Internal communication is one of the things that most staff say could be better, and it’s also one of the easiest things to fix. At Social Media Group, we’ve made it a big priority, and hold daily scrums and regular All-Hands updates, use technology like Yammer, and just generally try to over-communicate whenever possible.

To that end, today we had a meeting in which we delivered some updates, talked about how the business continues to evolve as we grow and the changes we’ve put in place to manage this (which is all very exciting, actually!). We also talked about our ongoing commitment to developing our people and providing them with an opportunity to grow and learn.

Sounds like a no-brainer, right? Well, not so much. As part of this discussion, we talked about the importance of training. As in, the average agency staffer receives less training than a Starbucks Barista.

Not to diminish in any way the importance of making a good cup of coffee, but the difference between knowledge work in a rapidly evolving, progressive digital environment that is completely dependent on talent and making me a skinny decaf latte are pretty significant. Unlike many agencies, we recognize this and have made the following pledge to our staff in order to help them reach their true awesome potential:

At Social Media Group, you will get more training than a Starbucks Barista.

Ok, this is obviously tongue-in-cheek, but the funny thing is? Making this small promise actually sets us head and shoulders above the competition. In an industry that depends 100% on its people for success. Oh, and another thing? We will actually offer our people more training than Starbucks does (about 15 hours a year).

Do you work in an agency environment? How do you feel about the training you have access to? Is it enough? How could it be better? Do you feel like your organization understands and values people?