If walls could talk…
Well, ours do. And here’s what they have to say.
These are ever-present reminders of how VJ approaches this business of advertising. We believe every brand needs a true partner. A true partner moves with agility, thinks big, acts bigger, and sees deeply enough to realize brands’ potential and help them grow. This is what we call brand altruism.
We also extend our belief in the power of brilliant brands to the people who make up our team. The people who pour their passions, their talents…themselves into the work.
We see the humanity in our team. And we want to help them realize their potential and grow, too. Here within our organization and beyond. For many people on our team, their outside life includes children. And if not now, potentially in the future. Parenting is not a gendered issue. It’s a human issue.
In 2014, when I shared with the world that I am a Unicorn, I wrote:
And so we did it. At the end of 2019, we took a long, hard look at our parental leave policy. We spent as much time with the lawyers and the numbers as we did reflecting on our own life experiences and our unique position as an independent, women- and family-owned agency celebrating 50 years in 2020.
We carefully considered what we could do as a small business and what was the right thing to do as any business. And we made some important enhancements, because welcoming a new person into the world is important, and it should be treated as such.
In a nutshell, we enhanced and added flexibility in our parental leave for primary and secondary caregivers. For primary caregivers, we offer eight (8) weeks 100% paid leave with the option to extend with accrued PTO, and for secondary caregivers, we offer four (4) weeks 100% paid leave. (The New York Times recently covered why paid leave for dads, in particular, is crucial.)
We also provide a flexible return-to-work schedule for the first three months following parental leave to make sure that we are supporting the emotional transition many new parents need as they return back to the workplace. And, while on parental leave of any kind, VJ’ers continue to accrue PTO and 401(k) contributions so that there is no interruption in their long-term life plans.
For our people who welcomed new, tiny humans into their lives just before we launched the new policy in January 2020, we retroactively extended the upgraded benefits.
Then we tucked the DeLorean away again because we’re not going back. We’re only going forward.
Vladimir Jones is Colorado’s original independent, integrated advertising agency, with offices in Denver and Colorado Springs. We believe in brilliant brands and love making the world love them as much as we do.