Advertising Agency Crowdsources Its Own Morale AN advertising agency that has been crowdsourcing ideas from its employees is at it again, adopting additional suggestions from staff members on how to improve operations and, by extension, morale. The senior managers of Kirshenbaum Bond Senecal & Partners, part of MDC Partners, have chosen two ideas from around 30 that were submitted in a crowdsourcing competition in July by more than 70 employees. One of the ideas involves turning over to employees about 4,500 square feet of space on the sixth floor of the agency's New York headquarters, which they can use, individually and in groups, for personal, creative projects. The space will also be opened to artists and other people who are not on the Kirshenbaum Bond Senecal payroll for exhibits, discussions and potential collaborative work sessions with staff members. The idea, which won a $5,000 grand prize for two young employees, is called the Hyde Experiment, implying that the agency's Mr. Hydes will work on their projects when not busy with their Dr. Jekyll regular jobs. The second idea, which won a $500 runner-up prize for seven employees, is called Gettin" Up, after a slang term to denote success or recognition. It involves creating a gamelike rewards system in which staff members - and, later, the agency's clients - will be able to acknowledge employees who go the extra mile. The rewards will come in the form of points that can be exchanged for small cash bonuses. Kirshenbaum Bond Senecal held its first crowdsourcing competition in October 2009 as part of an effort to cultivate what executives like to call an "invention culture." Three months later, a proposal from two employees to start an agency mutual fund led to an initiative called the K.B.S.& P. Client Stock Index, which tracks the performance of publicly traded shares of the agency's clients. Such efforts to solicit ideas from employees beyond the standard suggestion boxes are indicative of attempts by Madison Avenue leaders to pay more attention to their work forces. The goal is to find ways to "inspire and refresh talent and, ultimately, fuel retention," said Lori Senecal, chairwoman and chief executive of Kirshenbaum Bond Senecal. Keeping our talent excited is also important in terms of moving client work forward by encouraging new approaches and thinking outside norms. The increasing focus on the care and feeding of employees may also be generational in that many employees in the agency business belong to "the millennial generation that is more interested in frequent feedback, and rewards, than its predecessors," Ms. Senecal said. They seem to really enjoy recognition and encouragement regularly. The employees who came up with the Hyde Experiment are two digital artists: Mark Jensen, 22, and Nick Vidovich, 23. "We were kind of floored to see the kind of support we received, so many people getting behind it," Mr. Vidovich said - not to mention, he added, the "very awesome prize." Mr. Jensen said it was "refreshing to see the heads of our company pushing for creativity" and giving employees "an opportunity to keep growing as communicators, designers and artists." Two obstacles senior agency managers may run up against in trying to reach out to employees are the skeptical, even cynical, natures of people in the ad business and of younger urbanites. The result is that team-building exercises are often met with shrugs, eye rolls, ironic air quotes and a decided lack of participation. For instance, some eyebrows, and hackles, go up the moment the name of the agency's competition, Hello Moments, is mentioned. "It can go that corny way," said Evan Kantor, director for technical production at Kirshenbaum Bond Senecal and one of the seven employees who came up with the Getting" Up idea. But I don't think anyone here took it like that. The competition was "a nice way to give the executive team some feedback," he said, adding that employees were encouraged to take part after seeing the results of the previous competition. Sara Alloy, a senior interaction designer who was also in the Gettin" Up group, said the proposal was meant "to boost morale" by emphasizing that when it comes to producing effective work for clients, "we're all in this together." The new rewards system will also give employees "more immediate gratification" than they could get from, say, annual performance reviews, she said. While Mr. Jensen and Mr. Vidovich each received $2,500 of the $5,000 prize, a $500 prize split seven ways is less than $71.43 apiece. "We're going to go out for a nice, big dinner," Mr. Kantor said.