In the early 21st century, the advertising and content industry started to drop terms and statements like “content is king, but distribution is “King Kong”. The fact that the, then content now full service, agency Oh My lacked a metaphorical Empire State Building climbing ape within their organization seemed like an exciting new business venture and resulted in the birth of Trickle in 2017. First as a department within Oh My, and in mid 2018 as an independent company – still in the family of People People People (formerly Real Agency Group) which is the biggest employee owned agency network in the Nordics featuring our sister agencies Oh My, Spoon, KIT, The Domain Was Taken, Sigmar and Post. In 2019 Trickle launched our second office, Trickle Gothenburg. Thereafter, Oslo, Helsinki and Luleå followed…
The name Trickle comes from a word play on traditional media agencies and their tendencies to apply a “spray and pray” approach, meaning shooting wide and hoping something sticks. Trickle tackles distribution differently. The philosophy is a key concept which we call “story planning”: finding the interplay between content, channels, message, timing and target audience. Instead of spraying, we trickle through the cracks. Hence the name.
Trickle has, as many youngsters tend to do, gone through several phases and labels trying to find the right fit: media agency, content distributors, analysis and optimization agency… However, the main purpose has always been simple. To distribute content and communication with resonance, effect and results. Say goodbye to randomly distributed content and say hello to strategies and Trickle!
At Trickle, we’re a fun and fast paced band of distributors who execute wonders on a daily basis. Since we’ve grown out of a fundamental excitement for all things web and social media, we tend to get a little bit nerdy and romanticize the web and it’s weirdly democratic ecosystem. That’s a part of it. We also believe in our employees overall well-being. Where you work and who you work with are just as important as the nerdiness of the whats, hows and whys. Therefore, we present to you, dear reader, this handbook.
We sure hope you’ll like it.
To make sure we as a team always perform at our best, we’ve made it our business to also make sure we’ve got our employees covered in every aspect needed. To make the working life a little bit easier, y’know?
Here are a few of things we like to highlight, to give you a comprehensive understanding of how things work on a daily basis, what perks you can expect and of course some handy links to admin stuff.
Onboarding is key. The onboarding process is a three step one, to ensure all of our new colleagues feel a hundred percent welcome and caught up to speed.
This is just basic hygiene. Making sure all the tech stuff is in place: computer, phone and all the passwords to relevant accounts.
What needs to be in place:
If you feel as if any of the above are missing, please contact a fellow Trickle employee or your closest manager and we’ll sort it out for you.
CloseWe have a carefully executed ecosystem in place, and we want you to be a part of it. The organizational onboarding process will inaugurate you into how Trickle as a company works, going through the different processes we work with and our overall philosophy.
What needs to be done:
Your closest manager is in charge of booking these sessions with you within your first two weeks at the company. Go get your onboarding on!
CloseFinally, being “the new one” at company can be both loads of fun, as well as a bit chaotic and nervous. This onboarding is all about getting to know one another, going through what everyone’s working on and simply growing together as a team.
Every new employee will be taken out to a joint team lunch in the first days, as well as be invited to participate in an after work, dinner or other form of “non work related” social gathering within the first month. This is not mandatory by any means, but if you want and have the ability to attend – we’d love to make this happen! Your closest manager is in charge of grinding out the details for these.
We choose to firmly decline unsure work situations. Trickle are connected to a collective agreement, through Unionen and the agreement “Medieföretagen – f.d. MIA HTF”. What it means in short is regulations surrounding employment types, salary, vacation days, overtime compensation and pension.
If you want to know about our collective agreement, you can read about it here.
All of our employees receive occupational pension through Unionen. Read more about it here.
Here’s a quick run through of how occupational pension works.
What we have according to the collective agreement is called ITP 1. It’s an age defined pension for employees born 1979 or later and consists of:
*cash paid in gross salary.
As an addition to the occupational pension, we also have what’s called Flexpension, meaning that other than the 4,5 % that is put away for your recreational older days, Trickle also pays an extra premium of 0,2 %. This premium will increase over time to a maximum of 2 %.
Both the ITP and Flexpension premiums will be placed in each Trickle employee’s pension account according to the choices the individual has made regarding placements. Ask your closest manager if you want to know more about how you can place said pension or read more about Flexpension here!
CloseAs a Trickle employee you have 25 vacay days to your disposal, which you either earn from April to April the next year or take out in advance. Either way, go get your rest on.
We employ flex time at Trickle. Meaning, you can dispose your 40 hours over the week as you like (in collaboration with your team, of course).
If you need to do overtime however, this needs to be cleared and approved by your manager. During weekdays you get 1,5 hours back for every 1 overtime hour you put in. On weekends 1 hour overtime equals 2 hours back.
You log and withdraw your overtime/flex in Check. For the sake of all parties involved, always clear overtime with your closest manager.
CloseTime management and keeping track of projects can be somewhat overwhelming at times, and that’s why we have Float in place to help make it a little bit easier. We use this tool to get an overview of each employee’s expected amount of time on projects and to delegate areas of responsibilities between team members within projects.
In every project we take on, we aim to always have at least 2. Within these teams we make sure that:
We have 40 hour work weeks, with the goal of having 35 of those hours assigned to client projects and/or business development, such as pitches, sales etcetera.
The remaining 5 are free to dispose on internal projects, which can take on many forms: education, social activities, perfecting the offices… You name it, and we’ll probably be onboard.
We get that not everyone’s an early bird and that some people don’t love the Dolly Parton cliché of 9 to 5, and that’s cool with us! Our lives are very different. That’s why, between 8:00 am & 8:00 pm you’re free to manage your work time in the way that suits you best. You want to clock some additional hours on Monday to get a jump start on the weekend? Be our guest.
Of course, this freedom comes with some responsibility, but as long as deadlines, meetings and other day to day things are managed, you’re free to plan your days as you wish. Just make sure your colleagues have some sense of your schedule, in case something should come up.
Finally, in the event of needing to work overtime: see “Overtime” in this here handbook regarding overtime pay and hours.
CloseAll of our internal meetings should have a clear agenda in place. If you’re having an internal meeting in reference to a project or a client, please make sure the agenda is shared with all relevant people so that your colleagues have a chance to prep or opt out if need be.
The internal team meetings, which have a three-part structure, play a key role in driving our company forward and allow each employee to get a sense of what’s actually happening on both a micro and a macro level. Hence, these meetings should be attended by everyone. The structure for the internal team meetings is as follows:
(Oh, and yeah, at least once a year we do a full team conference!)
CloseWe have a few key guidelines to keep the communication running as smooth as possible, both internally and externally, and keeping relevant people up to speed on the ins and the outs of projects and things going on.
Email is primarily used for external communication with business partners and clients. In an attempt to keep our inboxes nice and tidy, we try to keep internal emails to a minimum.
Slack is what we use to share and communicate internally. Some Slack guidelines:
Calendars are synchronized with your email account(s). Please make sure your work calendar is shared with rest of the team, and keep it updated if you for example know that you’re going to work from home or have a glorious vacay planned.
The phone is used for pressing and urgent matters, just call or text the person you need to get a hold of. Numbers to each person can be found in their respective Slack profile or on the Trickle website.
CloseWe always try, to the best possible extent, to keep a direct contact with the client and minimize middle hands. This is partially to avoid any possible misunderstandings and also to eliminate the stress of having to rely on other people to get hold of the information needed.
When speaking to or emailing with a client, it’s always key to keep in mind that the role we have is one of expertise, therefore we should always display confidence and know-how. If you’re unsure of how to best answer a question, or struggle with finding the right way to put your thoughts into a sentence, ask someone for input and utilize the power of our collected wisdom. And also, and hopefully this goes without saying, we never lie to our partners and clients. Transparency is the melody of Trickle, and we expect every employee to uphold that.
CloseOne of the perks of being a Trickler – we do care. That’s why we, unlike other agencies, provide you with a collective agreement and generous pension.
Boring and time consuming expense reports are a thing of the past. We’ve partnered up with start up Pleo to provide company cards. Just pay your expenses, snap a pic of the receipt (be sure to keep it) and move on with more important things.
Always being at the forefront is very important to us and at Trickle we need to educate ourselves continuously. Both for the sake of our clients and ourselves. We want to make sure to nurture the passion for new learnings by offering all employees 15 000 SEK per person and year to put towards earning that sweet new knowledge.
Company phone plans can be excruciatingly frustrating. Keeping a number after leaving or having two phones (Kevin Gates reference!) can be a hassle. Which is why, if you choose to keep your existing cell phone plan, we add an additional 400 SEK to your paycheck to ensure you won’t need to pay extra for work-related calls.
Instead of a traditional wellness grant, we provide a healthy boost to your salary if you work out. That’s right, you get paid to sweat! A nice motivation for hitting the gym a few times a week, don’t you think?
For every logged work out sesh, up to 10 times a month, you get 50 SEK. So, if you get real busy, you can get up to 500 SEK per month. This is to be logged in Check and is based on the honor system.
Work from anywhere. Yeah, that’s right. As long as it works with your day to day schedule, we don’t see why you shouldn’t be able to take some time exploring the world. If you want to utilize this, please consult with your closest boss and hopefully we’ll work out a way to make it happen.
Cue a humblebrag, but Trickle’s incentive program is nothin’ but generous, if we dare say so ourselves. Solely because we believe in rewarding Good Work™ – and subsequently letting it show.
Our year on year bonus, YOY for short, is set up collectively, as a team, and include – but is not limited to – goals on business development, culture initiatives, the well-being and growth of our brand and if we’re par for the course with our fiscal goals. The output of this bonus is determined yearly, in a gloriously democratic way involving the whole team, and could result in many a great things: monetary compensation, team trip etcetera. The sky’s the limit (…or is it?).
CloseTo incentivize going the extra mile, we’ve implemented something called the kudos system. Kudos is when an employee get a little something-something – a dinner for two, a massage, you name it! (up to a value of 1 000 SEK) – for going above and beyond. What above and beyond is exactly is an X factor type of deal, but it could be anything from introducing a new report system to delivering an awesome lecture to coming up with a genius solution to cut corners in meetings to… Well, the list goes on.
The beauty of kudos lies in its peer-to-peer system. You’re nominated for kudos by your colleagues. If you believe a fellow Trickler deserves some, please email kudos@trickle.se with your nomination. Make sure to include the who’s, the when’s and the why’s.
CloseLastly, credit’s are a bonus structure set in place to reward damn fine work. Money in the bank, straight up. Simply put – it’s credit where credit’s due. The scale of credit compensation varies on input and output, and can range from 500 up to 5 000 SEK.
The importance of a healthy team culture cannot be stressed enough! Great teams get shit done and this is something we value a lot at Trickle. Mutual respect for one and other on a personal level is obvious, but also the respect for the profession we share and the pride we take in executing wonders on a daily basis. Being arrogant in a humble way isn’t necessarily the wrong way to go, and a bit of humor goes a long way.
As you’ve hopefully understood by now, the overall vibe we want to keep in our team is that nobody is ever alone and there is almost no such thing as a stupid question. We keep things positive, friendly and have an abundance of good timez all year around.
Here are a few things we do to keep the internal culture on point:
Inclusion and transparency are and have always been at the core of the Trickle culture. We want everyone to be involved and have the possibility to affect how and where the company is headed. As we grow this part becomes even more important to nurture and take active care of. Having clear “mission statements” is a part of this, making sure we all work towards common goals we believe strengthens the team.
We want to nurture our environment of people who’re excited and say “YES!” (sometimes we do speak in all caps). But of course, we need to balance that out. To maintain good quality in our deliveries and not half-ass things in a rush, but also (and most importantly) to avoid burning the candle at both ends.
When it comes to tight deadlines, we have those sometimes! To be able to do our very best in an efficient manner, we have to be clear with our expectations. When it comes to things such as campaign launches within the next hours, or deliveries of content late on a Friday night, we can lean on the golden rule of always needing everything to be in place 72 hours prior.
We also offer the possibility to opt out of projects due to personal values or other reasons – it is however each employee’s responsibility to speak out if need be.
Proactively working to make sure we prevent stress by making sure we work according to team structures is one part. But internal communication and identifying stress-triggers helps us both cope but also prevent a lot of less fun situations! We look after each other and do our best to help out a teammate in need. If you feel overwhelmed, please let a colleague or your closest manager know. If you harbor your emotions, grievances will fester – and nobody wants that.
Some creative chaos can be pretty nice and inspiring, but there is fine line between creative chaos and just plain chaos. We are all responsible for making sure our common areas and offices are kept in a presentable shape. A bit of a mess is fine, but please have in mind that clients drop by from time to time and we want to look our best.
When it comes to other factors of disturbance, we all have different needs to get in that lovely state of focused working. That’s all fine and dandy, of course. If you need a little p&q for a while to get something done, it’s up to you to decide if you need to sit in a meeting room for a while, or just zone out with a pair of headphones – whatever floats your boat! But if there is other interference (like a ping pong table being used) it’s on all of us to help remind each other to speak up.
Agency invoicing address, Trickle AB:
Trickle AB
Kund-id FSX7257
FE 301
105 69 Stockholm
VAT: SE559163346501
Agency invoicing address, Trickle Gothenburg:
Trickle Göteborg AB
Kund-id FSX7258
FE 301
105 69 Stockholm
VAT: SE559224084901
Agency invoicing address, Trickle Oslo:
Trickle AS
Grensen 17
0159 Oslo
VAT: 927452146
Agency invoicing address, Trickle Helsinki:
Trickle Oy
Lönnrotinkatu 5
00120 Helsinki
VAT: FI32524685
Agency visiting address, Stockholm: Brännkyrkagatan 62, 118 53, STOCKHOLM
Agency visiting address, Gothenburg: Allégatan 5, 413 01, GOTHENBURG
Agency visiting address, Luleå: Trädgårdsgatan 20, 972 38, LULEÅ
Agency visiting address, Helsinki: Lönnrotinkatu 5, 001 20, HELSINKI
Agency visiting address, Oslo: Grensen 17, 0159, OSLO
CEO: Ludvig Olsson
CCO: Eric Lundekrans
COO, Stockholm: Elin Forslund
COO, Gothenburg: Björn Fahlén
Oslo Lead: Helene Kvernaas
Helsinki Lead: Laura Myllykoski
Luleå Lead: Simon Sörenstam
PR, marketing and communication | Responsible: David Larsson