How to keep an agency happy and healthy: the downside(s)
Previously, we talked about the advantages of being a remote agency. A fair part two is to discuss the downsides. There are really only ever three major ones.
Personal problems
Some people don’t get on with working from home. It can be lonely. While we get together as often as possible, and many of our people have friends and partners and lives outside of work to keep them occupied, sometimes you need human contact. Getting out and meeting other people. We’ll cover how to mitigate this in part three.
Working environment
It’s really important people are physically able to work from home. A dedicated, quiet space. Some people don’t, and you might not find out until it’s too late. We learned the hard way about certain health and safety issues just because people aren’t in your office, doesn’t make you any less responsible for their wellbeing while they work. Again, we’ll address this in part three.
When Code Enigma formed we no choice but to adopt a distributed model. The original directors were strung across the UK and France. We have no regrets. We’ve learned a lot, but it’s really working for us and Code Enigma is growing.
Burnout
We firmly believe people should work their contracted hours and no longer.
What good does it do you if you burn out your most important asset – your people – for short-term gain? It’s often said losing a good person is one of the most expensive things that can happen to a company.
The cost of sourcing a replacement, agency fees, the time to interview them properly, hiring them, training them (and sometimes finding out they’re no good and starting again), then the time it takes for them to build relationships with clients, other team members, and find their place in the team. These costs are incalculable but undeniably very high.
Look after your valued assets now.
In the next post, we’ll discuss how to mitigate these potential issues.
Greg Harvey, co-founder and director, Code Enigma
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