Every quarter, PHD hosts a ‘School’s Out’ end-of-term party to thank employees for their hard work and celebrate the agency’s key achievements over the past three months.

This quarter, however, the media agency decided to give back to the surrounding community by spending the afternoon engaging in fundraising activities and donating staff’s time to helping local charities.

As part of PHD’s Big Hug initiative, PHDers were given last Friday afternoon off and were challenged to come up with innovative ways that they could help others.

So, instead of the usual fun and games consisting of Segway scooters, boat trips and parties, PHD-ers rolled up their sleeves and did whatever they could to brighten up people’s day.

Resolution @ PHD hit the ground running (literally) with a morning run, raising $3,000 for Cancer Council and running over 100 kilometres between the staff.

PHD’s strategy and content team heated things up with an auction, inviting media partners to come in and bid for the time of three lovely gentlemen: PHD CEO Mark Coad, managing director Mark Jarrett, and Omnicom Media Group’s CEO for Australia and New Zealand, Peter Horgan.

The auctioneer was content director and part-time actor Christian Heath (you may have seen him in popular TV show Home and Away), who blew the crowd away with his negotiation skills. In total, the PHD strategy team raised $3,600 in donations.

Once the hammer was down, the teams headed out to do their selected activities, including volunteering at Clothing the Homeless, working in soup kitchens, donating blood, gardening and generally cleaning up Australia.

“We work in an industry where we are so privileged by the things we get to experience,” Coad said.

“This was a fantastic opportunity for PHD-ers to really give back and bond with their colleagues in the process.”