Award-winning creative agency WiredCo. has unveiled a groundbreaking initiative, ‘Public Holidays Just Got Personal,’ under their WiredWellness program. This innovative policy allows employees to personalize their public holidays, accommodating their cultural, religious, and personal preferences.
David Kennedy, WiredCo. Partner, highlighted the motivation behind the move: “The more diverse our business becomes – not just in ethnicity, but also intergenerational working, beliefs, and ability – the more obvious it has become that the fixed traditional public holiday approach was no longer right.”
The initiative comes as a response to the growing demand for holiday flexibility, underscored by a recent Perkbox Australia study revealing that 58% of respondents prefer customizable public holidays. Angela Hampton, WiredCo. Founder & Managing Director, elaborated, “For us, it wasn’t just about finding a solution to Australia Day. We also had to think about people who don’t celebrate Christmas and Easter for religious reasons, and those who don’t celebrate The King’s birthday because they don’t place value in a monarchy.”
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The WiredCo. team unanimously supported the initiative, as Michelle Hampton, WiredCo. Partner, noted: “When we consulted our team, we discovered they were 100% in favour of ‘Public Holidays Just Got Personal’ because it showed trust, cultural-connectiveness, and helped them create a personal working style that was respectful and effective for them.”
However, implementing this initiative came with its challenges. Nikki Cranley, WiredCo. CFO, explained, “We’re an independent business, so any change presents a host of questions. We had to think about how to track these days, how best they accrue, how the team takes them, and how they communicate that flexibility with their teammates and clients.”
WiredWellness aims to support staff in their mental and physical wellness while providing job flexibility. Angela Hampton emphasized, “WiredWellness wasn’t a response to the pandemic lockdown working environment, it started long before that. We wanted to give our team space to decompress, so we created our monthly ReWired events. Then we gave our people access to a counselor to help them manage their mental wellbeing, so we made access to that unlimited.”
WiredCo. has a track record of pioneering employee-friendly policies, including remote working and ‘Pet-ernity’ leave. David Kennedy proudly stated, “We’re proud to say that WiredWellness has helped us achieve 95% team happiness, 97% job satisfaction, and stabilized retention at 81%. And we firmly believe it’s helped us commercially, with the business almost quadrupling in three years.”
As one of Australia’s fastest-growing independent creative brandformance businesses, WiredCo. is home to iconic brands like Pizza Hut, R.M.Williams, Red Bull, THE ICONIC, Peters Ice Cream, Georg Jensen, and Indeed. Their people-first culture continues to drive their success and innovation in the industry.
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