It’s finally time to present our third Getting It Right company feature, and we’re very excited about this one. As a reminder, this series shines a spotlight on organizations that are changing the game when it comes to talent management. This month, we’re highlighting Brains, a Creative Firm based in Los Angeles and Greenville that is motivated by “people and purpose.” Although they work in the advertisement industry, you won’t find any Mad Men similarities here! Their mission is to always “put people ahead of profit and passion ahead of product.” This north star is evident from just about every angle of the company, but today, we’re focusing on how Brains puts people ahead of profit internally—and why this is a killer talent management strategy.
Top Talent Attraction
Putting Company Values Front & Center
One of the biggest ways that Brains attracts top talent is through a relatively simple strategy: make their company radically committed to the wellbeing of people (and the planet), and make sure that those efforts are showcased. For example, Brains is a certified B Corporation, and this is a badge proudly displayed on their website. As we’ve discussed before, younger generations in particular care deeply about purpose and impact in their jobs (it was a Top 5 Motivation Driver in our 2024 Report). With this in mind, it’s unsurprising that Moe Rice, Director of People and Culture at Brains, shared that in their most recent round of job postings, Brains listed three jobs and received 400 applications within the first 24 hours. Considering this kind of response from the talent market, the team at Brains has a strong field of candidates to pick from and can be extra selective when finding the right team members (we’ll talk more about the benefits of this later).
Offering Top-Notch Benefits
The company’s choice to commit to B Corp values and standards of accountability is one that stems from the founders’ early work experiences in the ad agency world. When setting out to create their own creative firm, the founders (Robbin Phillips, Greg Cordell, Greg Ramsey, and Mike Goot) wanted to build a company markedly different from the stereotypical ad agency environment. They paved the way for Brains to offer a flexible culture with multiple top-notch team benefits as another means of attracting top talent. Among Brains’s offerings today are competitive compensation, biannual profit-sharing bonuses, generous holiday and PTO policies, a wellness stipend, and more. Once again, the ability to advertise this list of benefits ensures that Brains receives applications from a large number of hopeful candidates, so their hiring team can select the “crème de la crème.”
Investing in Professional Development
The last aspect of Brains’s attraction + retention strategy (that we have time to talk about today, at least!) is their professional development. Whenever a new employee joins the team at Brains, their internal growth track options are clearly communicated, which means that from their first week, they start to consider their long-term game plan at the company. Junior members are even encouraged to explore various career tracks and to jump to another part of the company if they feel it’s a better fit. All along the way, team members are guided by “coaches,” a term applied to anyone with a direct report. Every direct report sets quarterly goals, and coaches are there to help them make smart goals and to check in on whether those goals are successful. Reaching quarterly goals becomes an easy segue into aiming for (and achieving) internal promotions, which is the typical way that associate- and senior-level positions are filled at Brains.
Additionally, Brains offers a quarterly suite of classes that anyone can take if they’d like (these classes are decided on by the coaching team based on any skill gaps that they’ve observed). Moe Rice admits that this isn’t the easiest path for the company to take, saying, “I do think coaching and a [company wide] commitment to the growth and development of each individual is hard to maintain.” However, it’s become a powerful tool for retention, as Moe mentions that their average employee tenure is five years, and that throughout 2024, they only made one external hire while they promoted six team members from within. Clearly, it’s a commitment that pays off.
The 2024 hiring and promotion stats from Brains are impressive, but it’s important not to see it as a coincidence (or the power of flashy branding—although, Brains does have that!). Instead, pay attention to how each of these strategies (obtaining B Corp Certification, offering top-notch benefits, and weaving professional development into the employee life-cycle from Day 1) works together to create a trifecta for talent attraction + retention.
First, Brains decides what kind of company they want to be. Second, they make some pretty unconventional choices to achieve their ideals. Third, they are held accountable to those ideals by continually having to maintain their B Corp certification. This communicates a powerful message to anyone exploring their open jobs: we care about people, and we can be trusted. This process of talent attraction is a key piece of our own Talent Impact Process, as we highlight the importance of crafting an appealing employer brand that resonates across generations—and Brains has got this down to a tee. In a world where job-hopping has become the norm, this message not only makes applicants want to apply, it makes them think, “I could work at a place like that for a long time.” If that’s not enough, they pair the B Corp certification with a long list of perks that further build trust in their ability to support and celebrate their team. Finally, once an employee joins their team, they are immediately seen as an investment, given options for long-term growth and a game-plan (with a coach!) to see that plan through. All we can say is, what a way to win over your new team members!
Culture of Trust
We’ve all seen it happen: someone interviews for a job, and the company seems too good to be true. And guess what? About one month in, the new team member realizes that what they were sold in the interview isn’t exactly how the company operates. Not only does this create disillusionment with your new hire, but it also breaks trust, because that new hire feels misled about the company culture. Not a great way to start a working relationship. So, how do you follow through from the hiring process to build a company culture based on trust? Time to take some notes from the Brains blueprint.
Transparency
The first (and perhaps most unusual) choice made by Brains leadership is to act with transparency—and it’s important to note that transparency goes both ways. For example, business operations and financials are free for the whole team to see, which means anyone can take a look at the budget and have a grasp on how much money is coming in, and where it’s being placed. While this may make some business leaders squirm, remember that they also offer a profit-sharing bonus twice a year, which means that knowing the bottom line can be a major motivator for team members to increase revenue. Taking this into consideration, budget transparency becomes not only a check on leadership power, but also a powerful way to encourage collaborative success.
Flexibility
Unsurprisingly, Brains also builds trust through a hybrid work environment. Although remote and hybrid work has become one of the most popular retention tools of the past five years, Brains was already working from home two days a week before Covid-19.
Their flexible work schedule isn’t just about where you work, though—it’s also about when you work. Moe says, “We do not have to be sitting at a desk from nine to five. We are a creative agency. We do have rules… if you get a Slack message, you have to respond within two hours—but that’s pretty broad. You have to tell people when you’re going to be out for an extended period of time. We have a Slack channel called ‘Workflow’ where people just say, ‘Hey, I’m going to therapy. Hey, I need to take my dog to the vet.’”
This culture of flexibility was started by leadership and modeled regularly over the years; they allowed themselves to be trusted to get their work done, even if they had to take a break or work abnormal hours. And because of their example, the rest of the team follows suit. (This is also a key part of our Talent impact Process. No company can succeed without the foundation of a strong culture.) Once again, this policy works because the trust is not only something given to junior employees; instead, it’s a two-way street. Because every team member is human, they’re all given the breathing room to get their work done when they can.
Autonomy
You might be wondering, “How in the world do they pull this off without micro-managing?” We promised we’d talk more about their selectivity in the hiring process, and here’s where that comes into play! Because Brains can choose their team members from such a large and talented pool of applicants, they not only find the candidate with the right skillset, but also the candidate who will thrive in a more self-monitored, trusting environment. In other words, they’re able to find the over-achievers who don’t typically need someone standing over their shoulders in order to get work done. In fact, Moe and HR & Finance Manager Mary-Susan Fiedler mention that whenever they send out surveys to check on team satisfaction, most responses say that “self-imposed pressure” is the biggest source of stress, not the expectations from a manager.
The bottom line? When you commit your company to offering people-centered benefits, you ultimately win, because you can spend less time micro-managing and spend more time, well, enjoying the benefits you offer (and of course, enjoying the amazing company culture you’ve created!). It’s a win all around, and Brains has cracked the code on how to make attraction and retention work hand-in-hand.
Benefits that Grow Up With You
We’ve already mentioned multiple benefits offered by Brains to their team members, including profit-sharing bonuses, a hybrid work environment, and more. However, the truly radical stance that Brains has taken with regard to benefits is that often, what they offer is determined directly by the team—not by those at the very top.
For example, this past summer, multiple team members with elementary-aged children realized that they all had a specific need: summer childcare that didn’t break the bank. (If you find a place where this exists, let us know!) Instead of leaving their team members to find childcare individually, leadership gave them the autonomy to come up with a collective solution, and thus, “Camp Brains” was born. Here’s how it worked: each of the team members participating brought their children to work with them, and they took turns bringing in and facilitating activities for the day while the other caregivers worked. After trying this for a summer, the Greenville Brains team is already making plans for how to expand and improve their system for 2025, including sharing their blueprint with the Los Angeles team, and perhaps hiring someone to facilitate activities with the kids at the office.
Camp Brains is what we’d like to label a “benefit-in-progress”—which is part of why it’s so unique. Instead of leadership taking charge and waiting years to find the perfect solution (or not finding one at all), they gave the team the ability to try something new. Of course, any trial of this kind is going to experience wrinkles, but because it did succeed in solving a persistent problem, the team is now motivated to improve upon the process for next time. As their process is refined year over year, it will become a fully polished benefit that few other companies have even thought to offer, which strengthens team loyalty and serves as a killer recruitment strategy.
Another example of Brains’s proactivity in creating benefits on an as-needed basis is their elder care support policy, which is something not yet implemented but is very much in the works. As many of their Millennial team members start to take care of aging parents, they’ve realized the need to implement a policy that provides flexibility, time off, and general support. This type of benefit is one we typically only see for new parents—but as we all know, having a baby isn’t the only time in life where our family roles require more of us. Although this benefit is more nascent, it’s still an excellent example of leadership’s ability to allow benefits to “grow up” with their team—and perhaps most importantly, to let their team feel free to tell them what they need. This openness to trying new policies in a casual, trial-and-error way is one that will continually benefit the team, both in meeting the need at the forefront, as well as retaining star talent.
As you’re probably figuring out, these three pillars (top talent attraction, building a culture of trust, and implementing customized benefits) are all intertwined. The benefits can’t be tried without the team trusting their leaders to give them a chance, and the attraction piece doesn’t exist without the team-led benefits and policies. Each pillar leans upon the others, but the result is a rock-solid foundation of healthy work culture, strong retention, and top-notch attraction. When put together, these leadership choices create a triple threat that makes Brains unstoppable.
Strategies that Drive Success
What works for Brains may not work for every company, but we encourage you to seek opportunities to prioritize collaborative benefits, attraction and retention through a strong onboarding process, and a culture that prioritizes team needs. From YoPro Know research, we know that on a scale of 0-10, wellness rated an 8.8 and work-life balance a 9.1 in importance for young professionals. We also know that 63.6% of young professionals rank “culture” as the second-most crucial factor in evaluating potential employers.
We find that transparency, collaboration, and a strong people-centered philosophy are key components to developing a dynamic workforce and attracting leaders from all generations. Interested in learning how? Visit our website to discover how we utilize a talent impact process to help you implement these strategies.
Did you like this week’s post? Then you might like these posts below.
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What’s Next?
Ready to transform your multi-generational workplace culture in 2025? Contact YoPro Know today! We can help you develop a culture that fosters positive relationships, strengthens your employer brand, and attracts top talent. Let’s ensure that your leadership choices pave the way for a dynamic cross-generational workforce! Schedule Your Free Planning Session Today.
