This May, our team got stuck into learning and development and attending insightful industry events. What better way to spend these darker evenings than by soaking up ideas and inspiration with like-minded industry folk?
Plus a few of the Young Folks crew also swapped the Melbourne cold for some sunnier skies this month with our work from anywhere (WFA) policy and, honestly, I’m looking at flights after seeing their photos.
Here’s everything that happened in May.
Celebrating Mother’s Day at the Commons
In the lead up to Mother’s Day, our Cremorne-based crew took part in a flower bouquet workshop, and the results were cute, albeit not as good as a florist’s (their words, no judgement here!). After heading down for what they thought was going to be a simple craft exercise, Sanam and Hatim quickly realised how much it takes to create the perfect floral arrangement.
We’re loving all the great events and workshops The Commons puts together.
We think Sanam could make it as a florist, but we’re glad she’s keeping her day job.
Creating a culture of engagement and growth
Taylah and Erin attended an event exploring how to create a culture of growth and spark engagement at work. Hosted by Learna founder Lisa Lie, the event featured a panel of workplace and industry experts.
The panel emphasised how engagement is improved when we talk more, connect more, and take steps to understand each other. Organisations that are getting engagement right are going beyond talking about company values to actually implementing frameworks to embody and enact said values. Wade Kingsley, founder of The Ideas Business, discussed four key pillars that cover how teams work together: communication, collaboration, accountability, and attitude.
Erin and Taylah were thrilled to see that Young Folks is already on the front foot with this, having already implemented ways of working that focus on growth and building a high-performing culture that puts people and planet on equal footing with profit.
Our WFA policy in action
At Young Folks, we want to offer our team the flexibility to occasionally work from anywhere they’d like — perfect for extending a trip or a temporary change of office location. This also helps support our diverse team, many of whom have family overseas that they’d otherwise have to use their leave to visit.
This month, Sanam and Surej both spent time working from somewhere much warmer than Melbourne (yes, I’m a bit jealous).
Sanam headed to Perth for a family event and Surej spent a week in Far North Queensland visiting his partner. It’s safe to say they’ll both be planning WFA trips in the future.
Sanam: ‘Having the freedom to work from anywhere six weeks a year helps me balance work and life, and not sacrifice experiencing life’s special moments or exploring new places because I’m trusted to get my work done from, well, anywhere. I’ve already started planning my next working trip!’
Surej: ‘Thoroughly grateful I can work from anywhere and have my long-distance relationship feel not so long-distance.’
Surej’s WFA views of the Daintree Rainforest and Sanam’s mandatory plane snap on the way to Perth.
Exploring the role of creativity in business and solving future challenges
As part of Melbourne Design Week, Sanam attended the ‘The Future of Business is Creative’ panel. This discussion focused on the role of creativity in business and how it can help solve future challenges, like climate change.
A key takeaway from the discussion was the importance of balancing growth, profit, and impact. It’s true that humanity is in the best state it’s ever been, but that’s come with serious consequences on the planet. To drive meaningful change, the commercial lens on business needs to be shifted to — and outweighed by — a sustainable lens instead.
The panel also discussed AI, and how it could be the death of creativity and curiosity as we know it. As algorithms decide everything we see and engage with, we’re rarely being exposed to new thoughts, content, and perspectives. For brands, this makes it hard to reach new audiences as people are naturally becoming less curious to discover new things. This sparked some thoughts at Young Folks as to the importance of showing up outside of the digital world through events, activations, and OOH campaigns.
Conducting commuter surveys to calculate our emissions
As part of our transition to the Sustain.Life platform, we’ve started conducting our own team commuter surveys which form part of our greenhouse gas emissions audit.
Understanding how our team travels to and from work and how we can reduce these emissions is a key part of our environmental, social, and governance approach.
We were happy to see that making the move to a centrally located studio at The Commons Cremorne means our team now uses public transport and bikes more often to commute to and from work.
