Barkley on 20/20
Posted by Sam
Background
Everybody that knows me knows that I work at a pretty cool company. A company that really values it's employees. A company that goes above and beyond. A company that thinks outside the box. Barkley isn't particularly well known, especially outside the ad world, but many of our clients are. But our little secret is about to change in a big way. ABC's 20/20 is going to be documenting Barkley's culture and environment. I thought I'd just run through a few of the interesting things that make Barkley stand out in my mind.
Fun
Every year Barkley has a kidnap. They shutdown the office, load all the employees up on a bunch of busses and take us somewhere fun for the afternoon. Last year was Dave & Buster's and this year was PowerPlay. What PowerPlay's website lacks in design in more than makes up for by having Kansas City's only WhirlyBall court. The great thing about kidnaps, besides the obvious benefit of not being at work, is that you get a chance to connect with people you don't see everyday and of course mingle with people you might not even know.
Barkley also has some fun built into the building. For starters we have a ping pong table, pool table and shuffle board. If it's a nice day you can head out to the deck that the fourth floor walks out onto. And if you get thirsty we have beer and Coke products on tap. And if you get hungry we have a cooler full of Blue Bunny ice cream as well as a popcorn popper. Oh and did I mention this is all free?!
Time Off
Like most companies Barkley has a decent vacation policy, but of course they aren't content with just decent. So on top of the normal vacation the office is closed between Christmas and New Years. That's right. Closed. You don't have to take any vacation. It's above and beyond whatever vacation you have accrued. It doesn't matter if you've been here one week or 100 years. And if that's enough we also get two volunteers days a year. Go volunteer for Habitat for Humanity, Boy Scouts of America or your local church. It doesn't matter. As long as it's a non-profit you can use your two days to do whatever.
Personal and Professional Growth
On top of everything Barkley does to keep work fresh and fun they also care about each employee's growth. Every year that I've been here we've had a Creative Symposium where they bring in guest speakers for a wide variety of talks. In years past we've had Ze Frank, Richard Tait (the co-inventor of Cranium) and numerous other well known and respected individuals whose names I can't remember at the moment.
One Hundred Dollar Bill
I nearly forgot the one hundred dollar bill story! At our last company meeting we had the usual question and answer round at the end of the meeting. Now, the way this normally goes is the big wigs of the company ask if anybody has any questions. We all sit there with dumb looks on our face. They say meeting dismissed. This time, when the question went forth one of the employees spoke up and asked if we could all have $100. I checked with said employee and I was assured that this was completely unrehearsed. She just wanted to know if we could all have an extra $100 for no apparent reason. How one gets the nerve to ask such a question in front of the whole company I'll never know, but hey that's Patty for you. Anyway, the thing is, the heads of the company kind of look at each other for a few seconds and agree to give the whole company a $100 bonus. Given the size of the company that's about thirty thousand dollars! They went to the bank that afternoon and handed everybody a crisp hundred dollar bill that afternoon. I wonder what the bank thought of that? And it was completely on a whim.
So that's the kind of company Barkley is. One that really cares about it's employees. Sure, it's got it's problems like every other company, but if you are having a bad day you can take it out on the ping pong table instead of going postal.
It Airs...
20/20 camera crews are here tomorrow and the show is supposed to air in early November. I'll post more when I know the exact date. Man, this might be the one time in my life when I wish I had a DVR!
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