12:46pm Thursday 9th July 2009
By Steve Pratt
STAFF at Newcastle marketing and advertising agency onebestway were surprised when boss Mike Owen told them about the company’s new bonding scheme. They were going to build up team spirit by removing their clothes.
He’d agreed to take part in Virgin 1 reality show The Naked Office, in which business guru and bestselling author David Taylor would spent a week in the office building up staff confidence and togetherness, culminating in Naked Friday, when everyone would feel comfortable enough to work in the nude.
Owen himself was sceptical when the idea was suggested in a telephone call from a production company but adds: “We’re an adventurous company that helps people think beyond what they naturally think.”
He was adamant that no staff would be compelled to strip against their wishes.
“They wanted us to sign a contract saying we would go naked on the Friday. But I said we wouldn’t because we were only there to do what we were happy with.
“It’s not about being told to do it. The point was to make people feel comfortable enough that they would explore the potential of doing that.
“Like a lot of offices, people plan things, but this was something that you couldn’t plan because we had no idea what would happen. It’s rare you go into something not knowing the outcome.”
Taylor, who hadn’t tried this particular business bonding approach in a real environment before, worked with the eight employees individually and in groups before the Friday strip.
ASURPRISE early in the week was the arrival of a temporary receptionist.
“At 10am, this guy in a trenchcoat arrived, he opened it and was completely naked. He was standing there holding his lunchbox – the one with an apple in it.”
His appearance helped everyone “find out a lot about ourselves”. And quite a bit about the new receptionist too, I imagine.
“We’re a very warm, loving company.
Anyone who arrives in the office is usually made very welcome. But for a full 40 seconds nobody moved because he had his willy out,” says Owen.
Staff helped the naked newcomer with his office duties. “We showed him how to use the binder, which sounds a bit scary.
But it’s all telly, it’s all tongue in cheek,”
adds Owen.
HE retains a healthy sense of humour about the experiment, conscious some may just see it as a way of getting the company some exposure, so to speak.
“It sounds a bit cheesy, but he had us put up a tent as a team and it took us ages.
We did the same task at the end of the week and did it quicker because we were closer and had bonded more – and I know that sounds contrived,” he says.
“The programme could have been anything.
Virgin probably wanted bums and willies, something to sell to viewers. But none of us knew how we would react from day to day.”
He certainly couldn’t have anticipated being filmed driving to work naked. Isn’t that illegal, I suggest? “I had an A to Z on my knee,” he says in mitigation.
“We’re up for things like this and yes, it’s exposure for the brand, but it was scary and fascinating and we learnt a lot about ourselves. Afterwards, we were a much better team, more bonded and work much faster.
“He got us to literally break down barriers.
If anyone has anything to say we just say it. We’re much more adventurous in our approach to marketing now.”
Owen and his workers haven’t seen the programme in advance of tonight’s screening, but already he’s had requests from the US and Germany to fly over to photograph the naked office. What they don’t realise is that there has been no stripping off since the TV cameras left.
“It was a genuinely useful thing to do.
I don’t think anyone can understand it unless they do it.”
Not all office workers went totally naked. One man wore “an unusual posing pouch”, while a female member of staff worked in her underwear.
Being naked wasn’t entirely practical.
Not only does it expose your shortcomings to the boss, but makes it difficult to concentrate, says Owen, “not because you’re looking at other people’s willies and things like that, but because the experience is so surreal.”
■ The Naked Office: tonight, Virgin 1, 9pm.
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