Lockdown Proves A Uk Leveller When It Comes To Talent

While lockdown has denied us those face to face business relationships we cherish even more than ever, has anyone else noticed the fresh alternative its given us on how we develop those relationships while the physical drawbridge has been raised?

Regardless of your chosen weapon, Teams, Zoom, Skype or any other, video conferencing has felt like it has opened a small window into the private lives of those we do business with during the nine to six. A busy kitchen set up with occasional (and always endearing) child interruptions, or a hastily arranged spare bedroom reconfigured as a makeshift office. The artwork hanging on a lounge wall, or the eclectic book collection in the dining room have all accidentally given us a fresh dimension and the tiniest peek into the private lives of the people we normally work with day in, day out. It’s the stuff we wouldn’t normally see, and as we’re naturally curious characters, its been fascinating viewing.

But the one thing we have lost with this new method of staying up to date with your team, your customers or clients is your location. Whatever the working from home backdrop to the calls, its impossible to decipher exactly where in the world they’re sat. This has presented clients with a view of our agency shorn of consistent identity other than one thing: its people.

Now is the time that true brand and culture has shone through. Ideas, successful problem-solving and smart thinking are never more apparent and under the spotlight. Lockdown has proved that culture isn’t about how fancy the croissants are on the breakfast bar each morning, the dancing logo or the flamboyant grass-covered breakout pods. Lockdown has handed us an agency version of The Voice. Unable to see the full package – the shiny reception, the award-laden boardroom, the swish bank of TV news and social screens – the focus has been drawn solely towards creative problem-solving.

At W North, we’re part of a wider agency, which is headquartered in the heart of London. But as we speak, W’s agency is currently located in all parts of the UK. We’re in Scotland, across the North East, in North Yorkshire and the North West. They’re on the South coast and they’re in the West country. Of course, there’s many in parts of London too. The desire for young creatives to gravitate towards London is unlikely to diminish in a dramatic fashion, but diminish it will. This period has proved that talent doesn’t actually have an address. We’re delivering the expectant W1 standards from all four corners of the UK. If you’re like us and deliver work on behalf of London-based clients, this lockdown has proved a great leveller. As a region, we have to take all the opportunity we can to prove that great talent doesn’t have to come with a postcode inside the M25. We’ve had the opportunity to prove it and now it’s no fault but our own if we let our business relationships slip back into hackneyed perceptions and lazy stereotypes.

Social mobility is a societal issue that can’t be solved by one PR agency, but with W North and latterly with WX, we’ve long understood the need and benefit in diversifying our hunt for talent and the need to pick from a pool that doesn’t begin and end with well-to-do parents from the Home Counties.

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to live in the middle of London, but understanding and accepting also that not wanting to do that shows no lesser ambition or hunger has helped us realise individuals’ ambitious and encourage a talent base far wider than we could have ever imagined.