Time to work, time to play
A week at Sense Media
I suggested this blog to Rob because we want to find the right people to work with – people who can make up for our own deficiencies but also people who are confident to take on their own initiatives and responsibilities.
In the interview for my role, I made a point of highlighting a few key passages from the website as reasons I wanted to work for Sense Media. Two months in, I wanted to reflect a bit on how those ideas have translated into reality.
Firstly, the flexibility has been brilliant – so have the Friday afternoons off! When I started, I said there was enough to do for me to work a 6-day week (I didn’t) – but actually I was just busy, and excitedly devouring the new subject matter.
Now I’m settling in a little more, it’s great to see a rhythm emerging, although what makes it enjoyable is that I can set my own agenda to a certain extent. Of the ten Friday afternoons I have so far experienced, I have chosen to work on four of them because I was enjoying what I was doing, or making up a few hours from doing the school run during the rest of the week.
For example, last week I spent a solid 3 days doing admin I have – I admit – been avoiding for a good few weeks. I was getting progressively more tired (it’s very detail orientated and not my favourite use of time) so decided that Thursday would be a ‘me day’ with which I would do whatever I wanted. As a reward for myself, I spent two hours playing with one of our systems and frankly just messing about with it while listening to some rather loud music and talking to my kitten. That quickly turned into learning new stuff when I hit on something I realised could be quite useful to the business.
I’m very much a believer in taking a break in order to achieve more, after all, you cannot open your eyes until you first close them. That might sound a little Yoda-like, but think about it – if you are stressed about a problem, staring at it continuously will not give you a solution, because you’re not changing your approach.
What I hadn’t realised before was that you can create solutions even though you might not be aware of the problem. This can be mapped against all the great inventions which were completely unnecessary and now we cannot live without. Like Google, or chocolate, or cats. Maybe my frivolity is missing the mark… The point is that off the back of the morning of boogying and feline banter I managed to generate as many new sales leads for one of our clients than we had managed with our existing process in the previous two months.
I spent the rest of the day cleaning that data up to ensure it was useful and presentable, but what if I had not taken time out to take a break from admin?
I’m sure my boss will appreciate reading that the rest of my week included finishing the remaining admin and I took Friday afternoon to watch TV and read a car magazine.
That sums up one of the strengths within the business as an employer – the freedom to make a difference. We have our structured work and our responsibilities, of course – but we are also free to create new ideas, enjoy ourselves and share our experiences to have a degree of pride and ownership in not only what we work on but also how we work.
After all, aren’t those some of the qualities which embody a great employer? My payroll number is ‘3’. What will your number be?