WAA refutes rumours about working day cutback
WAA has moved to kill speculation that it has placed account directors on a two day working week, saying that all staff are working full time and that it is currently recruiting new account handlers.
Word had reached The Drum from sources in Birmingham that the agency was being forced to cut the number of working days within the 50 strong workforce, but WAA has outright denied this and said that while it has had to make ‘a small number of redundancies’ over the previous months, this was nothing more than most agencies had been forced to do in the current climate.
This included one account handler who was working on a two day week for personal reasons and Rachel Withington, group account director, who has now taken up a position at Big Communications as an account director.
PR account director Faith Brotherston has also left the agency, but this was to take up a more senior role at Bright Consultancy.
Andrew Wilson, chief executive of WAA said that the rumours were completely untrue and that the agency had around 50 full time members of staff and that it was currently hiring for three positions – an account director to replace Brotherston, a digital account director and an interface developer.
“We have made two people redundant and one person has left, that is it. At the time were forced to cut costs like every other agency. Everyone else at the agency works on a full-time basis so there is nothing to these rumours whatsoever,” Wilson said.
The agency has recently announced that it has created the new brand identity for private helicopter charter company Hawkrise while The Drum understands that it has also recently picked up two further accounts.