Putting staff first: How Spokes Education created a culture to thrive
Phil Spokes, founder and director of Northampton-based digital learning agency Spokes Education, explains his approach to building a successful business - putting staff wellbeing at the heart of every decision.
I started Spokes Education as an independent freelancer at the end of 2013.
When we exhibited at the first Merged Futures in June 2019, there were two of us. Now we're a proper agency. We had a massive growth spurt that year when we won a contract worth $425,000 with an American company.
We couldn't deliver that without growing the team. Since then we've taken on two or three people a year. Now we've got 15 members of staff and we're a proper digital learning agency.
Growing the team really quickly was a challenge. I called on people I knew, but the tech recruitment agency SSA were a big help as well.
We hired six people and two of those came through SSA. We were struggling to find e-learning developers. One of the people who came through SSA is still with us and he's amazing. He's now our lead developer.
Nobody's ever wanted to leave. In the three years we’ve been together as a team, I've never had anyone hand their notice in.
I take on nice people and we treat them like people. They'll look after the business if they know they're valued. We don't have office dramas. That's the main reason why people like it here. It's a nice environment full of nice people.
We've recently added new benefits like private healthcare and a charity day to go and volunteer for a cause they care about. 10% of our profits go into a bonus pot that's split evenly between all the staff. All our staff have personal development plans. We meet with everyone at least once a month to make sure they're developing and can learn loads of new skills.
The office is bigger than what we need but we've used that space to create extra rooms - a break room, a meeting room and an AV room which also serves as a quiet space for people to get away if it's a bit noisy.
We go for team walks too. We take our office dog, Molly Bonkers, and go for a walk in the woods nearby.
We take a staff-first approach to everything. We don't pay the most compared to some of our bigger competitors but we're determined to look after our staff. We had implemented flexible and hybrid working well before the pandemic began, so hours and locations can work for staff.
It comes down to trusting people. When you have a small team, it's obvious when someone isn't pulling their weight. Even if they're working from home, you can see if something's not being done and you address it. Giving people trust and responsibility is a huge motivator because people don't want to be micro-managed.
We allow mistakes and we expect mistakes. People are human. They'll approach me and we'll fix problems together. If people are busy or stressed, I'll tell them they need to stop working and take a break. I'll go to the client and explain. My member of staff is number one and if the client wants to walk away, that's fine.
I think our regular clients know that. They know that we get stuff done.
We've had a couple of issues in the past where delays on the client side have meant a project might not hit a deadline so now we try to set expectations up front on both sides about what's needed to hit a deadline.
We had an experience where a client was offering big money but we walked away from the situation because they were rude to our staff. I don't want people getting upset at work.
We will walk away from clients rather than put staff through that kind of situation. We might have needed that three years ago when it was just me and I was chasing names and big portfolios, but now I just want our staff to enjoy what we do and nobody needs that stress.
We've had staff who have come in and had bad experiences at other companies. They love it here because they know what it can be like elsewhere. For me, if you don't treat people well then they leave.
Even if I was being selfish and just thinking about the business, it still makes more sense to look after staff. It has more of a negative impact on a business to lose staff, either to long-term sickness or to another company, than me saying they can take a day off because they've had a stressful week.
I'm at a crossroads at the moment. Growing as a company is one thing that worries me a bit. I’m keen to retain what we're good at, being a tight-knit team and working well together. Previous years have been about growth but this year is about efficiencies, so we can do things more quickly and of a higher quality. This year is about being better at what we do rather than just getting more people in.
We're doing a lot more AV work. We got ARG grant money of about £13,000 so we've got new cameras and video editing equipment that have meant we can offer a wider range of services.
What I've found through the University of Northampton in particular, as well as councils and the government, is there are loads of grants and schemes to help businesses. Internships have been a big thing for us through the university, something that's been beneficial for us but also for people we've been able to give opportunities to, so they can kickstart their career in the digital learning field.
I love making connections and seeing what can come from meeting new people. I've met loads of helpful people through Digital Northants.
We also meet with digital learning agencies. It doesn't feel like a rivalry. We have a chat, talk about how we do things and learn from each other. We're doing a series of videos at the moment about how we operate so others can pick bits and pieces up.
We're looking forward to meeting more new people at Merged Futures. We're happy to talk about what we do - digital learning, animation and video. That's not just about buying our services - it can be - but it's more of a conversation. If I have ten conversations and one ends in someone coming to us, that's fine. If the other nine go off and take something from that conversation to do their own thing, that makes sense too. I've had it before where people have remembered a conversation and it's led to business further down the line.
If smaller businesses want to come and have a chat, I'm more than happy to share my experience and talk to anyone about anything. Going from freelance to agency can be tough. There are lots of local people and businesses going through that transition at the moment and I want to help them too, sharing what has worked for us and what hasn't.
One of the things I really want to do even more of in the future is help the community - do more with schools, do more with helping small businesses. I've recently become a school governor at Billing Brook, a local special educational needs school. And I go into schools to do career talks. The schools in Northamptonshire want to connect with the business community and there are plenty of business leaders who give their time to go into schools.
I'm not money-motivated. My sense of purpose comes from doing good and giving back.
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Find out more about Spokes Education
Watch the full Freelancer to Agency series on the Spokes Education | UnfoldEd YouTube channel