26 Oct Inside: Havas Village San Francisco
“There are no distinct departments. We only have people with unique skill sets.”
Our San Francisco Village was built on a culture of collaboration, complete with a “no divas” policy and an “all for one and one for all” mentality. This egalitarian haven offers plenty of opportunities for employees to better understand each other, including staff-cooked breakfasts, app development clubs, and wine and beer tastings. (Cheers to that!) And, in a progressive, innovative city like San Francisco, there’s no shortage of inspiration for this close-knit team.
Take the tour with us below.
The Mag: What makes Havas Village San Francisco special?
San Francisco: We would love to think that we are a great place to work because we genuinely value and respect all of our people on a daily basis. Our top managers work on everyday business and are a core part of our client teams. We all know the name of the guy who cleans our offices, and we definitely have a no divas policy.
We also do the “little” stuff well: an annual all-staff golf tournament, celebrations for many national days (Australia Day, Cinco de Mayo, Bastille Day, Diwali), wine and beer tastings, monthly staff-cooked breakfasts, multiple levels of everyday recognition, all-staff meetings every Wednesday to share news, photography clubs, book clubs, app development clubs, and so on.
The Mag: Tell us about your office space. What are a few of the favorite spots?
San Francisco: Everyone who visits our office space loves it. Let’s just start there. The Village is in a vintage grain storage facility, and the meeting areas are named after people who have disrupted the world’s creative landscape—from Da Vinci to Nirvana. The main meeting room, which has its own floor, is named “Seguela” for our own incredibly creative legend and passionate guardian (Jacques Seguela).
The Village has the feeling of an architect’s view of environmentally friendly industrial chic. (Think about that for a while.) It has its own telephone booth, a content creation studio, and an elevator that sometimes works. The most popular part of the office is the kitchen—the food is there, but so are the beer, wine, cheese selection, and TV screens.
The Mag: Tell us a bit about your Village culture. What’s your DNA?
San Francisco: Our culture has been built on collaboration for more than ten years. We share the work, the wins, and the (occasional) pains as a team. The ability to collaborate is a key ingredient we look for when hiring, since we believe much more in attitude than in resume.
The Village: What does this collaborative approach look like in action?
San Francisco: The Village concept really helps us live this collaborative approach. There are no distinct departments; we only have people with unique skill sets. With the Village, we don’t need to talk about how to collaborate. It’s just what we do. Less email and more talking. More brainstorms and less delegation.
Everything we do starts with the team responsible for delivering the result. They agree on the brief, assign the responsibilities, and develop the milestones. Many of our clients are shared between creative and media teams, including Tria, Continental Mills, and Seagate. (We also occasionally partner on PayPal.)
We borrow heavily from Intel’s work approach: “discuss, commit, execute.” There is no looking back. And if someone struggles with this approach, then they are mentored quickly and clearly. All of this starts at the initial interview stage, where we clearly articulate what we are looking for and why being ultra collaborative is essential to our well-being and growth.
The Mag: San Francisco has a very unique culture. How has it influenced your people?
San Francisco: The culture of our city has been key to the culture of our office. We are surrounded by the world’s leaders of technology and startups. We have (over the past five years, at least) the greatest sports teams in the country—no other city has won more championship titles or so dramatically changed the way the games have been played. San Francisco is also at the forefront of the environmental, civil rights, equal rights, and liberal movements. We cannot help but be greatly inspired–and a little intimidated–by all of this.
At the same time, San Francisco is known for its incredible love of food, wine, music, street life, and fashion, so life is not all hard work. It shows in the optimism of our people and the “never ever give up” mentality of our approach to solving problems.
All in all, we think this is the coolest city in the country.
