The upcoming Talent2017 Skills Summit on the 16th March is a fantastic opportunity 
In anticipation of the conference, we’re releasing a mini series of blog posts from some of the speakers of the Skills Summit, who have kindly offered to put their thoughts in writing. First in the series, hear from Louise Cotton, HR Director at iCrossing UK on how they engage with young talent.
At iCrossing in the UK, nearly half our employees are under the age of 30. Rather than making assumptions about what’s important to them – or listen to what other people say about Millennials, we’ve drawn our observations mostly based on what we’re told about how best we can engage with our youngest talent (by them).
Fundamentally, the way we behave at iCrossing works for a lot of our youngest team members – and the older ones, who understand how important being an employer that works for young people is for our Industry. And our approach works: 80% of our employees love working for iCrossing.
So how do we do it?
- We know that Hierarchy isn’t always important
Lots of iCrossing’s youngest team members aren’t afraid to speak up and challenge the people running the Agency. We work in teams where everyone’s opinion matters. iCrossing’s mission is to unleash potential for our clients and this also holds true for the way we work. Our core values (Curiosity, Creativity, Grit, Hunger and Integrity) ensure that pushing for things to be better (along with hard work) are encouraged – those that stand out in these areas are given ‘at-heart’ awards, voted for by their peers – for taking our values literally to heart.
- We Listen and Act
If our youngest employees feel able to speak up, it’s the Leadership team’s job to listen. Last October, our employee engagement survey told us that everyone wanted more training and development – our response? Kicking off January and February with an intense programme of Google accreditation training and internal Ideas Days, which throw teams into client presentation scenarios where they’re asked to respond to a complex brief – and sometimes facing tough feedback from our Leadership team! And we’re just getting started.
- We enable our team to ‘Give back’
Lots of our team are passionate about making a difference in the world. For us that often means in Brighton or London. Not only do we vote for a charity for the Agency to support each year, we’ve also got involved in community projects such as Snow Dogs By The Sea, helping to raise £337,000 for the Martlets Hospice in Brighton, as well as taking to the streets (or beach in our case) in order to clean up our seaside as part of the global ‘iCrossing Cares’ initiative. In addition, employees may receive up to an extra five days of paid leave every 12 months to undertake work on behalf of a charity – including environmental work, participation in a charitable event, community project. All of which means that while we’re doing great work for our clients, our people feel connected to their communities.
About the Author: Louise Cotton, HR Director at iCrossing
A HR specialist with more than ten years’ experience in the industry, Louise joined iCrossing in early 2016 as HR Director. Responsible for hiring and developing the industry’s best talent, Louise strives to ensure that iCrossing continues to be a fantastic place to work. Louise brings a wealth of HR and agency experience most notably from her stints at WPP’s integrated agency, Grey London and HeyHuman, an independently owned creative agency. Louise champions iCrossing's core values and is dedicated to making iCrossing successful by unleashing the potential of its talented people.
Do you want to hear more? Louise Cotton, HR Director and Mark Iremonger, CEO UK at iCrossing will be sharing more insights on how to engage with young talent on the 16th March. You can get your ticket here.
