Post #79
June 5, 2024
Claire Bodanis
In FW’s 20th anniversary year, Claire gives thanks for all the associates who make up the FW network – and asks if you or someone you know might be interested in joining us, as we work with more companies who share our love of reporting well.
On Sunday, we celebrated our church’s patronal festival; kind of like the church’s birthday. Churches usually celebrate their patronal festival on their saint’s day – after all, most are called things like St Peter’s or St Mary Magdalene’s. We don’t have a saint’s day, since our church is called Emmanuel, so instead we celebrate our patronal festival on one of the Church’s big feast days, Corpus Christi (literally ‘body of Christ’). That’s because Emmanuel means ‘God with us’, and is therefore a word used to mean Jesus, in the sense of Christians believing Jesus to have been human as well as divine; so Corpus Christi is the obvious choice. I rather like that we’re called Emmanuel, actually, because it’s about as inclusive as you can get. Christians believe Jesus died for everyone, and that spirit is right there in the name.
That’s probably enough amateur theology for one blog, but what struck me yesterday as I looked around the church was just how very much Emmanuel lives up to its name, in the incredible diversity of the congregation. I’ve been writing a lot about diversity and inclusion lately – I’m sure you have too if you’ve been working on reporting! – and many companies would give their back teeth for diversity statistics like Emmanuel’s. Age, social background, gender, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, nationality, ability – it’s all there. When I look around at the Emmanuel crowd, I get a very warm feeling – ‘these are my people; I belong here.’
I started to ponder why I feel like that, what it is that holds everyone together – and it’s not as simple as the obvious faith label, although that naturally plays a part. After all, there are plenty of self-professed Christians who are definitely not my people, while there are some at Emmanuel who aren’t really believers, but just enjoy coming along (and, speaking as a member of the choir, I like to think the music helps!). And I realised that what really holds us all together is choice. We choose to be there, because we share a world view, a sense of community, a set of values.
If it doesn’t sound too corny, I get the same kind of feeling when I look around at the FW crowd – although opportunities to do so in person are sadly less frequent than once a week! It’s easy to imagine why this might be so in a church; less easy in a business setting. But I thought I’d try, because we’re always looking for new people to join us, and particularly now, as we think ahead to next year’s reporting cycle and see some new projects coming on the horizon.
The business context first of all. For those of you who don’t know how we’re set up, FW is a network of freelance communications and reporting experts, who come together to work on specific projects for generally like-minded clients. In our team we have reporting consultants – geeky folk like me who think about where reporting’s going and what reports should say and look like, if they are to communicate well while continuing to meet ever-evolving regulatory requirements. We also have writers, designers and project managers – a number of whom joined us with little reporting experience, but with the curiosity of mind (not to mention transferable skills) to make a brilliant success of it. And we pay people properly, and promptly, for the work that they do.
The cyclical nature of reporting means that our project teams are, in fact, incredibly stable. We often have the same team working together for years. In fact it seems to me a more stable model than having employees. We don’t have to take on projects just to ‘feed the machine’; and, of course, people don’t have to resign to go somewhere else. They might decide to go off and write poetry, perhaps. Or decide they’ve had enough of reporting and want to concentrate on branding instead. Or even retire!
Which brings me to the FW diversity challenge. We’re pretty good on gender, social background and sexual orientation, and are starting to do better on ethnicity. But age? Terrible! ‘We’re not getting any younger’ was a comment made last week when discussing why, as this reporting cycle comes to a close, so many of us felt particularly ready for the summer holidays.
It’s not surprising. Freelances tend to be people with enough experience and confidence to be able to work for themselves, which often means at least a decade’s experience. I don’t mean to say we’re only looking for younger people – 60 is the new 40 after all, or whatever it is. But now that FW has been around for 20 years, if we want to be around for another 20 or more, realistically we can’t rely only on those who were already 40+ when they joined us in the early days, even though they’re welcome to carry on for as long as they like.
So why are they still here, and why might anyone else want to join the FW network, aside from sharing our belief that reporting well, and truthfully, really matters? I need to give a better answer than my rather vague musings about the Emmanuel community. Why is it that I feel FW folk are ‘my people’ too?
Last year, with the team growing, our MD Neil decided it would be a good idea to, in brand speak, ‘articulate the FW personality’, to help other people understand better what makes us who we are. And our lovely colleague Ed Prichard did a brilliant job of doing so. I must confess my heart was in my mouth when he presented his findings from his interviews with team members old and new, clients old and new. After all, FW is my company, and it’s got my name on it. But what was so very heartwarming was the absolute consistency of what people said, and the words they used I could not have chosen better myself.
Let me give you a few examples: ‘We’re doers and thinkers, but we think before doing.’ ‘We’re evangelical about telling the truth.’ ‘The highest standards of anyone I’ve met.’ And, most importantly, ‘I’ve never been happier with the people I work with.’
The sentiments were echoed by our clients too: ‘I trust FW to say it how it is.’ ‘I’m struck with how reactive FW is – very simple, no nonsense or complications, and the job always gets done on time.’ ‘Honesty? It’s a real superpower.’ And perhaps my favourite of all: ‘The best example of what Falcon Windsor is like to work with, is their parties.’
Truth, integrity, the importance of connecting with one another – and, crucially, everyone chooses to be here. Faith aside, perhaps not so very different from the Emmanuel community? (And in case you were wondering – many faiths and none are represented in our particular flock!)
I should probably also add that we’re very lucky to work with some of the corporate world’s most interesting (and nicest!) teams and projects. And, it’s thanks to our clients’ commissions that our people develop even deeper knowledge and skills in reporting.
If this sounds like something you, or someone you know, would like to be part of – please do get in touch. We’d love to hear from you.