Archive for May, 2009

Incentive Magazine highlights The SuperGroup’s unusual take on employee downtime:

Motivation in Action: Time Off to Rock
May 12, 2009
By Kassia Shishkoff

When the employees at SuperGroup take time out from work during the day, they don’t gather at the coffee station or the water cooler to chat. Instead they gather in the storage room for a jam session.

Okay, so not everyone plays music—others write screenplays or make short films—but the three founders and about 85 percent of the staff do. Chris Wallace, one of the founding partners of the Atlanta-based graphic design and interactive development firm, plays keyboards.

“We kind of fell into it because we’re all musicians,” says Wallace of himself and his co-founders, Gabe Aldridge and Brad Lewis. “We encourage everybody to have side projects. The only real [criterion] is that they have to be creative in some respect.”

At almost every job employees have downtime, Wallace explains, but rather than use it to browse the Internet or chat online, the workers at SuperGroup keep their creativity flowing with projects or hobbies. This keeps them from burning out on whatever they’re doing for work, according to Wallace.

“Keeping our creative muscles flexed is a really big concern here,” says Wallace. “We try and come up with as many ways as possible so people don’t get into a rut where they’re not really producing. We demand a lot out of them creatively, so it’s our responsibility to put them in an environment where they can flourish in that respect.”

Not only are the breaks enjoyable for everyone, says Wallace, but they also increase productivity.

“We noticed that when we spent some time focusing on music and activities or anything to creatively get our mind off the task at hand, when we finally came back to that task the work was exponentially better,” says Wallace.

All this takes place in the big storage room at SuperGroup. All the music equipment is kept there, and people are allowed to make messes with paints and other craft supplies. The room is far from SuperGroup’s neighbors because, according to Wallace, it can get pretty loud in there.

No SuperGroup employees are ever told to take time off work when it could be detrimental to their projects, but if someone isn’t making headway, says Wallace, that person is encouraged to take a break and come back to it later. One time the whole group was having trouble with a project so Wallace took everyone to see a movie to take their minds off it.

“Quality of work is the most important thing,” says Wallace. “Where we really want to stand out is that we do the best work in the world.”

At SuperGroup, turnover is relatively nonexistent, according to Wallace. Employees are generally there to stay, and they strive to keep it that way. In addition to their daily creative breaks, the group goes on a trip to Disney World each year.

“We try to give back to them to let them know we appreciate that dedication,” says Wallace. “Even though they might work very hard, they’re happy to be doing it.”

Read “Time Off to Rock”