Hookflash shortlisted for Best Agency to Work For at the UK Company Culture awards

Hookflash is digital optimisation agency, focussed on helping brands get more from their website, through digital analytics, SEO and CRO. Just over two years old, Hookflash has supported almost 100 brands since its inception, on everything from standalone GA4 training sessions to outsourced CRO and SEO retainers for brands across verticals.

As with all agencies, the team is the most valuable asset Hookflash has, and as a result, we are determined to build the best place to work in digital. With 16 smart and passionate people (and growing almost monthly!), we have core pillars around Trust, Learning, Sharing and Innovation to ensure our team can deliver the best possible work to clients, whilst developing their own expertise too.

Hookflash is delighted to be recognised in the Best Agency to Work For category, the first time we have entered an award focused on internal culture, rather than client results. It’s a fantastic demonstration of the commitment we’re making to our team, as well as recognition that we’re somewhat on the right path!

What makes Hookflash a great place to work

We believe in the fundamentals of being a great place to work. Free pizzas and duvet days are nice but if you haven’t got the foundations in place, it’s only ever going to be window-dressing. That’s why we focus on four core values that we eschew and promote from the first time we meet a candidate through to our day-to-day communications with the team:

• Trust – We trust our team to do the work where and when it suits, with some common-sense boundaries. We run a hybrid working program: minimum two days a week in the office and three at home. We have flexible hours, asking our team to respect certain core hours – and outside of this we trust them to get their work done. The same goes for working from outside of the UK too.

• Learning – We set aside 20% of our team’s time for self-learning, encouraging folks to dig into things they find interesting, and come back to us to share what they found. Whether it’s a new coding language, researching an adjacent topic or refining one of our internal processes, 20% time is already paying dividends with the creation of Tapa. Meaning “quick” in Irish, it’s our suite of accelerators and automation tools to help do our work better, faster and more accurately.

• Innovation –  And rounding off that golden trio, we put time aside for  innovation. Each month we run a half-day ‘Heads Together’ session, aimed at driving innovation and collaboration within and across teams. This has resulted in the development of several of our Tapa tools, as well as the advancement of our DEI program, amongst other initiatives. 

• Fun – we call ourselves enemies of the Sunday blues. We appreciate people would probably prefer to not be working vs. working but we aim to close that gap as far as possible. From listening to people’s feedback on the office (soft-lighting/lamps are key) to quarterly socials to impromptu crisp-tasting to candle-making mindfulness. We’ve also continued to invest in our office space where we want people to feel at home, whether that’s leaving Babybel’s in the fridge for too long (lovely!) or taking turns to choose what’s on the radio!

A great team drives great results

We’re proud of our retention figures. In the two and a half years since we started Hookflash, we’ve not had anyone hand their notice in, something which we think is the greatest testament to our culture. In addition, we’ve grown the team 50% year-on-year. And all of this breeds fantastic results – whether it’s retaining client knowledge, building out our platform expertise or continuing to develop our client culture.

This has led to revenue more than doubling year on year, and we’re starting to see industry recognition like the shortlist here. Our Managing Director, Oliver Walker, said, “We set Hookflash up to be the best. And that’s both the best at delivering results for our clients and the best place to work in digital. We’ve been delighted to receive industry recognition for the former already, and so to be recognised for our workplace culture is a real milestone moment, and something we’re all really proud of”.