Culture Change
DO THE RIGHT THING.
I’ve been fortunate to hold roles with passionate people, resources and the platform to impact the agenda of critical societal issues. Utilizing creativity and cleverness to develop awareness of such topics that are important to not only the employees of our organizations but advance the betterment of equality, diversity, health, climate and more. The teams I worked with were so passionate about all of these topics that the creativity flowed and we provided the environment for folks to feel safe about communicating issues important to them.
Imagine going to your first day of school in a Lamborghini. On the West Side of Chicago, the kids with good grades aren’t the ones celebrated in the High Schools. We aimed to change that by making it cool to be smart, cool to be on the Honor Roll. A motivated group of people ( including the good people at Xtreme Xperience) came together to show kids the reward for hard work and focus. That getting good grades can be cool. The results speak for themselves. After the first year of Honor Roll at Wells High School, the Honor Roll rose by 134% with 26% of the kids in the school on the Roll. This might be my favorite Community work we did on the West Side.
In 2019, we took the #blackatwork idea to the amazing 3% conference with an experiential installation that had hundreds of attendees learn first-hand the experiences. The team that implemented this were incredible and so passionate about the message and the overall work ahead in the advertising industry.
Every month, peers nominated someone to win MVP and at the end of the year, somebody won MVP of the year. Rudy, our security guard, won the MVP this year and he is also my all-time MVP.
Most Innovative CUlture
Big win for the team to be recognized for the innovation in having a powerful employee experience and culture.
Can’t Cancel Pride
Pride events around the world have been put on hold, so we created Can’t Cancel Pride – an LGBTQ+ led social movement that celebrates the legacy of queer liberation.
The Naked Truth
Together with The Pink Agenda, the agency takes ad creativity to another level with “The Naked Truth”.
#Blackatwork
Havas created a real-life obstacle course in the lobby that lets employees experience the kind of frustrations and irritations known as “micro-aggressions” that many black people face in the office.
breast cancer
Our lobby at Grand/Wabash in Chicago is one of the most trafficked corners. We leveraged our lobby to raise over $25,000 for breast cancer research by stopping people in their tracks. It even triggered a call from the Alderman.
Licks for pride
We created an ice cream shop to raise money for the About Face Theatre, a well-known Chicago theatrical institution dedicated to producing LGBTQ-themed works.
The Dream Gap
The third installment of #blackatwork highlighting black superstars in traditionally white industries.
Building Culture
Building a happy and healthy culture has always been the goal for our leadership teams. In advertising, that is not a trivial task given the hours, grind and service-model. We worked hard to make the office fun, different and engaging.
Chicago Culture
2016 Interview: Havas Chicago has received a ton of recognition for its top-notch culture. How important is the employee experience to the success of the agency?