Work half-time!

The idea for Lift was born in the head of Jiří Jón, head of strategy and consulting at Ogilvy and lecturer at VŠKK. "Every year at the beginning of the semester I ask students where they see their future career, whether in an agency, on the client side or if they want their own project. The answers used to be 40/20/40, now it's about 20/10/70," says Jiří Jón. This trend is evident not only here, but also around the world - for example, in the UK, more than a third of people across the population are considering starting their own business this year in addition to their job. [1] Among young people aged 25 to 30, the figure is as high as 69%. The reason behind this is not only earn money, but also the possibility of self-fulfillment and developing one's own interests.

"At first glance, this phenomenon does not play into the hands of the agencies. However, our industry cannot do without creative and entrepreneurial talents, so we tried to connect the interests of both parties through LIFT. Those who go through it, or at least prepare and present their project including a business plan, get a much broader context for thinking about business and brand. They can then better understand the complex reality that clients are navigating today - what they are solving and where their priorities lie. Ironically, communication tends to be only a small part of the whole agenda. A proper understanding of client needs leads to better partnership and service on the agency side," says Jón.

Dora Grimová, People Director at Ogilvy, says: "Entrepreneurial beginnings tend to be very uncertain, especially financially. They require a lot of time and energy to bring your own idea to life, and that often doesn't go together with a full-time job. That's why the winner who impresses the jury the most with his or her project gets the opportunity to work part-time for six months with the certainty of getting a full salary in his or her account every month."

Any employee who works at least 80% of the time, excluding management, director and other managerial positions, can apply for the programme. The condition is that the project must not be in direct competition with Ogilvy's activities. The submitted projects were judged by a jury consisting of representatives of management: Ondřej Obluk, CEO of Ogilvy, Dita Stejskalová, Business Director & Partner of Ogilvy, Jiří Jón and Dora Grimová. The following criteria were evaluated on a scale from 1 to 10: idea and originality of the project, thoughtfulness and quality of the business plan, determination, ambition versus realism and level of presentation. 

The winner of the pilot was Linda Bui, Account Executive from Team Ticino, who with her cousin founded Rinni, a handmade beaded jewellery brand for women who love summer and the atmosphere that comes with it. "I believed in my project from the very beginning, yet I was nervous about presenting to management - unnecessarily so. I got a lot of valuable recommendations on how to move the project forward. In the next six months, I'll focus mainly on solidifying the foundations of the business - I want to find reliable suppliers of quality materials, start presenting the products on social media, and establish cooperation with influencers. The next step will be to automate processes so I can go back to my full-time job at Ogilvy after six months."

In addition to LIFT, this March the agency introduced another new benefit for employees - one day of paid time off each month in addition to statutory and loyalty leave. This brought the total annual paid leave pool up by twelve days to thirty-seven days. Both Lift and My Day are in response to feedback from Ogilvy employees and are based on a detailed mapping of agency benefits conducted earlier in the year.

"Having benefits that give employees partial flexibility and room for self-fulfilment is a necessity today, especially for the younger generation. It has interesting potential for us as a company as well - we can broaden our horizons about new areas of business, new approaches to work and, above all, we can work with much more motivated and ambitious colleagues. And that is crucial for our creative industry," says Dora Grimová.

"We all need to take some time off in the middle of the working week, to extend the weekend, to take care of various non-work matters or simply to stay at home, either with the children or to have some time to ourselves. We introduced My Day to promote mental health and work-life balance," says Dora Grimová. The response has been very positive. "Of course, this goes hand in hand with many challenges - we have to learn to set up collaboration differently in individual teams and plan capacity better to be flexible and able to respond to the needs of clients," concludes Grimová.

Credit:

Program Concept: Jiří Jón, Dora Grimová, Jan Fryč

Copywriting: Richard Kolbe

Design: Martina Podoláčková

Web: Viliam Bielik, Lukáš Sýkora

Project Management: Veronika Krejčí

[1] Enterprise Nation Study, January 2024. Available here: https://www.enterprisenation.com/learn-something/than-third-brits-thinking-starting-a-business-in-2024/