Beanbags to Conference Tables: rbb Public Relations

Posted At: April 24, 2013 7:40 P.M.
by Kaitlyn Honnold

“You’re shrunk to the height of a nickel and thrown into a blender. Your mass is reduced so that your density is the same as usual. The blades start moving in sixty seconds. What do you do?” — Are You Smart Enough to Work at Google?

Now, I don’t want to give it away just yet, but if you’re interviewing at Google, you may want to know the answer. Google asks riddles, like the one above, to test its potential employees’ critical and creative thinking skills to make sure they’re the right fit.

“Tech companies are always on the cutting edge of employee maximization,” said rbb Public Relations CEO Christine Barney, APR, “because they have to get the most creativity possible out of their employees.”

Barney would know; maximizing employees is one of the things rbb Public Relations does best. As a self-proclaimed, employee-driven workplace, rbb has won every major PR agency award. Period.

Barney credits much of her agency’s success to creating a work environment to suit employee needs.

“When employees are treated well, they do a better job,” Barney said. She noted that the two primary issues driving employee satisfaction are flexibility and respect.

“There is no one size fits all workplace,” Barney said. “There is no one size fits all framework for productivity. If you work better in a team, you have to account for that. The respect comes from giving up control. You have to respect employees.”

The new rbb model is based on the theory that if you give your employees flexibility, you show trust. It’s all about treating your employees like adults.

How does one accomplish this goal?

Presenting the Christine Barney guide to a civilized “adult” workplace:

1. Listen: Don’t talk at employees, but with them.

Barney suggests the C-staff should get off “CEO Island.” “Everything is Top-down,” Barney noted in her speech to United Way Women’s Leadership. “The CEO comes out of their office and says, ‘This is my vision. I will bless all of you below me.’”

Rbb seeks input from all levels of employees in its 360-degree hiring process.

“I‘ve gotten to sit in on everything from summer intern interviews to the hiring of a CFO,” said Susie Gilden, account manager at rbb. “I’m not an executive vice president, but my opinion was just as important to the agency. It goes back to the workplace environment — we’re employee-driven and we get to help make those decisions.”

2. “Go” behaviors, not “no” behaviors: Let people make decisions.

Avoid policies aimed at stopping behaviors. “Go” behaviors can include flexible work schedules and spot bonuses. When a company facilitates “no” behaviors, people start living in fear of the things they shouldn’t do instead of the things they should do. Most workplaces are policy driven with rules that start with “thou shalt not.”

“If you want to listen to your iPod while you work, if that maximizes your productivity, then do it,” Barney said. “You’re going to get ‘yes’ more often than ‘no.’”

3. Trust: Treat people like adults.

“Even if you have the strictest policies, people will still abuse them,” Barney said. “So don’t sacrifice the productivity of your employees to try to control the few.

“It boils down to giving employees the freedom and giving them opportunity to figure out how and when the work should be done. You can still give people constructive criticism,” she said, “but if you do so from a position of respect, then they will be more likely to seek out feedback in the future.”

4. One culture: There can’t be different rules for the higher-ups.

Rbb not only values transparency for its clients, but also for its employees.

“I run completely open books,” Barney said. “Anyone can come in and see everything aside from individual salaries. People really appreciate that. That way, they always know the financial situation of the company.

“That level of transparency lets people know right from the start this is an agency where everyone is treated like adults and equally. Secrecy breeds fear. You should respect your employees to understand the decisions that you make. You need to bring them in the loop. Other companies have a lot of top-down communication, but it’s not employee-interactive.”

Barney isn’t just blowing smoke. Rbb has been placed in the Wall Street Journal’s top 30 best small workplaces in America four years in a row.

Gilden agreed that the work environment is much to thank for rbb’s success.

“Every account is driven by this goal of making sure that our programs are award-winning,” Gilden said. “It guides everything that we do; it helps us in our thinking. When we win agency awards, it’s because Christine Barney as CEO really practices what she preaches.”

Barney developed rbb’s new employee-driven framework after years of experience and sourcing inspiration from books such as “Employees First, Customers Second” and Zappos’ “Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion and Purpose.” As we know, creativity doesn’t exist in a vacuum and inspiration should be sourced from everywhere possible — the CEO is no exception.

Barney wrote in an article for PR News, “At its heart, the concept of recognizing great work is designed to inspire. Who among us hasn’t read about an award-winning program and thought, ‘that’s brilliant,’ or ‘we could do something similar here.’ Inspiration is something we all need and shouldn’t be shy about seeking.”

Part of rbb’s “employee maximization” is ensuring its employees can find inspiration wherever is best suited to them.

“I usually do my best creative thinking in the shower or in my car driving to the office,” Gilden said. “For me, those are the places I find creative moments of inspiration. I value a place to be alone, but I am talkative (such is the nature of our industry) so I do love to hash out ideas with other people.”

Gilden said when she is looking to hash out some ideas with others she goes to the playroom. The playroom is a meeting space designed with beanbag chairs and an iPod dock to play music.

Do you work better from home?

“One thing that always annoys me is people who say they only allow their senior employees to work from home,” Barney said. “We’re all on a 24-hour schedule. So what’s so magical about the hours between 9 and 6?”

Rbb allows its employees to set their own hours.

“We have a system where people can log where they are,” Barney said in her presentation to the United Way Women’s Leadership. “[…] We know you can’t fit all your work in between the hours of nine to five and your personal life in after six and weekends.”

Need a quieter brainstorming atmosphere? You can choose between the den, a more office-like, functional conference room, or any of the individual silent rooms.

“Half the office is built in one room,” Barney said. “We have many rooms, but you have to find the one that works for you.”

Barney said they only have three rules for brainstorming: “There are no bad ideas, negativity must be left outside and brainstorming must consist of people who don’t work on the account.”

“The way the office is situated really allows for group thinking,” Gilden said. “I can say, ‘Hey, I‘m having trouble. Does anyone have a contact or can anyone help me make this pitch newsworthy?’ [The office] really allows for employees to jump up and say ‘I can help!’”

Gilden said it’s not just about the account teams: Brainstorming is open to everyone.

“I try to really invite people across the board,” Gilden said. “If you only brainstorm with your team, then they’re too involved and can be limited. If I had a consumer product account I could bring in someone from social media or B2B to get input from all different outlets.”

Barney said there are typically two cultures in a company: the culture on paper and the reality.

“Your brand is not defined by what you say about it,” Barney said in her presentation. “It’s defined by what your employees say about it. The number one face of your brand is the people who work there.”