Rita Baltazar, co-founder & partner at WYgroup, was interviewed by RHMagazine, on the group’s internal culture as the basis for responding to employees’ needs.
WYgroup is a holding company of 7 different companies – Bliss, Bloomcast, By, Fever, Performance Sales, Nervo, White – in the field of Creativity, Design & Technology, and Media & Data. Now celebrating 20 years, it has been growing consistently and counts nowadays with more than 320 people, continuing to focus on recruiting talent, always aiming at the future.
Your specialty is Customer Experience solutions, that is, ensuring that the consumer has the best possible experience when interacting with a brand. Do you follow the same concept internally with your employees, concerning a strong internal culture?
Our identity and focus are oriented towards Customer Experience, where we see ourselves as experience designers. We combine the human touch with technology, creativity, and innovation. Everything we do is supported by a strong internal culture, which is transmitted at all levels of our structure, and which has been our focus over the years. For us, it is an essential condition to optimize an experience that promotes physical and psychological well-being, as well as a working space and actions aimed at the growth and development of all our employees.
Your investment in creating magnificent facilities overlooking the sea in Oeiras was a reflection of this culture.
We believe in a future of hybrid, flexible and agile work, more humanized, and adapted to various tasks and styles. 3 years ago, we designed our Beach House, which has now become an experience hub of around 3000m2 facing St. Amaro de Oeiras beach. A home designed for everyone, which prioritizes the positive experience of employees on site, their well-being, comfort, sustainability, and interaction, and where you are welcomed with open arms – just like in our home. We created collaborative areas with the design of co-working spaces, an amphitheater, rooms for meetings and calls, Video Broadcast rooms, Phone Booths, and Sleeping spots. It was inspired by our ecosystem – the sea, creativity – and aimed at promoting a sustainable lifestyle, where we choose natural materials, consider acoustics, and let in natural light and an unbeatable view of the sea with full-length windows, inspiring those who work in the lounge, with sofas, benches and suspended beds, and other decorative elements thought out in detail. We have long tables, reminiscent of the tables where a family gathers, and a beach walkway along the 110 meters of open space. This house is representative of our culture and identity, prepared for learning, growth, and sharing culture. A house that, we believe, will keep all the incredible talent we have in-house, and even more will join us.
During confinement and teleworking, the new facilities were being completed. How did you integrate this new reality with the facilities designed for work on the premises?
In a pandemic context, we were forced to holistically rethink our work model. We know that it is the relationships we create and shape, based on the values of talent, energy, work, and integrity, that give rise to the group’s consolidated growth and success and that have a continued impact on the collaborative culture. And we are, by definition, “Shaped by Curiosity”, curious people who instinctively challenge norms, drive innovative ideas, and encourage entrepreneurial and visionary thinking. This enthusiastic spirit, of wanting to know, do, experience, and learn more, is part of us. Therefore, the reinvention of this collective culture in the home office, which required adaptation in record time, was challenging, because our day-to-day life, and especially the creative process, is fed by an intense collaborative process, until now physical and close.
We immediately adapted good leadership practices to a digital world. There was fundamental work on managing expectations and constant contact with our employees, prioritizing flexibility, empathy, and understanding, but also fluid and transparent communication, without blocking information about the organizational adaptation to a new reality. We attach importance to frequent feedback, identifying how each person thinks and feels about their Employee Journey so that we can increasingly make improvements in each person’s development processes and culture.
What has changed in the relationship with and between employees?
We don’t stop learning, we don’t stop welcoming, we don’t stop celebrating, we don’t stop communicating genuinely! We creatively adapted to the digital format with strategic and training sessions, we made surprise thank you videos and we didn’t let the days that have always been celebrated go unnoticed. A virtual inauguration of the “Casa de Praia”, “Ask me Anything” streaming sessions and almost daily emails from leadership served to communicate transversally to all teams. New achievements, messages to thank you for your efforts, recognize and congratulate, sharing tips, remembering the importance of eating healthy and exercising, motivating e-learning or other hobbies, curiosities, memes, or even a bit of history – everything was the inspiration for us remain available, always reinforcing that we are in this together and that we are all doing our best. These are simple messages, but they carry enormous weight in monitoring and encouraging everyone in the WYgroup.
We believe that technology, in itself, is just an enabler of interactions. There needs to be a positive work environment, increasingly humanized, and focused on empathy and collaboration, to build the future alongside the best talent. This is the journey we take every day, and it is just beginning.
See the original article here published in RH Magazine.
