Leadership Lessons with… Andrea Hartley, Founder & CEO at Skating Panda

Leadership Lessons with… Andrea Hartley, Founder & CEO at Skating Panda

This month we interviewed Andrea Hartley, Founder & CEO at Skating Panda, a social and environmental impact consultancy. Andrea shares her thoughts on virtual leadership, the importance of employee wellbeing in the workplace, and the skills sets businesses within PR & Comms will be looking for now and in the coming years.

After two years of leading organisations remotely, what have you learned about virtual leadership?

The first thing I’d say is that while we’ve learnt a lot about virtual leadership, we’re all still learning and adjusting – and that’s an important part of leadership, continuously adapting to the environment. Virtual and hybrid working continues to mean that trust is key – trust in your team, your colleagues, and this is a two-way thing – it builds over time and can only be achieved with frequent, transparent communication.  Virtual leadership is different as you’re not able to read your colleagues’ body language, you can’t read their face in the same way, see as easily if they look tired, or upset, and you can’t go for an impromptu walk and a coffee.

One of the ways we’ve brought the team together over the last couple of years is to make time for focused daily ‘stand up’ meetings and to include everyone (something that we still now do every morning!), to say hello, run through our priorities, help anyone who needs it and look at allocation of workload across the team. And, of course, to check in on everyone, give them a touch point and make sure they are all OK.  
We also make time for virtual one-to-ones, again something that is less connected when you’re on the other end of a laptop. Over the last two years, everyone, everywhere, at some point, has had a low morale moment and, unlike before, hasn’t been face to face with colleagues that day or week to have a chat. It’s up to the leadership to pick up on this and help support where possible. And normalise that it’s OK to not feel OK all the time and that we can and should support each other as colleagues.

As many of our clients are scattered around the world, we were lucky to enjoy existing virtual relationships with clients pre pandemic, so the transition was quite seamless for those. Of course, from a leadership point of view, we innovated with tech and made sure we put in catch ups that weren’t just about deliverables, , allow client relationships to grow and breathe a little. These virtual check-ins continue to this day, thought I must say that in the hybrid world, the chance to meet for a cup of tea or a bite with clients and colleagues alike is irreplaceable.

How is remote/hybrid working affecting your company culture and what can leaders do to sustain culture for remote teams?

We’re lucky that we have a really strong working culture, and hybrid working suits us. We promote flexibility and that only works as we have trust and transparent communication. I have children and when I’m working remotely, I can do the school pick up, which is important to me and them. I then make up the time when the kids are in bed, or before the work day – whatever is most productive.

And spending time in the office means we have that invaluable face to face time – both with employees and clients – office chat for us as a team is also crucial to making the working day more fun. We’ve recently changed the days we commute into our central London office. The team preferred a Thursday as it’s better for socialising after work. That’s what the team wanted, so we listened and that’s what we changed.  

We also have an informal company meeting every month which we run wherever you are, where we recap the month’s successes and key learnings. Then there are regular drinks, team bonding days with social events afterwards – all of our remote colleagues are welcome to join any or all of these.  And in our lovely office space, we have Wellness Wednesdays, and Thursday pizza and drinks and more. 

Employees demands are changing beyond salary and benefits. What changes are you seeing and how can leaders meet these evolving employee demands?

At Skating Panda, we are in the business of impact, so we believe in practising what we preach when it comes to our workplace policies and benefits – they drive a healthier and more inclusive culture. We have a consultative approach to our workplace policies – we speak to our employees one-on-one as we make any policy or benefits changes.  In fact, we’ve recently updated our employee handbook, to reflect the different lifestyles and professional and personal needs of our employees as well as the ever-evolving workplace. Our new handbook now contains, amongst other things, enhanced parental benefits, improved mental health policies, ongoing hybrid working practices and more.

It’s important that senior leadership – men or women – are listening, and are talking about and acting on the important matters, whether that’s mental health, women’s health, fertility, grief – it helps normalise issues which otherwise are seen as ‘embarrassing’ or awkward for employees. Flexibility is also key, and ensuring a good work / life balance – something that the pandemic made a lot of us think about and appreciate more. 

With an increasing focus on workplace mental health, how have you seen the industry supporting the wellbeing of its employees?

Mental health is, quite rightly, huge on the agenda and it’s refreshing to see that it’s not the taboo it once was. I think it’s important though that we as leaders honour and put into practice any provisions for mental health and wellbeing that we pledge and promise. It isn’t something we say on certain awareness days, but rather a long term commitment to mental and emotional wellbeing. Checking in on colleagues is so simple, but can really help make the difference if someone needs to talk or needs further help. That’s why we have kept our daily stand up meetings, not only to assess workloads but also to genuinely ask how everyone is, what they’re up to, have one to ones, provide coaching and mentorship where appropriate. And always a cup of tea if we can.

Post ‘the great resignation era’ – what challenges do you think leaders face in 2022?

Top of the list is ensuring that teams do work that they feel passionate about and connected to. We are seeing more people wanting to move into purpose driven work, and delivering real impact and positive behavioural change. This isn’t a challenge at all for us, as we’re a social and environmental impact consultancy, we work with responsible organisations – businesses, charities, philanthropy, NGOs, governments, media, and individuals. But I can imagine that it might be more of a challenge across the industry as a whole where there’s a lot of purpose washing and still sometimes a commitment to profit as purpose – and therefore at all costs, as opposed to profit through purpose.

What do you think are the key qualities needed from leaders in 2022?

The ability to listen and then to be decisive. And, with the current cost of living crisis, being sensitive to your team’s needs and concerns, and acting accordingly. Also being accountable for your own actions as a leader – it’s why we all have 360 reviews, as it’s as important for me to receive feedback as it is for our newest graduate recruit – we’re all always learning.

What skills sets do you think businesses within PR & Comms will be looking for now and in the coming years?

As a social and environmental impact consultancy, we see the need for a specific set of skills  – all the ones you’d expect – great verbal and written comms, ability to spot and tell a great story and push back when one doesn’t really exist, the nous to plan well, the desire to live through every tech channel and not underestimate the value of traditional media as well – depending on audience. And also, I’d say that a deep understanding of issue communications has never been more important. How to identify the difference between a client wanting to drive genuine change, from green or purpose washing? How do you make a health or gender issue stand out with a complex system of stakeholders at a national global level?  How to separate the personal from the professional if it’s a health or gender issue you’ve experienced? How to be balanced and impartial, yet still drive a campaign which changes citizen behaviour and delivers real impact.

What are your company’s objectives for Diversity and Inclusion in 2022 and what do you think leaders can do to drive diversity and inclusion within the workplace?

Have a robust policy – but what does this mean in practice? Yes, welcoming and nurturing visible and invisible diversity in all its forms. I think though 2023 will be a year where we as leaders talk and do more about neurodiversity, really understand better the benefits of this, move ever further away from any unconscious bias and so we focus more on what we are doing and why, as opposed to the pitfalls and what to avoid. Just living and nailing it, rather than worrying about it. We have a very open forum for frequent feedback from employees, and a consultative approach to our workplace policies with a newly updated employee handbook and flexible working for all to ensure we maintain our inclusive culture across the business.

There is increasing expectation on companies and CEOS to lead on sustainability practice in line with 2030 Global Goals. What ESG strategies can leaders adopt for sustainable development and purpose?

Well, firstly we are proud to say that Skating Panda is B-Corp certified, as we look at ways to improve how we are governed. It’s a very lengthy, though worthwhile, process. You need to go through a thorough assessment on your purpose, transparency and accountability in governance, workers, environment, community and customers. It’s renewed every three years and it really does drive behaviour change and make you think and act more than twice. It’s a fantastic initiative.

But overall, I would say make sure everything you do is about real impact. Yes, you have the outputs you’re measuring, but more importantly what are the outcomes from the work you do? The 2030 Global Goals provide a good framework for comparison. Does the work you do drive long term positive, sustainable, and quantifiable social and environmental change? It’s something that is the heart of everything we do at Skating Panda – to improve outcomes for clients, people, and the planet and to provide a lovely, meaningful and stimulating place to work. And we find there are no shortage of people that want to join us to do so!