Feeling like there's never enough time to celebrate your team's wins? Creative industry leaders Nick Hunter (CEO of Paper Moose) and Dr Khristin Highet (clinical psychologist specialising in creative workplace wellbeing) share down-to-earth strategies for recognising and celebrating employees' successes without adding to your to-do list. From peer-to-peer shout-outs to celebrating the effort (not just the outcomes), you'll discover how to build a culture where your people feel genuinely valued. Hosted by Andy Wright, this conversation is full of practical ideas for busy creative leaders who want to do right by their team while keeping client work moving.
In the creative world, it's far too easy to get swept up in the relentless tide of deadlines, client demands and project deliverables. But when you're racing from one thing to the next, how do you make time to pause and celebrate the wins – big or small? Many creative leaders wrestle with how to meaningfully recognise employees' successes without it feeling like yet another task on the list.
Here's the good news: it doesn’t have to be complicated or overthought. Often the most powerful recognition comes from the simplest, most human gestures. Systems that encourage appreciation and celebration can be woven into your culture, so it doesn’t rely solely on you remembering to give someone a pat on the back.
This discussion was led by Nick Hunter – Co-founder, CEO and Executive Creative Director of Paper Moose, a B Corp certified independent creative and production agency that’s been shaking things up for a decade – and Dr Khristin Highet – a clinical psychologist and founder of Mind Evolution Enterprises with over 15 years’ experience supporting creative professionals and building workplace wellbeing strategies. Andy Wright, CEO of Streamtime and host of Never Not Creative, kept the conversation grounded and practical.
Nick is the first to admit that recognition can’t just sit on the shoulders of leadership: "We have a shout out mechanism every week we have an anonymous shout out box where people pop in channels that they want to recognise their team for doing awesome work and then we announce that on Monday sort of our company-wide web so it's a great way for everyone to ensure that they're recognising each other."
When recognition becomes peer-to-peer, it stops being a “nice to have” and starts being a natural part of your company culture. Nick’s advice is to avoid overengineering it: "I think the danger is making it quite a labourious thing and time consuming. I don't think it necessarily needs to be that."
The best recognition doesn’t need a meeting, a PowerPoint or a budget. It happens in the moment. As Nick explains: "Often just commenting to an employee about something that you've seen or that they've done at that moment is also very... people just want to be seen and understand that the work that they're doing is meaningful."
Andy agrees and shares how his team approach it: "We do a weekly shout out in our stand-ups. You don't have to do it every week but we normally do go look yeah I just want to shout out this person for what they did last week." And sometimes, he says, an emoji on Slack is enough: "It's just recognising, it's just validating and understanding like you've seen it."
Khristin brings an important reminder: not every success is about a shiny final result. "It can be really important to praise the effort and not just the outcome so you know even sometimes just surviving a very challenging or highly demanding time can be a huge achievement and also be specific with your people about what were the contributors that helped to achieve the outcome."
This mindset validates resilience, learning and growth, and it helps your team feel valued even when things don’t go perfectly.
Nick points out that if you’re not careful, you can end up reinforcing the wrong behaviours: "Work out what it is that you want to celebrate because sometimes it's just behaviours and if you're trying to build a culture around certain behaviours being able to recognise that actually these are the behaviours that we want to celebrate then that kind of helps sort of reinforce what it is you want people to do in future."
He warns against glorifying burnout: "If I know that there are agencies who will you know this person did an amazing job they came in they worked all weekend and then they worked every late night last week and we celebrate that well guess what we've actually just celebrated a culture which is going to burn people out."
Recognition isn’t only about individuals, it’s about the collective wins too. Andy suggests building in regular opportunities to bring everyone together: "Just ensuring that you are celebrating the wins and celebrating the work and having those moments whether it's just going out to lunch together or having a moment where everyone is showing and sharing the work because often in a business like that is not everyone is across everything that everyone is doing."
These moments help teams connect, understand each other’s contributions and strengthen bonds across departments and projects.
Recognising employees' successes doesn’t need to be grand, expensive or time-consuming. Start small. Be consistent. Focus on feedback that feels authentic and specific. Build simple systems so it becomes part of your culture, not an afterthought.
Most importantly, remember this: your people want to feel seen. They want to know their contributions matter. When you genuinely appreciate the effort they bring, you help create a healthier, happier workplace where good work can flourish.
Nick Hunter is the Co-founder, CEO and Executive Creative Director of Paper Moose, a B corp certified independent creative and production agency, where strategic ideas meet expert craft. Following an initial career in acting, Nick has spent that last decade helping his clients drive positive change, across a variety of sectors, including not-for-profit, education, finance, government and tourism.
Dr Khristin Highet is a clinical psychologist and the founder of Mind Evolution Enterprises. She has been practicing for over 15 years and has worked for both small and large private corporations, the public sector and not-for-profit organisations. She has also worked with a number of individuals across a range of creative fields including visual arts, graphic design, digital media, as well as those that specialise in visual effects for the film industry. She has extensive experience in working with work-related issues and providing specialist employee assistance services, organisational consultancy and workplace wellbeing strategy & program development. In addition, Khristin is a transformational self-development coach, assisting individuals and groups in the areas of leadership, work and personal performance and relationships. She works with people who wish to improve in self empowerment, goal/results achievement, mindset, influence and interpersonal effectiveness. Her tailored and targeted coaching approach aims to help those that feel stuck, held back, or experience life patterns that may impact reaching one's full potential.
Andy Wright is happiest in a well‑worn baseball cap. As founder of Never Not Creative, he rallies a worldwide community determined to make the creative industry kinder and fairer. He also steers Streamtime as CEO and co‑chairs Mentally Healthy. Different titles, same purpose: brilliant work should never cost anyone their wellbeing. Never Not Creative was born when Andy decided it was time to stand up and make the industry a better place. What started as one person calling for change has grown into a movement that shares research, sparks honest conversations, and builds practical tools that help teams thrive. Andy’s rule of thumb: protect the humans and the great work will follow. Picture a studio cat giving you a gentle nudge to stretch, breathe, and log off before the midnight oil even thinks about burning. Off the clock, Andy is dad to three energetic kids, husband to one exceptionally patient partner, and a loyal Everton supporter (character building, he insists). Whether he is championing healthier workplaces or cheering the Toffees through a tense ninety minutes, Andy believes creative success should leave everyone standing a little taller, not lying flat from exhaustion.
