More on the agency talent roller coaster
Here’s an interesting piece in Fast Company that reveals much of what Deutsch explored at yesterday’s talent forum at Cannes. And the results pretty much confirm what I was saying yesterday. People want to work at agencies that don’t suck.
What I still don’t agree with is the notion that turnover is inherently bad. Sure, it can suck to lose great people. But if you stay focused on who you are as an agency, you’ll have dozens of equally amazing people beating down your door to take their place.
A few interesting insights from the article:
25% of ad agency folks don’t ‘love’ our industry. While I wish everyone loved this business as much as I do, it seems like this is a pretty impressive number. I’d like to see the comparison to other industries. I can’t imagine too many fare any better. That said, the more we can do to make more people love it, the better
Not a single ad agency cracked the top 5 “most creative companies.” So our own people don’t even think our best agencies are creative? This sucks. Really sucks. This is where the real “talent crisis” lies. Losing folks to other agencies is cool. Losing them to Google and Apple isn’t. Unless we can figure out a way to lure an equal number of people back our way.
90% of our people think of themselves as 'creative’. This seems at odds with the previous stat. How can so many creative people work at uncreative companies? Perhaps we’re not as creative as we think?
Deutsch suggests some cool ways that agencies can suck less. From working in smaller teams to adopting a start-up mentality, the advice seems spot on. But I still think it all needs to roll up into the larger premise that agencies need to stand for something. Figure out who you want to be and do things that support that.
But be brutally honest with yourselves. Never pretend to be something you’re not. People will put up with a lot of crap at work. But one thing most won’t stand for is hypocrisy.