Name: Smarts Illuminate
Based: Birmingham
Website: www.smartsilluminate.com
We are a PR and digital communications agency with offices in Birmingham and London, employing 18 people. Over the past year, we have changed our way of working considerably. The changes were rooted in a vision of where we want to be in five years’ time. As well as re-naming our business to reflect our offering, we wanted to create an environment of creativity and hard work by giving people the ultimate in work-life balance. We therefore implemented a work anytime, anywhere policy.
By planning workloads in advance, we have given our staff the opportunity to do their work wherever they want and work whenever they want. The only requirements are that everyone attends a weekly diary meeting and client catch ups, everyone must be contactable by phone for colleagues and clients during normal working hours and everyone must complete all work assigned to them to an excellent standard.
Outside of these requirements every member of staff can come and go as they please. In addition, we’ve created ‘headroom’ for all members of staff. By repositioning senior people to act as consultants to those handling customer accounts, we have allowed room for team members to step up and take responsibility for structuring and delivering integrated marketing campaigns. Two members of the team have been promoted as a result.
Christine Smart is a senior consultant at Smarts Illuminate
