As the ad world went remote, making some office jobs no longer necessary, advertising software company Mediaocean managed to minimize layoffs and furloughs by retraining some of its staff in new roles.

Rather than hire to fill an open headcount, the company instituted a hiring pause and back-filled roles with employees who found themselves without work due to the office being shuttered. For example, the company retrained its receptionist in New York as a training coordinator and made similar moves with several employees to ensure job security.

Mediaocean’s ability to pivot in the pandemic and address the needs of its remote workforce is one of the reasons why the company landed at No. 2 among companies with more than 200 employees in Ad Age’s Best Places to Work 2021.

The company’s culture has evolved considerably over the years following the acquisition of nearly 10 companies, the most recent being 4C, a marketing technology company acquired amid the pandemic. (4C was named one of Ad Age’s Best Places to Work in 2020.)

Of Mediaocean’s U.S. employees, 35% belong to a minority or multicultural group; 20% of senior management belong to a minority or multicultural group.

Mediaocean has also taken strides in ensuring diversity and inclusion. Instead of publicly announcing a major donation to a cause, it spent time doing internal reflection to see how it could reinvest in its people and spend on programs that would help its employees.

Expanded recruiting pipeline

The company appointed a diversity, equity and inclusion leader in August, as well as a DE&I talent acquisition specialist. It’s expanded its recruiting pipeline, conducted a gender and ethnicity pay gap analysis and implemented mandatory emotional intelligence and unconscious bias training.

In an effort to make its hiring practices more inclusive, Mediaocean removed names from résumés to reduce unconscious bias in hiring.  It also developed a strategic recruitment plan that identifies and targets people of color and underrepresented groups.

To help employees develop cultural competence, Mediaocean created an inspiring voices series, inviting team members representing a different dimension of diversity to tell their stories, share their experiences and challenges and detail some of the ways to be an ally. Mediaocean also partnered with diverse vendors, sourcing from businesses owned by women and people of color. 

Mediaocean made Juneteenth an official company holiday moving forward, and all major elections globally will be a company holiday for that region to encourage voting.

While the company has adjusted its policies to allow for hiring employees who intend to work remotely from other locations and existing staff to permanently move to remote status, Mediaocean does intend for its employees to return to the office once it’s deemed safe to allow for in-person collaboration.

Mediaocean has also been focused on the mental well-being of its staff as everyone grapples with their own challenges associated with COVID. It has brought in mental health counselors and offered follow-up tools. It is offering employer-paid subscriptions to mindfulness apps, mentorship circles in areas like women in leadership and parenting, virtual yoga, Zumba classes, department happy hours and unlimited personal time off.