The&Partnership (T&P) is a UK-based creative agency backed by WPP plc, the world’s largest advertising agency. They also have a partnership with m/SIX, a media planning and buying network, via a joint venture with GroupM. As a subsidiary of a giant parent company, T&P wanted to implement their own HR platform to help manage their people and processes as they scaled, increase engagement, and create a sense of belonging for their employees spread across 30 sites in Africa, Asia Pacific, Europe, and North and South America. They didn’t want a corporate type of platform as that didn’t fit their creative agency vibe. Rather, they wanted a fun and user-friendly platform that their people would actually use. After watching a Bob demo and seeing its attractive UX and UI, they knew they’d found what they’d been looking for.
Automating HR and localizing tasks per site
Before implementing Bob, T&P didn’t have an HR platform and managed HR using Excel spreadsheets and email. However, as they scaled, it became clear that this wasn’t sustainable. Ashlee Hoffman, Senior Business Partner at The&Partnership, explained, “Seeing how big we were getting, it just wasn’t tenable to have all these emails and Word documents flying around and not knowing who worked for us and in which countries.” She added, “Like with onboarding and offboarding. It used to be that the managers used to email HR and IT about a new starter, which wasn’t efficient. We don’t have that anymore.”
Now, HR uses Bob’s onboarding task lists to automate the onboarding of their new hires, which are triggered according to site. And for T&P, sites don’t just refer to geographic location. Bob’s flexibility has enabled T&P to set up two different fields for sites, “Site Country,” which they use for their locations, and “Site Name,” which they use for ad accounts or teams. Their onboarding tasks lists cover everything they need—from ordering new equipment from IT and asking new hires to fill out forms, to reminding managers to take out their new hires for lunch on their first day. With 30 different sites listed in Bob, T&P has created dozens of task lists, which helps to keep their business running smoothly while also enabling them to onboard their people remotely.
T&P has also set up tasks enabling their people to self-serve and fill out or update their details in Bob independently—rather than emailing Payroll, which they did before. Now, all T&P employees can go into Bob and enter or update their bank details, marital status, and address independently, cutting out the middleman and reducing the risk of error. A win-win for all.
Discovering more about their people and measuring DE&I
T&P is a subsidiary of a huge parent company with almost 1,200 employees across 30 sites. As such, they have a complex organizational structure. Add a hybrid working model to the mix, and it was clear they needed to do something to boost engagement company-wide. T&P’s HR was intent on building a warm company culture for their people working near and far, and Bob has filled that gap. Ashlee explains, “That’s where Bob is really helping us, to bring in that sense of belonging.” T&P uses Bob’s homepage to share internal news, and their people post Shoutouts and Kudos to celebrate milestones and accomplishments, increasing engagement across the company.
As a global creative agency managing multiple accounts spanning different industries and markets, T&P wanted to discover more about their people’s unique skills and capabilities. So, they created a task asking their people to fill out their superpowers, including the languages they speak and the business tools they are proficient in, plus their industry experience, including previous pitch experience, category experience, and so on. This information gives T&P a clear business advantage—account managers can now tap into Bob’s Clubs when pitching for a new account or working on a campaign to discover more about their people’s unique skills and experiences and use it to drive extra business value.
T&P also uses Bob’s People Analytics to learn more about their people. They are serious about tracking diversity data, such as gender diversity, pay equity, retention and turnover among different employee groups, and the number of women in leadership roles. They’ve tailored their diversity strategy per site according to local legal requirements and use the data from Bob to guide their diversity strategy and become more ethical in their recruitment processes.
Bob has helped T&P to manage its complex organizational structure in numerous ways. From driving engagement and enabling their people to learn more about each other to providing data that helps them track DE&I efforts across sites, Bob is creating a warm community and supporting the company as they continue to grow.
Main takeaways
- T&P’s HR has replaced their spreadsheets and emails with Bob as a single source of truth.
- Bob has helped T&P to boost engagement across their complex organizational structure.
- Bob’s workflows have enabled T&P to tailor their onboarding by site (geographic location and account) and onboard their people remotely.
- Bob’s Clubs provide T&P with an internal resource for viewing their people’s unique skills and industry experience, delivering business value.
- T&P uses Bob’s People Analytics to track DE&I efforts and refine their diversity strategy.
