Culture & Accountability
Public Culture has always aimed to develop responsible brands and content. Built into our process are questions like: Why are we doing this? Who does this serve? Is this language fair and equitable? Is this relevant? Can it be refined for better results?
Consistently developing good work is a journey, and we believe this framework is necessary to create a standard of work that is both thoughtful to the communities our clients serve, and sustainable to the growth of our clients’ businesses. However, what we had failed to do was to apply those essential questions to our practice.
In the face of Singapore debating legislation advocating a “right to disconnect”, we want to be clear about where we stand. A safe work environment should always respect and prioritise its people. This is why, from 2021, we evolved our creative practice to better embody our core values.
1. Office Hours
The Public Culture team is contactable from Mondays through Fridays from 10am-6.30pm, excluding public holidays and studio closures.
First, we want to acknowledge that many of our clients currently respect our unofficial on/off-work periods as is — thank you, dear clients!
Studies have repeatedly shown that rest fosters creativity, fuels productivity, and leads to increased happiness and purpose. Daily, protected downtime allows us to continue performing at our optimum, and lets us create the work you know us for.
Since client communication is via WhatsApp on our personal numbers, office hours will formally protect our off-work digital space while allowing us to respectfully disengage at reasonable times.
This said, we only work with a small selection of clients at any time, so we can retain some flexibility in our working relationships. We recognise there will be the occasional weekend emergency or late night, and aim to be a fair and responsible working partner during these times.
2. Social Check-Ins & Community Management
Reactive community management will be conducted twice every weekday and once every weekend.
To manage digital overload and combat digital burnout while monitoring your social growth, Public Culture will respond to community comments and messages on social platforms at 10am and 6pm every weekday.
We will check in once daily on weekends, responding to urgent enquiries over the weekend (e.g. reservation requests, complaints), and addressing all non-urgent enquiries in detail the next working day.
3. Studio Closures
From 2021, the Public Culture studio will close once every ten weeks to allow our team to rest, reset, research, and strategise. We will continue to close for two weeks for the year-end holiday season.
We know this sounds like a scary, radical move. If you’re a client, you might be worried about the lag in communications during studio closures or a decrease in the rate of production. You might also be worried about the value of working with us.
We want to assure you that we have not made this decision recklessly. We will continue to deliver on deadlines — if content calendars are due during our studio closures, they will be with you before we go on break. If reports are due the week of closures, they will be with you after. Social check-ins will continue as is, and any content (email/social/website) will continue to publish regularly.
To address the elephant in the room: we believe we value-add to our clients’ businesses not just by providing a solution to their time-pressed content needs, but through understanding what’s happening in the industry, refining current strategies, and offering fresh, relevant insights.
Disconnecting from routine content production allows us to strategise more effectively and consistently. Taking longer, regular breaks will allow our team to approach work with consistent rigour and enthusiasm. We will be able to bring our best selves to work, and make time to research new strategies and develop new perspectives.
Clients will be informed of all studio closures at least 3 weeks in advance, and dates can always be found on this page for full disclosure. We hope to have your continued partnership as we evolve our processes to reflect changes we believe are necessary to a sustainable career.
Holiday Closure Dates for 2023
20 Dec - 29 Dec
Studio Closure Dates for 2024
Q1 | 11 Mar - 15 Mar
Q2 | 27 May - 31 May
Q3 | 12 Aug - 16 Aug
Q4 | 28 Oct - 1 Nov
Holiday Closure | 19 Dec - 31 Dec
Have questions? We are here for you.
If you are a current client, please feel free to speak to your account liaison or Mel for clarification. If you are interested in engaging Public Culture and have questions about how we work, please email speakup@publicculture.co.