MEDIA HEADLINER: Vizeum takes balancing acts seriously with new Grant deal.(Trista Grant appointed as a part-timer)

By letting Trista Grant work part-time, Aegis' approach is radical.

Who'd have thought it? An Aegis agency has found itself up there at the forefront of liberal employment practices. Next thing you know, it will be organising away days to Epping Forest to hug trees.

Rightly or wrongly, Aegis has found it hard to shake off a reputation for a no-nonsense approach. It will protest that this is unfair - especially as Carat was last year voted one of the top 100 UK companies to work for by The Sunday Times.

As reported in last week's Campaign, Trista Grant, the Vizeum managing director, is addressing her work/life balance by going part-time. She will work a three-day week from Monday to Wednesday; while Chris Boothby, the agency's investment director, will take over many of her day-to-day responsibilities and is stepping up to become the operations director.

There will also be extra responsibilities for Matt Andrews, the director of strategy, and Matt Platts, who steps up to the position of investment director.

The neat thing about all of this is that Grant is arguably the first to take advantage of the changes she has worked since arriving as the managing director in 1999. For instance, she takes much of the credit for shifting the agency way beyond its BBJ heritage (it was renamed as part of the Vizeum network last year); and she has been largely responsible for putting in place the sort of team that will be able to take her shorter working week in its stride.

'We are very lucky. It is a true team,' Grant says. 'We have been through a lot together. It works well - no-one is power crazed or high on ego and it's the sort of team that's good at prioritising.'