Precis on creating an agency everyone wanted to work for
Transparency, health & well-being, diversity and inclusion, celebrating successes and learning and development are all values that have driven Precis Digital to global success. Their approach also won them the Best Place to Work at The Drum Awards for Agency Business. Here is their award-winning case study.
People have always been a core part of Precis' strategy, and our long-term vision is to build a world-class workplace. Precis recognizes a unique opportunity to amplify Nordic principles across its global footprint. Our objective is to be the premier destination for top talent by prioritizing both high performance, wellbeing, and fostering a culture of learning and strong leadership.
We measure success through an employee engagement survey, Peakon, internal reports such as our annual D&I report, and external accreditation, such as Great Place to Work.
Strategy
Key principles:
At Precis, we have set key principles that guide our behavior and decisions. These principles include embracing change, encouraging curiosity and learning, being helpful and collaborative, sharing knowledge, providing and accepting feedback honestly, and valuing transparency over rigid hierarchy. We understand that culture plays a crucial role in driving performance, and hence, it is one of the four areas we evaluate during performance reviews, with each area being equally weighted. This ensures that adherence to our principles is given due importance and accounted for in performance evaluations.
Our Health Strategy
Precis believes health is both physical and mental and has a number of initiatives to promote the well-being of our employees. While each office has a local strategy adapted to cultural expectations, common themes include: free massages, a contribution towards gym classes, ergonomic assessments, and access to an EAP.
Every year Precis also gives an extra day paid leave to support mental wellbeing, provides support and training to managers on mental health, as well as company seminars on mental health topics. This year the focus was on establishing boundaries.
Transparency:
Transparency is a key principle at Precis, and this is shown throughout your journey in the organization. From the outset, candidates are shown our salary bands, review process, and expectations in order to reach each level. Performance reviews take place every 6 months and also include reviews from peers to their manager once per year.
Performance is also celebrated as it relates to our culture, with culture a key factor in each review cycle and peer bonuses delivered every month for those recognized for living up to those principles.
Celebrating as One Team:
While at Precis we provide a flexible working from home policy, we also value togetherness to foster the culture we have crafted so carefully over the years. Last year, Precis celebrated its 10-year anniversary. To mark the occasion, we hosted all 600 of our employees, previous employees, and key partners at our headquarters in Stockholm for a full two days of celebration. The theme being, ‘Together at last’ (after Covid). It was crucial that this event wasn’t seen as just another company conference, there was no corporate speeches or enforced fun. It was a festival of celebration and one huge thank you to everyone involved in our journey so far. The event was so successful that we have decided to repeat this event yearly, with each office hosting the entire company to show the very best parts of their culture – and to come together as one.
Approach to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion:
Diversity, equity, and inclusion are at the heart of our company's values. We are committed to building a workplace that attracts talent and provides opportunities for everyone, regardless of their background or perspectives. To ensure accountability, we have conducted an annual D&I report since 2021. The report presents data on our diversity distribution, and we openly share this information with all employees. We actively try to provide opportunities to all our employees, for example, hosting a voluntary confidence and public speaking masterclass for our female and minority employees.
To enhance diversity and inclusion, we have established the Perspectives Panel comprising individuals with diverse backgrounds, experiences, and viewpoints. This panel plays a vital role in contributing to key projects, decisions, and driving progress in diversity and inclusion initiatives. The panel consists of three senior managers and 17 participants across our various offices.
Promoting Gender and Racial Equality:
We actively strive to increase female representation in leadership positions and although progress is being made, we acknowledge that more efforts are needed to achieve our target of a 60/40 gender split. Moreover, a significant portion of our managers belong to a racial or ethnic minority, reflecting our commitment to a diverse leadership team. Furthermore, we are proud to have closed the gender pay gap, ensuring equal pay for equal work across all levels at Precis.
Learning and Development:
In order to ensure our commitment to offering world-class service to our clients, learning is an important part of any employee’s experience. We have designed our very own onboarding platform complete with ways of working in each of our key areas.
Furthermore, each month, we have dedicated learning time throughout the organization & monthly lunch and learning sessions. We have launched the Precis mentoring program and we regularly support development outside of Precis too. For instance, several years in a row we have hosted an award for the best marketing thesis in Sweden and try to outreach to universities across our markets where new solutions can be found to some of the oldest marketing problems.
Results
Precis prioritizes a great work environment by adhering to core principles, encouraging continuous learning, providing comprehensive health strategies, and recognizing the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion. So how do you put something like this into numbers? Precis consistently measures our employee well-being every 3 months through Peakon surveys to see how our actions are measuring up to our principles. Among other figures, our participation rate is around 81%, with an average eNPS of 52 – this is within the top 25% of our industry.
Mental wellbeing score is in the top 25