Hi Marie! Tell us a bit more about you and your current role at M&C Saatchi Performance ?
Hi! I’m French and moved to Singapore a bit more than 4 years ago. I’ve been with M&C Saatchi Performance since September 2017, started as a Media Planner Buyer and since April 2019, I’m Account Manager across APAC clients.
You are part of the SoCo committee in APAC. What is SoCo, how was it born and how did it evolve?
The SoCo is the social committee of our APAC offices. It was initially called ‘FunTastic’ when it was first created in 2018 in Singapore. The need of a social committee came when the team grew more and more. We wanted to have a team in charge of organizing events and activities to bring everyone together. After all, the minds behind the machines also need to have some fun to be at their best! Between 2018 and 2020 the social committee went through some changes:
- A change in name in 2019, from FunTastic to ‘The SoCo’
- An increase of our SoCo team members – we now count 7 people across Singapore, India and Indonesia
- A fuller calendar of events with a mix of activities from team building initiatives to celebrations (ie. Singapore National Day, Christmas) and after office-hours events (ie. Movie Night)
- And last but not least, an increase in online events to bring all teams across the region together and ensure everyone is engaged and connected.
Below a picture of our APAC regional SoCo team ?
What was the funniest activity you ever organized with SoCo?
One of the funniest activities was the Summer Party in Singapore in 2019. For that event, we went to Bintan for the day (an Indonesian island less than an hour away from Singapore). We planned a day filled with food, drinks and team building activities. For the occasion, our Indonesian team located in Jakarta came over. The event was a success and we still talk about it to this day!
During the global lockdowns, how did you manage to keep the team engaged?
The global lockdown made us work harder than usual to keep the teams engaged and connected! It accelerated the creation of the regional SoCo and we are now hosting events/activities across all our offices combined which is a big plus for the teams collaboration.
At the beginning of work from home, we had to understand which existing activities could be moved from offline to online – such as the live workout sessions by our coach and Programmatic Executive Sheikh – and which new activities we could propose to stay in touch and share meaningful moments. We came up with some of the below ideas:
- Talent bites to teach each other tricks & tips. Some of these sessions involved a rubik cube masterclass, a nail art lesson, a hairstyle session and an even indian recipe masterclass
- Monthly Quizzes
- Topic focused Slack channels such as the cooking club and the health club
By the way, you can see some of these events on our APAC Instagram account ?
What activities are you planning as soon as the team will be back at the office?
We’re all looking forward to get back to the office and spend some face-to-face time together! As soon as we’ll have the chance, we’ll definitely plan some proper ‘Welcome Back’ celebrations in each office with lots of food and drinks. We can’t wait to organize some of the activities we had planned before the lockdown, such as the dragonboat race and the massage sessions in Singapore. And most importantly, we will keep the regional collaboration going with new exciting ideas!
