Relax, Refresh, Recharge-In a Great Pair of Shades

Wow, 2018 has been a busy year and June launched a stealth attack that seemed to come out of nowhere! As we quickly pivot from one school year to the next, celebrate graduations, or just adjust to longer days and more sunlight, we thought it might be a good time to take a breath, reflect on the year so far, and talk about what we try to do at FMP to keep everyone refreshed, relaxed, and engaged as the months fly by.

We started this year’s worth of blogs back in December, introducing our content line-up and sharing our rationale for why we think these topics are relevant for both individuals and organizations. It’s hard to believe we’re nearly half-way through our line-up- and how much fun we’ve had along the way! We have engaged so many members of our workforce to write on topics that they love or they want to learn more about and we’ve also had some fabulous external voices contribute- allowing us to highlight good work and ideas that we think need to be shared. We still have a lot of content and energy for the rest of the year, but we wanted to take a breath and talk about how we try to encourage our people make the time to relax, refresh, and recharge. Consulting is a fun business, but we’d be lying if we didn’t acknowledge that the pace can be… exciting… at times. If you don’t stop and make time for the things and people that are important to you, make you happy, and keep you motivated, it can be draining and could ultimately lead to burnout. This is true in any field, but when you’re focused on the needs, goals, and timelines of your clients, consultants might be at a greater risk of forgetting to prioritize the same things for themselves.

Flexibility has always been an important concept at FMP. It’s how we try to work with clients, how we try to approach problem solving and challenges, and, most importantly, it’s how we try to find a working equilibrium between the many work and personal commitments that all of us juggle. We introduced a flexible PTO policy in late 2016, with the idea that we want people to take time away to relax, refresh, and recharge on their terms. This is important to us and we encourage our people to do this. So much so that we try to highlight this fun time away from work on our social media platforms.

Starting last summer, we launched fun social media campaigns that encouraged our workforce to share and highlight the fun ‘away from work’ time. Last summer we gave out awesome orange FMP water bottles and this year we gave out bright orange FMP sunglasses. Using those props, we asked everyone to post their photos with two specific hashtags- #FMPTravelGram and #FMPSummerCamp. These posts help provide a glimpse into our culture, for those considering working at or with FMP, and also reinforce that we want people to take time away to do the things that they find meaningful and keep them recharged.

So, as we sit at almost the half-way mark on the year, the FMP Social Media Team wanted to take this opportunity to share some of the fun moments shared by our employees, as we take a breath and get recharged for the next 6 months of fun blogs, posts, and tweets to come!