Best Places Are Made of the Best People

What is the special sauce at we?

Today, PRWeek announced WE Communications was included as one of the “Best Places to Work 2020.”

This one means a lot because it is a clear reflection of how our employees feel about working here at WE and what they experience, which is really what WE is all about. In a year filled with more challenges than most, it feels like an extra mile or 10 were added to the journey for each and every one of us!

In thinking about the WHY behind this recognition, I tried to come up with a clever way of capturing what it’s all about. What is the special sauce? What keeps us laser-focused on who we are and how we show up in the world? In nearing almost 20 years with WE, I feel things about the culture, but it’s become harder to put those feelings into words.

At the end of the day, though, it is pretty darn simple. Melissa Waggener Zorkin, our Global CEO and Founder, says it so well, “It’s never been about me or any one individual. WE is about us. It’s the power, insight and meaning that comes from the collective — our amazing clients, our people and our partners we work with every day. Together, we are WE.”

That connectedness and knowing that you are a part of something bigger than yourself manifests in the ingenuity and spirit of our people — those living it every day. You see it in small and big ways — creating opportunities for each other, thinking about the whole human not just the work part, celebrating together.

I don’t mean for it to sound all bright and shiny. It takes lots of honest talk, lots of questions and checking ourselves to make sure we are adapting, learning and evolving to stay true to a higher purpose. The year of COVID-19 pushed us to do all of this at an entirely new level. And while we inevitably don’t always get it right or don’t move as fast as we would like, I’m proud of how our team rallied. We did so in a way that wrapped around our people and managed to bring even more meaning to our work.

As the year comes to a close, I just want to pause and sit in the gratitude I feel for this agency, our clients and what Melissa has built, arm-in-arm with all of us.

To all the current and former WE employees out there, you have all really set the bar for “living it” in meaningful and touching ways.  Especially this year.