Yiuwin Tsang from the Beautiful Business team chats to Chris Todhunter from Studio Republic about being a purpose-driven agency, the benefits of standing by your values and how employee wellbeing is integral to sustainable success.
Chris is a founder and technical director of the digital and creative agency, Studio Republic. Since starting out from his kitchen table almost 20 years ago, Chris has grown the agency to scoop awards from the likes of The Drum and the Third Sector.
Studio Republic has been a B Corp certified agency since 2019, and now focuses on sustainability and social justice, helping charities, non-profit organisations and ethical businesses with design and development of brand marketing tools, from brand identities to digital campaigns and websites. Their overarching purpose: to be a force for good and create impact in our everyday lives.
Yiuwin Tsang from the Beautiful Business team chats to Chris Todhunter from Studio Republic about being a purpose-driven agency, the benefits of standing by your values and how employee wellbeing is integral to sustainable success.
Chris is a founder and technical director of the digital and creative agency, Studio Republic. Since starting out from his kitchen table almost 20 years ago, Chris has grown the agency to scoop awards from the likes of The Drum and the Third Sector.
Studio Republic has been a B Corp certified agency since 2019, and now focuses on sustainability and social justice, helping charities, non-profit organisations and ethical businesses with design and development of brand marketing tools, from brand identities to digital campaigns and websites. Their overarching purpose: to be a force for good and create impact in our everyday lives.
My name is Yiuwin Tsang from the Beautiful Business team. And I was lucky enough to get the chance to interview Chris Todhunter. Chris is a founder and technical director of the digital and creative agency, Studio Republic. Since starting out from his kitchen table almost 20 years ago, Chris has grown the agency to scoop awards from the likes of The Drum and the Third Sector. Studio Republic has been a B Corp certified agency since 2019, and now focuses on sustainability and social justice, helping charities, non-profit organisations and ethical businesses with design and development of brand marketing tools, from brand identities to digital campaigns and websites.
Their overarching purpose:to be a force for good and create impact in our everyday lives.
YiuwinTsang:I hope you enjoy the interview. So Chris, when we say supporting local communities, what does that mean to the team at Studio Republic?
Chris Todhunter:I guess it's direct and indirect support. We're a remote business now, so we don't have a local community. We have lots of local communities, but certainly when we were based in Winchester and we had the studio there in the town centre, we did try to do our bit for the local community. We try and shop locally, wherever we could for the business. We hosted a networking event called Winchester Creatives, which was encouraging design and digital students out to meet other agency people and
not just agency people:photographers, copywriters, you name it, used to turn up. It was great. It was well supported by the local university because it forced their students to get out and mingle, and from that, we ended up taking on a few interns at the time. Local degree or post-grad students would come along and spend a few weeks with us, getting a bit of real agency experience, which is vital when you're at university. We also ran 'Hack for Good.' which was a hack event, which brought together four or five agencies from across the south coast to spend the day together, trying to solve a challenge, digitally. We would get briefs submitted by a few different charities, such as Shelter, YMCA, and we'd worked together to try and put something together for them that they could take forward and get funding for. That's the initiatives we put in place there. I guess where we support now is as individuals, everyone in the team gets a couple of days volunteering time, so they can take that time out of work to go and help with the local charity to do litter picking, do whatever's close to their heart, locally to them. The indirect impact is the charities that we work with that serve their local communities. Part of our ethos is only working with clients that deliver positive change, working with charities is obviously a no brainer and it is most of our client base now. All of those have that direct impact to the communities that they serve. It's broad and varied, you could say.
YiuwinTsang:That's fabulous. You mentioned that your team gets a couple of days, a month, a quarter, or on an annual basis? How does that work?
Chris Todhunter:It's an annual basis but it doesn't have to be two days at once, it could be a couple of hours a month and we've had members of the team that have been involved in local charities, sat on charity boards that have just done their bit in that time and then a lot of the time it expands and it ends up into evenings and weekends as well. We encourage that as much as possible cause it's good for the soul, apart from anything else to get give something back. We're all better people with better experience. You become a more rounded individual the more things that you get involved with. I've certainly found a benefit and I think everyone else has as well.
YiuwinTsang:No, indeed. How many people are in the Studio Republic team now?
Chris Todhunter:There's 10 currently.
YiuwinTsang:You mention that you only work with organisations that do good and I understand that the financials and the commerciality behind that can be a little bit harder to reconcile at times, but for you and for Studio Republic was there a balance that you had to make between profit and purpose? Did you feel that there was a decision making process that you had to go through?
Chris Todhunter:It was a scary leap at first to make that decision because we didn't know how it was going to pan out. Actually carving a bit of a niche for ourselves has really helped, it's helped filter out enquiries that don't fit with our mission, that don't fit with the qualifying criteria, which is handy. It also felt really, really good the first few times when we were able to say 'no' just to clients that didn't fit the ethos or, frankly, we just didn't want to work with as a team. It's a balance but in doing what we do in a specialised way, it's actually help grow the business and being known for working particularly with charities, the reputation is growing, people are trusting us more. We've got a great network of partners now that refer us work because they know what we're about. They can trust us that that referral is going to be in good hands. So for us, yeah, it's worked out really well. And I don't think there has to be this idea that you can't be profitable and purposeful. The two absolutely can go hand in hand and there's no shame in still being a profitable business, but having a purpose. We're clear, we're not a charity. We do still need to turn a profit so we can grow the team so we can increase the impact. We're certainly more financially stable now than we were a few years ago having taken that decision, which is an amazing testament that you can do good and be successful at the same time.
YiuwinTsang:A hundred percent. It makes you feel really good to hear you say that being purpose-driven has improved the financial performance of your organisation retrospectively. Do find that you've had that benefit reputationally as well? A lot of the work we've done with our partners over at Wow, when they do things like the Benchpress Report and they talk about how agencies that niche attract more businesses, are able to charge disproportionately more for the service. Have you found that niching into charities and purpose-driven organisations that you've had that benefit as well in terms of reputational uplift?
Chris Todhunter:I think reputation wise. Definitely. The longer it goes on, obviously the client list expands, we're lucky to be working with larger and larger charities with a bigger and bigger reputation, and obviously, as an agency, you're judged by the latest piece of work. What has had a really big impact on the team though is that everything that we do has impact. Everyone is so committed to doing a better job every time for the clients that we have, and that we continue to work with. Super motivated, the team are chosen as much by personality and ethos as skillset, so, the makeup of the team is absolutely vital for us, and we're really lucky that we've got 10 individuals that are completely committed to the same mission that myself and my business partner Jack are. It's all a team effort and we're held massively accountable as well, so there may be times where, if money's a bit tight, we might be tempted to just take a bit of work that doesn't fit with that mission. Well, we just can't, they would absolutely hold us to account, not that we'd want to, but, it's that team dynamic is massively important and it's been helped so much by having this clear mission.
YiuwinTsang:Just going back to your point, Chris, about your team and this motivation that they have and this passion that they have. I imagine that feeds into that financial viability and sustainability in the sense that you've got people who are... I remember coming across this term, I'm jumping around a little bit, so apologies, but I come across this term that everybody in your team, they've got a discretionary piece of productivity so that people will do, what's required of them, what you pay them to do, and then there's this little bit, there's a little box that you can open up of this discretionary productivity, where if you create the right environment for them, the right ethos, the right kind of culture, that they will go into this box and pull out the stops for you and unlock this bit of extra creativity. It sounds like that's manifesting within Studio Republic.
Chris Todhunter:A hundred percent. Every project that we do is better than the last, genuinely. The team growing in, obviously, their experience and their passion and their skillsets. We invest a lot of time into making sure that everyone is happy, that everyone is well looked after. Jack, our MD, his most important role is the team wellbeing. It's really important that we don't end up with any burnout as you often find in agencies. In January, we moved to a four day working week, which has been amazing. It's been so successful. And actually we haven't seen a drop in productivity. I think that extra day of time to yourself means you just come back on a Monday so much more energised, so much more ready for the week ahead. It's been fantastic. It's hugely important to look after the team, they're everything to us, we can't do it without them. It's a real focus of ours to make sure that everyone is happy.
YiuwinTsang:Very interesting that you've embarked on the four day working week. What was your decision-making process?
Chris Todhunter:We were lucky that obviously by the time we started looking into it as an idea, lots of research had been done. Lots of people had been through the process, made the mistakes that we didn't need to. We talked to a few other business owners that had done it and had trialled some people working Monday to Thursday, others Tuesday to Friday, which ended up being a disaster because they spend a day a week catching up with the rest of the team who hadn't been there the previous days. There was a lot of research and thinking that went into it before we made the call. We've extended the working day ever so slightly. We start half an hour earlier, finish a quarter, half an hour later, depending on how the end of the day meeting goes. Other than that, it's business as usual. The motivator was really just that work-life balance, which, culturally, I think we've got wrong. We're still working in a way that was defined back in Victorian times when the husband went out to work and the wife stayed at home, looking after the kids and we don't live like that anymore. So, why are we still working like that? It's crazy. It doesn't have to be that way. There are still challenges with it, we're a service based business. We offer services that are 24/7, hosting being one of them. We're lucky to have an amazing hosting partner, Positive Internet, who are there 24/7. Amazing company, the greenest hosting, most experienced Linux hosting in the UK. We love them. As owners, it tends to not stop on a Thursday afternoon. It does creep in a little bit to Friday, but, we the team to do as we say, not as we do, and please switch off, and don't work on the weekend. There's the odd bit of compromise to it, occasionally things do crop up on a Friday that I have to jump on. But other than that, it's been very smooth so far. The idea was a six month trial, but I can't see us not continuing with it now. I wouldn't want to go back to working on the Friday now.
YiuwinTsang:To your point, about the way that working patterns haven't really moved since after the industrial revolution, I couldn't agree with you more. I think it is a critical part of the modern, progressive company. Has there been much of an impact in terms of your employer brand of people wanting to come and work for you?
Chris Todhunter:We haven't been on a big recruitment drive since we brought it in, but certainly we have someone starting with us on Monday, who is strangely very keen on the idea because why wouldn't you be, it's a no brainer, I think. It's, what am I going to do on a Friday because other friends work, is there actually going to be anything to do? But what I, and a lot of the team do is you do all the life admin on a Friday. You do the shopping, you do the hoovering, you do the stuff that you don't want to be doing at the weekend, and you start the weekend with a clear slate and have two days of freedom without having to worry about all of that stuff.
YiuwinTsang:When you say it like that, it does sound like a complete no brainer. And I feel like for a lot of founders, and in fairness myself included, is always going to be that niggling, and I suppose it depends on the financial stability of the organisation and to a degree, the financial performance of the organisation, if you feel like you can take that, but the reality is, as you say, you go through this experimentation and productivity does not dip. If you're able to charge out for your work on an agency basis, on a daily rate, hourly rate, that income doesn't fall.
Chris Todhunter:Like I say, watch this space. I'll let you know, in a few months time, if it ended up working out, but certainly, you know, in terms of turnover and profit, if anything, it's gone up since, and I think part of that is due to things relaxing, a bit more confidence generally with people spending, but also just in terms of productivity. We're getting through projects the same, if not faster than we were before.
YiuwinTsang:That's fantastic, was it Ford that changed the working day from 16 hours to eight hours and doubled the wage, and productivity in the Ford factories went off the scale, which is why that model was adopted way back whenever it was? It feels like there needs to be another revolution given everything we've gone through over the last couple of years, and the way that modern work has changed.
Chris Todhunter:What seems to be happening is more and more businesses taking it on. We heard through the grapevine that TSB are going to be be taking on a four day week. Once the big corporates take it on, then that will give the confidence to lots of other businesses to give it a go too.
YiuwinTsang:I hope so, cause if you can get your life admin done on one of those days, you've got two days to physically, mentally, spiritually recharge, and then you're at your best again for the next four days. Makes so much sense. And the status quo it's almost that definition of working harder rather than smarter and not giving that space to breathe, that space to recharge, be more creative and more productive.
Chris Todhunter:Yeah, absolutely.
YiuwinTsang:So, coming back to being involved in local communities, if we take the Winchester initiatives, how did you go about selection and measuring impact?
Chris Todhunter:In those days I think all of those were pre B Corp, so impact measurement wasn't really a thing for us, it certainly is now. But you know, it was more of a what can we do? what would we like to do? Hack for Good was incredibly good fun. It was just great to be involved and it was good fun for the team. It took a lot of work. We were lucky at the time to have a chap called Dan working with us who was amazing at organising that kind of thing, had a great network and, pulled together all of the charity input and the agency input and ran it on the day, so, from that point of view it was fantastic. Hack for Good was a fun thing that turned into something a bit more meaningful when we got the charity input, rather than it just being a happy day for devs and designers to geek out for a day. We've done other stuff around pro bono, so we generally do a pro bono project a year and the decision for that is team-based. Most of those are done as an agency business effort to help a charity out, but occasionally we get the opportunity to work on things outside of work that can make a huge difference and we were incredibly lucky to be asked to join in with the 2.6 Challenge a couple of years ago during lockdown. Obviously, loads of charities were suffering, so that was a project that we built the website, the brand and all of the assets for the charities to be able to use themselves and they ended up raising over 11 million pounds. So that was amazing. But that was all completely volunteer based, that was the team working evenings, weekends to get it done which again is testament to the ethos of the team that everyone gave up so much time to contribute to it and had a huge impact, I feel incredibly proud of the work that went on, but there's things that we can do as a business and then there's other things we can do as individuals together.
YiuwinTsang:It's interesting you mentioned there about the hack event you organised. It sounded like this heady mix of using the skills and the capabilities of the team in terms of the pragmatic skills that they got and the professional skills that they got, but then blending in the passion that they have, and then the secret sauce was getting the charities and then those guys involved and from there as well. So would you say the main drivers of that was building these initiatives and getting the engagement from the team? Do you think that was the seeds of success?
Chris Todhunter:Yeah, I think so and actually what we found is that there are lots of other agencies out there that want to do the right thing as well. The others that were involved weren't necessarily charity specialists, but it doesn't mean they don't care. They absolutely care passionately about the day and getting involved with it. I think it's not something you can force upon a team. You can't say, 'do this.' It was a voluntary thing to do at the end of the day, if you want to get involved, you can come, similarly with the other agencies. So, again, we're lucky that everyone put their hand up to it because it's a sort of bunch that the team is.
YiuwinTsang:That's absolutely fab. And it does seem to me, like it comes back to... you mentioned team again and their attitude and their approach to this and the mentality towards it. It comes back to having that clarity of mission and your own values as an organisation, as a business, as an agency. It almost becomes that self fulfilling prophecy, I imagine, people will come to it because they're attracted to it, or the people that are in it will either stay or they will go if they align and they feel like they're part of that, then I imagine they'll hang around for a good, long time. If it's not quite right for them, then it's not quite right for you and it's a mutual position.
Chris Todhunter:Yeah, a hundred percent.
YiuwinTsang:From what you've done, both in terms of the work in Winchester and the hacks, and also from a distributed workforce perspective, what kind of tips would you give other business owners if they wanted to be involved in supporting their local communities?
Chris Todhunter:That's a good question. I think it has to come from the team. It can't be something that can be decreed from management to say we are going to take this initiative. It has to be something that everyone's bought into and that could be anything from going and doing a beach clean. We spent a day in the summer on a farm that is rewilding, so we spent a day doing tree maintenance with them, helping look after this woodland that they'd planted and it doesn't need to be onerous. It was an amazing day out in the countryside and we all had a barbecue afterwards and it was great, but we were still having that kind of positive impact while we were doing it. It doesn't need to be huge. It doesn't need to be onerous. It doesn't need to be expensive. But it does have a really great impact in bringing the teams together. Having everyone feel a bit better about themselves for that time that they're doing it. So I think it's a no brainer really. And there are so many local projects that are crying out for help for volunteers that it's certainly not difficult to find someone that would gladly take a few bodies for a day to help them out. Thank you so much, Chris Todhunter for sharing your stories, your experiences, and how you and the team at Studio Republic have grown by keeping purpose and impact at the core of what you do, making the world a better place.