Written By: Dhruvy Rawal, Blog Manager, Centennial College
Working from home during the pandemic has challenged us all to adapt to a new normal. Now, we may be challenged yet again when adjusting to a hybrid working model in the coming months.
Many of us are feeling anxious, dreadful, excited and in some cases fearful at the thought of returning to work in person. To find out what ‘work’ may look like for the PR industry in the near future, a group of post-grad PR students from Centennial College hosted a virtual discussion with a distinguished panel of PR and HR experts who shared these key takeaways.
1. Stronger team bonding: As a result of remote workplaces, PR professionals are pausing, observing and getting inspired by practitioners from within their existing network; an opportunity that wasn’t as readily available pre-pandemic.
“Kaiser & Partners organizes virtual luncheon sessions to discuss insightful industry events, learn from one another as team members and engage in cultural exchanges to foster a deeper sense of community amongst employees,” said Maggie Hall, account director, Kaiser & Partners
2. Taking care of mental health: To ensure that employees aren’t left feeling burnt out and exhausted, agencies are taking a preventive approach to mental health.
“At Media Profile, each staff meeting ends with a wellness activity such as yoga or meditation to help retain mental freshness. Every year, the agency provides $500 to each employee to maintain overall health and wellness and $2,000 to access mental health resources, when required. Two mental health paid days per year are also provided,” said Stephanie Bell, vice-president and head of human resources, Media Profile.
3. Personalized work models: Agencies like Agnostic and Argyle PR are surveying employees to get a gauge of their feelings about returning to work and many are open to accommodating those who’d like to continue working from home.
Lena Knight, vice-president of Agnostic shared the agency’s long-standing ‘employee-centric’ work policy, even pre-pandemic. “The agency is less concerned about where an employee is working from and more focused on creating flexible support for their employees,” she said.
Meanwhile, Andrea Cunningham, operations manager, Argyle PR shared that they are indulging their staff with some retail therapy by providing a small monetary incentive to put towards the purchase of a new coffee mug, a new computer bag or transit fare…a little perk to make the commute back into the office a little smoother.
4. Maintaining work-life balance: Working from home means the lines between our professional and personal lives are often blurred and during the pandemic, many employees were working long past 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Most have implemented policies to maintain work hours and restrict emails and calls from clients and managers after hours.
Media Profile provides employees with financial resources to work from anywhere in the world for one month at a time. “These ‘nomad’ programs provide employees with a change of scenery and an immersive cultural experience while completing their day-to-day client work,” said Stephanie.
Many employers are going the extra mile to make sure their team members feel valued and taken care of. If you are experiencing anxiety, insecurity or fear about returning to your office, contact your HR department to help you ease back into your workplace with a collaborative and open perspective.
What changes are you most excited to see from your employers in the future? What about the 4-day work week? Let us know your thoughts!
To make sure you can go into your quest for internships with confidence, we’ve put together an awesome group of current and former interns who will walk us through how they landed their first PR gigs.
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