On July 29, our team hosted our first ever all-Wunderland call that included our internal employees and billable consultants and freelancers. It was a meeting meant to reinvigorate our WunderLand family and strengthen our community following a year of remote work, competing priorities, uncertainty and isolation.

While we’ve had many staff meetings, this was our first time to engage all our consultants who are out working among our clients – a move designed to create greater visibility to our collective goals, to strengthen our understanding of what matters most to this critical employee group.

So why have this All-Hands call? One of our most important goals at WunderLand is to enhance and extend the visibility to our vision, mission and goals. We believe that having a shared understanding of who we are and our goals as a collective community can help create more meaningful careers for all.

Take a look at some of the great highlights following our 75-minute, immersive meeting:

THE WUNDERLAND JOURNEY
WunderLand was born in 2009 during a major recession. We were born out of the belief that we could deliver high-impact and meaningful work for our clients and be the destination for talent as a career alternative.

Those key pillars have remained over the past 13 years. And we have been successful in delivering meaningful work for 514 clients on over 3,640 projects. We’ve sailed through boom markets and we’ve weathered dramatic downturns.

2020 was a transformative year for us, and others, in so many ways. On the heels of some of our stronger years, we were caught by the pandemic and many of our clients suffered as well.

The pandemic brought us one, big silver lining: it forced strategic discovery that reshaped our firm, allowing WunderLand to more strongly capitalize on the resurgence of demand for our services. We are pleased this year to be experiencing the kind of growth and demand for our services that rivals the most prominent years in our history. And, we’re pleased to have a flexible delivery model that enables us to deliver the right solution for the right business challenge!

CONSULTANT JOURNEY
If there is one thing WunderLand knows, it’s that the journey matters. Not just for our clients, but for our consultants and employees.

The customer journey experience has been a key focus for WL.

• We are continuing to innovate and grow so we can ensure that we stand apart as a truly special firm. A great example of this is our new WunderLand Studio, which enables us to be an on-demand partner to our clients as the marketing execution arm of companies large and small.
• We are striving to understand the things that matter most to our consultants and evolving our firm around the programs and opportunities that support their career goals. Including:
  
  • Incentive plans like our new employee referral and new business referral incentives.
  • Various trainings available to consultants and employees
  • Groups and programs looking at internal operations like a diversity and inclusion committee and culture club to create a more meaningful and understanding work environment.
  • But maybe most importantly, we have a seamless approach to our consultants to create truly tailored experiences from screenings to understand your goals, to thoughtful project matches, to constant on-assignment communication and the post assignment goal of redeployment.

INDUSTRY TRENDS
It’s probably no surprise that the creative and digital marketing niche had a tough 2020 as did many corporate business functions. However, in Q3 & Q4 of last year, we started to see a bounce back and things have only gotten progressively busier.

Companies continue to respond to the pandemic and are forced to think about how to most effectively manage customer expectations prompting website updates, building out more ecommerce functionalities, sharing new content in new ways, and so much more, leading to a busier marketplace.

Economists and those that track the human capital market are anticipating that this business sector will experience 15% growth this year with 7% growth in 2022, especially as organizations embrace digital transformation.

Trend 1: Candidate Driven Market
We are in a Candidate Driven Market. Quite simply, that means there are more jobs being circulated without a surplus of qualified talent.

Marketing, digital and UX services are highly in demand, the job market is growing, and candidates very well might be in the driver’s seat as they compare various employment opportunities.

Trend 2: Customer Experience (CX) Matters
Customer Experience is the number one focus for 70% of marketers. Post-pandemic, it became clear that for a brand to thrive, it needs to understand how its customers are engaging, where they are engaging (online, in-store, etc.), and why they are engaging. Organizations need to tie all of this information together to create the best experience possible.

72% of companies are either at risk or completely failing to meet customer expectations. And this is validated through our client conversations. They are aggressively pursuing a customer-first approach to make the fundamental connection between CX and outcomes that really matter including customer satisfaction, retention, loyalty, wallet share, and overall net promoter score or ‘customer health.’

Trend 3: Project Work is a Viable Option for Many
In a survey taken by our consultants, we saw that 65% of respondents found project work to be a viable option.

Why is this option appealing?

• 78% of respondents see project work as an opportunity to develop new skills
• It provides workers the option to work remote or a hybrid approach
• It provides flexibility
• 72% felt it aligned more with their career goals
• It allows the opportunity to seek work that aligns more with overall career goals
  
  

At a time when work-life balance, flexibility and mental health are at the forefront for employees, WunderLand will continue to seek opportunities that cater to the overall career goals of our consultants and freelancers.

WHAT’S TO COME
At WunderLand, we are focusing on the facts. We want our employees, consultants and clients to feel heard, helped and understood, all while delivering solutions that are effective, efficient and meet the underlying goals for all.

We look forward to what’s ahead in 2021 and into 2022. Because of our great employees, consultants and clients, our future looks bright!