Sophie Jackson is our Head of HR here at Lynx and works alongside the Senior Leadership Team to drive forward the strategic objectives of the Agency. With the newly launched integration of Shared Services, our new #LYNXLife Team will work together to seamlessly keep our culture at the heart of everything we do. Sophie’s blog will tell you why this is so important and how the Lynx heritage is as strong today, as it was in ’86.

As an agency we pride ourselves on our scientific, strategic, creative and technological expertise. Absolutely right. But what’s that? How does HR fit into this, I hear you say? Well, I’m glad you asked…

At Lynx, HR are responsible for driving our culture, and our culture is what we’re most proud of. It affects literally everything – from who works here, to how we interact with each other and our clients, it informs how we deliver, how we learn, how we reward, even how we party. Our culture is what people; past and present, associate with Lynx. We’ve got heritage, and we’re damn proud of it.

This week, our culture has really been brought into the limelight. The HR Team has a new lease of life; we’ve joined forces with the Brand Team, Office Management, Facilities, Travel and Events to form a super group… The #LYNXLife Team. We’re brought together by one mission – to deliver an exceptional experience internally and externally.

So internally, this means we’re all about the personal touch; ensuring that no matter how big we get, people are seen as people. Not numbers. We want to attract, develop and retain the best so we need to keep our people happy. Happy, motivated people are the key to us excelling in strategy, science, creative and technology.

We have an excellent retention rate – people grow up with the company meaning we now have a pretty wide demographic to cater for. So we’re still out on a Friday (and every other night) and we love the G&Tea trolley, but there comes a point when us young cubs grow into fully formed Lynx and we recognised the need for something more. Cue: The #LYNXLife Family Support Programme. Like all good things, it comes in 3s:

• Financial help for returning parents e.g. paying them 5 days, for 4. This means more family time and lesser financial pressure
• A support network – with a branded pack and check in points to help parents along every stage of their journey
• We’ve also introduced LynxCubs – a programme of family-friendly events

This programme, plus other benefits such as on site Financial Advisors, healthcare plans, pensions, alongside gifts for special birthdays, new houses, engagements and weddings, make sure that we’re celebrating and supporting our people along each and every milestone; both professional and personal.

So this is how HR and the #LYNXLife Team fit in; our job is to make people happy. And put simply – happy people make the agency-world go round.