Reimagining The Fabric of Loom

Loom is evolving. It’s not something you’ll see – no new website or reimagined brand. It runs deeper than that. We’re making a change to the fabric of our agency. We’re evolving our structural and behavioural practices to make sure that we continue to be the agency clients are excited to work with and one that talented people want to work for. 

We have revisited our foundations and how we can better reflect the Loom way of agile working, collaboration and celebrating our team. For now and long into the future.

Project Stitch has been the catalyst to ensure that our clients get the service we’re renowned for. It also means that our team take ownership of their careers, get more opportunity for personal growth, and more enjoyment from what they do.  To be the leading digital marketing agency in Bristol, we need to employ and nurture the brightest digital talent. By aligning our fabric to our way of working, we can continue to attract specialists, allowing them to shine and join us on the Loom journey. 

That’s why we’re doing away with job titles, flattening the structure and focusing on seizing opportunities for our clients and ourselves.  

Flattening the structure and creating a collective

At Loom, everyone’s voice is equally as important. It’s something we’ve always believed. But now it’s time to truly reflect this. 

Like many companies, we’ve fallen into a hierarchical structure and it simply doesn’t reflect our company’s core beliefs.  Line managers belong in a factory after all – so we’re flattening it out to create a collective.

How are we doing this?

Well, we’re using elements of holacracy. Complex word, simple meaning. It’s all about a flat management structure where authority is evenly distributed. The goal is to give people responsibility and the power to decide how work should be carried out.

“By removing hierarchy and replacing it with a flatter, more inclusive culture, we hope that each person will have a stronger sense of identity and pride for the role they play.”

Karen Pearce

Celebrating value by combining the right skills

Traditional structures focus on ‘moving up’ as you grow but we know this isn’t how it works in our agile agency environment. Instead we want people to have a career defined by personal growth and recognition. That’s why we’ve created pods, new agile teams with a shared purpose that span client accounts and specialisms. 

This means that we can organise ourselves in a way that fits our adaptability, opportunist spirit and blended expertise. Instead of being siloed into one team because of a job title, your skills can be fully recognised, owned and celebrated. It also gives our team the career ownership and flexibility to grow their skills in areas that they are passionate about as well as growing in their specialist area.

This way of working is ideally suited to Loom and the digital marketing industry as a whole. It means we can be agile – growing and shaping our skills to ensure we’re always at the forefront of the ever-changing digital landscape.

“Instead of assigning people a predefined role, such as that suggested by a job title, the team will have the ability to take on one or more roles at any given time and have flexibility to move between roles if they have skills that fit.”

Karen Pearce

We’ve been skillfully and strategically weaving together the strands of digital marketing since 2009 and our new pod structure supports this integrated approach. By bringing together experts across a range of disciplines, we are able to give clients the best service.

No more titles. We are all individuals

Working in agile pods means we can match team members to client accounts based on experience and skills. This way of working means career paths are flexible and unique to each person’s skills, not their job title. 

So, you guessed it, we’re getting rid of job titles. Removing titles opens up a person’s role and enables them to progress in areas where their skills and interests lie rather than feeling obliged to stay in one lane because of a label.

“It’s important that the team are fairly rewarded based on the value they bring to Loom, not the label they’re given and for our clients to see our team as people, not job titles.”

Vicky Hockley

Project Stitch has allowed us to redefine what’s right for us, as a business and individuals, and our clients. We’re all clear on the roles we play and how we come together, super-charged, as Loom.

Read more about the Loom Digital team and the roles we play.