by Mike Sharkey
Staff Writer
When St. John & Partners got serious several years about moving into a bigger, better and newer space in Southpoint, the public relations and advertising agency did an interesting thing. The company asked its employees and clients for suggestions.
“Before we moved, we sent out a survey to all of our employees and asked them what they needed,” said Celia Weeks, vice president of Human Resources. “We told them to think pie-in-the-sky, then think about what they really need.”
According to Weeks, nearly every employee mentioned needing more conference room space and a bigger copy room. Those two requests were relatively simple compared to the big surprise the agency’s executives had planned.
“In the old space, everybody had an office except the account coordinators,” said Weeks, adding the plan was to move nearly everyone into a work station environment, a radical change from the closed-door world of the old office. “I was a nervous wreck the night before we told everyone. I was scared to death.”
Weeks said the agency showed everyone the new space — as rough as it was — bought them brown bag lunches in hard hats and laid out the plans for the future. Only one of the agency’s 50 employees balked at the idea and years later got her own office after petitioning Weeks on an annual basis.
That was almost eight years ago and today St. John & Partners has evolved into a 115-person agency based in Jacksonville with satellite offices in Detroit, Pittsburgh and Atlanta. The new space is also as employee-friendly as an office can get and that atmosphere is reflective of the agency’s overall attitude towards its employees.
There are many small conference rooms and areas complete with comfortable chairs and sofas and the latest in technology, state-of-the-art lighting, break rooms, Cokes for 25 cents, free snacks of the healthy and junk variety, a pool table, a foosball table and even a margarita machine dubbed “Big Mama” in an employee-naming contest.
“Big Mama” was purchased partially through an in-house garage sale during which St. John & Partners sold its excess promotional items to employees. The sale raised $500, the agency partners more than matched that amount and now an e-mail goes out once or twice a month announcing that “Big Mama is here.”
Those office perks complement what the agency does for its employees every day. There’s “Lunch Crunch” in which everyone is offered take out lunch that’s deducted from their paychecks, welcoming breakfasts or happy hours for new employees, birthday balloons and gift cards, TVs to keep employees informed about what’s going on in the world, flex time, weekly fun events and others.
“We wanted to create a great environment and be good to our people,” said Weeks, who has been with the agency for 22 years. “If we ask 110 percent of them we should give 110 percent. The agency may have 20 clients, but we have 115 clients. We take care of our employees, but we are not perfect. We do try to go above and beyond. This is hard work and while they are here we want them to have a good experience.”
Weeks said the agency’s turnover rate is very low, but people do leave. Often it’s for a move up or a spouse got a job in another city. An indicator of employee satisfaction may lie in this anecdote.
“One of our art directors said, ‘Even if you fire me, I’m still coming in every day,’” said Weeks.