On Happy Teams this week, we sat down with Barry from Lane Media to hear how they rebuilt their agency's culture from scratch.
At Lane Media in Edinburgh, team members regularly stay for over ten years. "Like every marketing agency, we're a social bunch," Barry explains.
"I think people wanting to spend time together outside of work as well as inside of work is a key part of it. We do regular kind of company sort of social get togethers. We do company away days."
This social focus shaped even their office design: "When we did a big office refurb, we built a really social kitchen. We created this space where we want people to be able to get together over lunch and not talk about work, and just be able to become more than just colleagues and more than just peers."
The results come from letting people own their work rather than watching the clock.
"I give them a lot of autonomy. The last thing anybody wants is to be told what to do and when to do it," Barry notes.
"As long as there's some guardrails or parameters about output and what needs to be done and keeping clients happy... you can just let people go off and manage their own diaries."
The approach works - with staff retention rates reaching 10+ years and the company recently achieving B Corp status.
Listen to the full Happy Teams episode with Barry from Lane Media.
