Investing in its people.
Pros
Rakuten Advertising is support its people through various areas of development. This has to be the biggest shift I've seen in the most recent years. Benefits are more than free coffee, lunches and booze and historically it may have felt that these benefits were combined with high pressure working scenarios. However, whilst RAd still provide lunches and booze benefits up to three times per week. What sets RAd apart is its recent increased investment in it's people. Offering free mentoring, therapy and coaching sessions to all team members, encouraging development into wider skills via Optimism university, as well as the management teams across the globe collaborating to increase the amount of training and cross-regional resource sharing has been a big shift over the past 2 years. Working with stakeholders to further develop their skills and discuss areas they would like to own and have an impact on have all been instrumental into an increased feeling of support and positivity in the business. In any environment when you are working on client requests, there can be times of increase workload, short turn arounds and high pressure. However, RAd have been able to support the day to day team and allocate tasks and accounts in a better way to take on board the skills of each team member, rather than purely to split revenue size. Open communication - regardless of job title is encouraged.
Cons
In EMEA and the International business, we often get the same messaging as the America's which should be adapted regionally to account for our intricacies. Whilst there are efforts to improve this, deadline management to ensure International and American regions are aligned.
