“Growth can be quite jarring for people. It’s normal to have ebbs and flows when it comes to how people respond,” says Zoë Ogden, people director at Impression.

Over the last few years, Impression has scaled dramatically from 50 to approximately 110 people across three locations. 

How has Zoë maintained the agency’s culture throughout these changes, and avoided it becoming such a jarring process? One word: structure.

“When we were smaller, we had some things in place, but even if you do, they’re probably not super robust because it’s only as things come up that most people are like, ‘Oh, God, we haven’t got a policy on that,’” says Zoë.

“As the agency has grown, we’ve realised the need for more formalised processes. We’re not putting barriers in place, but we want to have consistent approaches. We now have an audit trail of all the decisions we’ve made.”

Transparency and clear communication has been another important driver in maintaining a happy, healthy culture.

“I’m a massive fan of transparent communication,” says Zoë. “People think that they’ve told people things, but they usually haven’t. And we’ve had scenarios where people felt isolated, like an afterthought, and that needed to change.”

“Now, we share everything with everyone; it’s all visible. All of our directors share their objectives with everyone, we have transparent salary bands – and we’ve even shared key initiatives and their progress with the team.”

In this month’s HR & people mastermind, Zoë will be sharing more about how she’s kept culture thriving at Impression – and how you can do it too. This is a great one if you’re hoping to grow, but concerned about shaking the foundations of a happy team.