June. June! How did we get here. In fact, we're more than halfway through June. The days seem to merge into weeks and the weeks into months. I'm sure we've all learned about ourselves in recent months and I'm no different. I've realised that I work too hard but that I love what I do. And that the work distracts me from a whole host of other stuff that I'd rather not think about. Rather than get used to stripped back life, I've been desperate to get back to placing people in jobs that they will love. Sadly, that's been out of my control. It's not like normal times when you can adapt or change or even just work a bit harder. For the last 3 months I've had to just sit it out. And that's been hard!
But at the moment I'm working on 5 briefs! Hurrah. Is this a sign? Is this the start of recovery? The honest answer is that I don't know. On the one hand, I've got 5 briefs...which is great. I've got more than 15 interviews on the board - also great. But I don't think I'll get too excited just yet.
Over the past few weeks I've been keeping in touch with both clients and candidates so that I've got an accurate picture of how the advertising, creative and digital world is getting on during the pandemic. It's very much a mixed picture. There are some agencies who are doing and have done well throughout the crisis. I'd say Pharma/Healthcare and B2B agencies have done well, agencies with big grocery clients have done well, tech agencies, those with booze and food clients, those with gaming clients - they've all been busy. There are examples of agencies who have put no employees on furlough and who have not made redundancies. They may have done some re-structuring and adapted client services teams but on the whole, they've managed remote working and they're still making money and growing.
However, there are also several agencies who have furloughed nearly 80% of their workforce, who have implemented 20% cuts in salary, who have been looking at ways to re-invent themselves and to come out the other side of this pandemic in some form. One might think that the small independent agencies would be hit hardest but I've seen some pretty big cuts happening in the networks too. Sadly, in the last week there have been a lot of redundancies as agencies have decided they are unable to bring furloughed employees back into the fold. I've seen redundancies from some agencies who have never had to make redundancies before, it's heartbreaking both for agencies and the employees.
Back to the positives. This week I have also seen some agencies un-furloughing employees, both full time and part time and there are some agencies who are back in the office - albeit on a timetable and with strict social distancing measures. Whilst a lot of employees have adapted to working from home, there are some who are craving the office banter and who miss the daily commute. This is particularly true of employees in their twenties. Those who perhaps choose to live and work in the city centre and during normal times have an excellent quality of life. They're on the first few rungs of the career ladder and they work hard and play hard. Now they've been cooped up in their city centre flat on their own for 12 weeks and it's a very different quality of life. They miss learning from other employees and have appreciated the training and development offered by working with more experienced employees.
Most of the candidates I have spoken to who are working from home have been told that they'll be working from home for the foreseeable. For many agencies the logistics of getting people into the office and being socially distanced is too great. Hopefully we'll soon see a lifting of those restrictions and more agencies will open their doors once again.
I do think that we'll see some changes in the future. More agencies will be open minded about some remote working and perhaps take less office space but on balance, many candidates who I have spoken to have said that whilst they've made remote work during the pandemic, it has not been wholly conducive to the creative thinking process, bouncing ideas around and creating plans for clients. So we'll see.
For those clients who are gradually un-furloughing their teams, there are definitely some green shoots of a return to normal life. Agencies need their clients to commit to spending and that will happen at different rates. Some agencies are now speculatively looking at how they might grow their teams as they recover from the last few months and that's why I'm going to remain even-minded and not get too excited too soon. We're a long way off where we were back in February but for the time being, I'll take the small improvements and work with both clients and candidates as we try to get agency life in the region back on track. This too shall pass.
If you're a candidate or a client and you'd like to chat, I'm on 07976 125963.