uncertainty, give people more information than they need. Reduce anxiety by not letting them wonder or worry about anything they don’t need to. Be honest, be clear, and be informative. I recently read a paper about the 1918 Flu Pandemic (yes, it’s been a time of unusual reading choices) which showed that cities in the US where social distancing was best observed were those where communication was constant, clear and above all honest. At times that might mean telling employees that you simply don’t know the answer. But don’t be afraid to say so – anxiety creeps out of the cracks in communication.

​5. Celebrate the good times COVID-19 might feel all-encompassing right now. But, good things still happen. Work projects continue and get completed, new business can still be won, people successfully navigate new work styles and learn new things, acts of kindness are everywhere. Call out your employees who have done a great job, shared a success, or just done something nice for a colleague. Right now would probably be a good time to thank your HR, internal communications and operations teams. If you don’t already have an internal recognition and reward initiative in place, start one today. Give your people a platform to thank and congratulate one another.
 
While times are strange, there are so many simple things we can do to make them less so. And remember – nobody is single-handedly responsible for their organization’s culture. It’s a living thing. Turn some of these ideas over to people or groups within your business and let them get involved setting exercise challenges or virtual Friday night office drinks.
 
Most importantly – stay home, stay safe, and wash your hands.

April Bryce
​Director of Creative and Strategy - Havas People North America

​Recently, there was a short article in the Wall Street Journal regarding the monitoring, tracking and data-mining companies are doing with their employees. It’s a natural response to be alarmed, but in my humble opinion this isn’t anything new. The tools to collect employee data and Large Company Corp’s ability to interpret that data have evolved, but the act of making sure your employees are using their time on the clock effectively, efficiently collaborating, and/or not breaking the law has been happening for a long time.
 
Stoking some nervousness around the potential police-state you’re working in makes for a great story and cute animation, but there is another way to interpret organizations having all this data that errs much more on the positive side. One that relates to our thoughts around the ‘Consumerization of the Employee Experience.’ The move by companies to treat their employees (and their data) with the same intent as brands do. Personalizing, customizing and aligning the working experience to the individual’s expectations (stated or unstated).
 
Interestingly, there was a recent post on the app, Fishbowl, about a similar situation where IT flagged to a manager that their newest hire was actively searching for jobs a month into their new role and on company time - the manager was looking for advice on how to broach this with their employee. Not surprisingly a large number of comments on this post were about the IT team’s actions (most employers make it quite clear that they are monitoring you and make you sign a contract in acknowledgement - IT is just doing their job).  But there were also a handful of comments directed to the manager trying to understand what may have caused the employee’s unhappiness in their new role, asking why they wouldn’t use this information from IT to turn what might be a negative experience into a positive one.
 
That’s the key shift that employers, managers, leaders in companies need to make and need to prioritize. If we only use this new, rich employee data to contain, monitor and homogenize our people, we’re creating a terribly unbalanced relationship that fundamentally has no trust built into it.
 
However, if we use this data in ways to anticipate wants and needs, address nagging issues, build better processes and enhance experiences, we’re showing our people that they can trust us with their data, that we understand them on an individual, human level, and that we care about their experiences and well-being.

Tim Middleton,
Agency Director

On Thursday, June 6th I had the opportunity to attend and speak at the Wellbeing @ Work event in New York. It was an eye-opening day filled with exceptional speakers and interesting perspectives on wellbeing were shared.
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Havas was invited to talk about Meaning in the Age of the Employee and how the consumerization of the employee experience is intrinsically linked to your people’s overall wellbeing.
 
Stay tuned for my next blog post where I’ll highlight some of our top-level thinking around that subject with some key thought starters worth mulling over!
 
Today, I want to share a few thoughts from the day that I keep coming back to. Things that were mentioned across a few of the different speakers’ topics that I believe are fundamental to employees feeling ‘their whole self’ at work and for employers to concentrate on when looking to build an environment where their employees’ wellness is a priority.
 
Homogenization isn’t just about looks.

As keynote speakers go, we were extremely fortunate to have Claude Silver, Chief Heart Officer at VaynerMedia kick off the day. Claude shared personal anecdotes about her journey with VaynerMedia and the steps she took to forge a career that matched her principles and allowed her to lead and build in the way she wants.
 
A lot of great content and advice was shared, but I keep coming back to Claude’s point about a homogenized workforce. It’s natural for a company that was founded by a few friends to grow and employ friends of those friends – then friends of those friends, but as growth increases that friend network can become very harmful to company culture, morale, and ability to innovate.
 
Now, if we park the inevitability that these employees will all most likely resemble one another and look at some other issues of ‘going with who you know’ we can see that all of a sudden you have a workforce that has a relatively similar profile. They have all the same reference points, they approach opportunities and problems in the same manner, and probably view the purpose, meaning and value of work in a pretty uniform way.
 
For a current employee, is this environment going to give them the confidence or freedom to shake things up and try something new – to be who they are, not just another version of everyone else? For a candidate, are they going to feel like they can add anything to your company, or that they’ll need to compartmentalize elements of who they are to fit in?
 
Essentially, it’s another way to look at the move from hiring for cultural fit to cultural add, but I would say we need to go a step further and begin to start hiring for cultural miss. What types of people are you missing in your culture, what types of skills, approaches, ways of working and thinking will unlock your people’s potential further? Every new hire is an opportunity to add a little bit of a change agent to the mix to keep pushing your culture further.
 
Rethinking indicative proof points for future performance.
 
I’ll preface this by saying, I’m not sure how many of us are ready to ditch degree requirements from our job roles, but when Annette Alexander of WP Engine and Ann W. Marr of World Wide Technology spoke in their session about removing degree requirements from a large chunk of their jobs, it made me wish that we could!
 
This is something that’s been on my mind for quite a while. I’ve been talking with friends and colleagues and asking them if they could do it all over would they have gone to their alma maters and studied the same subjects, gone elsewhere to learn something else, or even skipped school and just gone into the workforce sooner. Very unscientific, but these conversations have been interesting.  Very few people would have taken the same path they did. Most would have gone to different schools to study different topics, but a few (like me) would have been happy to just get right into the working world.
 
When I was looking for a job in advertising, the thought of getting an opportunity anywhere without a degree or some internship experience was crazy to me. But in the (relatively) short time I have had a career the whole landscape of advertising/media/content has shifted. Some high-school aged students have a better grasp on branding and forging meaningful connections with people than folks who’ve spent their lives doing that work.
 
And this is something we’re seeing across industries. There is this massive pool of self-starters out there who are being ushered into a 2-4 year holding pattern before corporations deem them worthy of contributing. This seems like a huge waste to me. Capturing their passion for work, for creating things, for building communities bigger than themselves shouldn’t be put on hold.
 
Every aspect of the working world is transforming today and will transform again completely in the next decade or so. If how we evaluate people, identify who can contribute, or even where we look for the next big hire doesn’t completely change too – we’re going to be training and hiring people to enter a workforce that no longer exists!
 
Walking the floor matters so much
 
Interestingly, this point was mentioned by a handful of speakers at the Wellbeing event – and it’s something I’ve certainly heard at other events and from some of my mentors over the years. Yet, it’s so important when creating a meaningful environment where your employees can feel healthy that it’s always worth mentioning again and clarifying what this is and what it should not be. As a leader, a colleague, a new joiner, or even someone who thinks they are the lowest rung on the ladder ‘walking the floor’ is one of the greatest things you can do. It’s about stepping outside of your work for a moment and appreciating your environment, your coworkers, and your place. It’s a moment to build camaraderie, to check in on a human level, and to celebrate, commiserate and experience all the wonderful emotions that come with being a human being!
 
It has nothing to do with making sure people are working, are at their desks, are getting their job done. We have other ways to measure and observe that. “Walking the floor” is the opportunity to foster community, to humanize yourself and your teams. To check in and show you care – and maybe get a little care back in return. It’s building that connection between others and yourself. A chance for everyone to show they’re not just automatons working away, but that we’re all people looking for a little extra love in a crazy world.
 
And this just isn’t about the people you are in the same physical location as. ‘Walking the floor’ with your remote workers is just as, if not more, important. Are you checking in with them in the same way? Are they able to virtually ‘walk the floor’ If needed in other locations or departments?
 
It only takes a few minutes to check-in with someone and wish them well – to show them you appreciate them. It’ll take much longer to invoke that appreciation if all you’re ever doing is asking them for work or work-related updates.
 
Tim Middleton
Agency Director, Havas People USA

Businesses require conflict to function. And conflict takes many shapes and sizes: delegating a task to a colleague, choosing who to promote, etc. These are essential to day-to-day operating functions, yet we often dread and run from conflict. This creates conflict debt.
 
Like most debts, conflict debt will get paid, but often it’s paid by those who don’t have the context to make an informed decision.
 
For example, consider that you’re a CEO for a retail company. Your CMO wants to collect demographic data on your shoppers and your CFO wants shoppers to sign up for credit cards. Instead of choosing one, you say yes to both, leaving your sales staff on the front-lines to make an uninformed decision on what to collect – they know your shoppers will not fill out a survey AND apply for a credit card. And all of this was because you didn’t want to tell your CMO or CFO that what they wanted was not a priority at that time.
 
Conflict debt erodes at organizations, because it erodes the trust your people have in your business. Coworkers count on each other to make hard decisions and deal with conflict. When it isn’t dealt with, it leads to higher burnout rates, greater turnover, lack of innovation, etc.
 
But conflict gets a bad rep. Many see conflict as the antithesis of teamwork, when in reality conflict is what makes teams. What is the point of a team if everyone is going the same way and there is no diversity of thought?
 
Think of a team of people pulling a tarp across a tent. They’re all trying to accomplish one thing – keep the tent from getting wet – and everyone is pulling in opposite directions to accomplish this goal. If a team member pulls too hard (e.g. is more powerful, is a loudmouth), then someone will get hurt. And people “let go” of their rope because they’re exhausted, they don’t feel heard, etc.
 
So how do you create productive conflict? It’s a team effort. Ask everyone on your team to identify what their unique “ropes” are:

1. What is the unique value of your role? What are you bringing to the table?
2. What are you representing? What defines success for you?
3. What’s the one thing that your role offers that drives everyone else nuts? (e.g. finance – “can we afford it?”)

 
Doing this will allow you to experience conflict as a role-based tension instead of a friction (an interpersonal experience).
 
For more info, read on here: https://hbr.org/2013/12/conflict-strategies-for-nice-people