At Hybrid, we seek the best, brightest and sharpest from the off, but we also know that none of us are (or probably will ever be) the ‘finished product’.
Instead, we prefer to admit when we don’t know something, ask each other questions as specialists in our fields, and be proactive in driving our own professional development. There are no jobs here that are the same day in, day out — everyone is pushed to go further, and everyone seems to like it that way!
Embracing this culture, everyone across Hybrid’s global team develops each day, striving to be the best they can be and to achieve the goals they have set for their careers.
Of course, while much of this development happens on-the-fly, Hybrid also invests time into training — and there’s training for everybody, including those who discover our talent in the first place.
“The training and development of our talent acquisition team is constantly evolving with the expansion of Hybrid,” explains Senior Recruitment Manager, Joe Child.
Working with candidates across digital, editorial, sales and creative sectors requires a breadth and depth of understanding to ensure Hybrid can engage with the strongest talent pools. That means Joe and his team must work closely with managers across the company to get to know, inside-out, the backgrounds, disciplines, and skillsets these teams thrive on.
“We also provide both internal and external coaching on our recruitment tools, which combined with networking and career events, keeps our knowledge up to date on the latest recruitment trends.”
Most recently, the editorial team in Kuala Lumpur got together outside the office for a joined-up training session. Tech and Education editors teamed up to help the writers take a step back, see the big picture, and learn a few new tricks to help them chase bigger and better stories.
“I learn new things on the job every day, that’s why I love writing for TechHQ,” said Technology Writer, Jia Jen Low, “but training from veteran journalists and content producers is just the icing on the cake.”
Last Friday, @more_hybrid editorial team had a productive training day out at KL’s hippest co-working space @colony_kl. Here we are after managing editor @ClaraChooi‘s session on newswriting, trying to flash a story in 15 mins! pic.twitter.com/6yvqMCa73n
— Lee Lian Kong (@leelian_kong) January 20, 2020
With the bulk of the editorial staff in Malaysia, both structured and impromptu training can happen quickly. Of course, the editorial staff in Bristol aren’t excluded from the goings-on.
“Hybrid flew me to KL to attend a course on data-driven journalism last year,” said technology specialist and writer, Joe Green.“That was an amazing opportunity to discover that ‘the truth is [often] out there’; all it takes is a little digging with the right tools.”
Development isn’t just a focus for us individuals, however. Teams also come together on how they can develop the work Hybrid does for clients and continually sharpen our awareness of how the industry is evolving outside of the workspace.
As a media specialist, Hybrid’s journalists and writers must be up to date with the latest trends in content production, which are becoming more visual as media consumption evolves.
Much of this knowledge and inspiration can be tapped directly from our team of creative experts.
“We look to give training across core design skills partnered with exploring the ways in which we can develop new skill sets for an ever-changing media landscape,” said Creative Director Max Longstaff.
The output of this work is a dynamic production team, aligned across two countries, with the capabilities to deliver impactful and strategically-led creative.
Max believes that in the last 12 months, the creative team has seen a “total evolution”: “With focussed training and collaboration we’ve been able to push to a new standard of creative delivery.”
Tying together everything and representing the company to the outside world is Hybrid’s sales team, based in Sydney and Bristol. Essentially making things happen, this team is a highly valued component at Hybrid — all new recruits get strong support with an immersion program designed to hone their skills from their first day.
Care is also taken to ensure that salespeople can give clients all the information they need, and therefore trained on the nuts and bolts of the complex online media space, which is the day-to-day bread and butter of our digital team.
“Our campaigns are changing constantly through the fast-paced environment that is social media and digital marketing,” said Account Director APAC, Emma Talbot.
“As a result, our sales teams need to be kept up to date with the latest tactics that we are using to help our clients get in front of the right audience groups.”
The most recent session for the Study International sales team, for example, included insight into how the digital team can target audiences as granular as expat families who have not moved to the area yet but are conducting research on the best school options for their children.
“This training session included how to explain to prospective clients the level of detail we can target through social media, to help our sales team get our proposition across in simple but impactful ways,” Emma said.
Ultimately, teams are only as strong as the weakest link and Hybrid believes in going from strength to strength, together.
