World Mental Health Day was recognised last week and I noted an article on the Prolific North website where to paraphrase, they believed that there are a high proportion of PR and marketing agencies as being extremely stressful and often toxic work environments with excessive hours, poor working conditions and little to no compassion or understanding of their employees mental health conditions.
I feel extremely old writing this now but in the late nineties, I spent 5 years agency side and in those days, the agency world was very different to how it is now. It was high pressure, long hours, lots of stress (I had terrible eczema during those years and none since...). I also learned more in those years about clients, about people, about bosses, about campaign management than I did in many subsequent years of work. I also learned that pretty much everyone is winging it for a lot of the time and imposter syndrome is best hidden by the male of the species and worried about by women. Anyway, in those days, you kind of had to just accept that was how it was, and if you didn't cope with it, you'd be out of a job (and the decision would have been made for you).
Since then, I've worked in-house in marketing roles and for the last 20 years in creative and advertising agency recruitment. I've genuinely seen the industry change and not just paying lip service to work life balance, workplace stress and employee mental health. The competition to acquire great employees is tough in the regions and any employer who is not stacking up to be 'in-tune' with their employees will likely lose those employees. Thus I've seen many agencies with great mental health policies, most agencies have mental health first aiders, policies for being able to take a day off at short notice, how to access help when you're having a tough time - strategies are in place to help employees. More agencies than ever have an HR function so there are proper processes and structures in place to ensure that individuals feel supported. This change in mindset (from the old days) has had to come from the top and I'm also seeing lots of agencies employing Executive Coaches to support their leadership teams - after all, no-one is infallible and mental health is on a continuum for all of us - we all have good times and less good times. An increasing number of agencies are also becoming employee owned so everybody gets a say in the agenda of an agency and this too is helpful in the 'People First' model of the majority of agencies.
Of course, the pandemic put pressure on all of us. Whilst the creative sector was fortunate to actually thrive over the last two years, we've all had external pressure with families, friends, having a much smaller world than we've been used to. I think agencies rose to the challenge of looking after their people, ensuring everyone is 'ok' and doing their best to maintain social interactions and allow office time for those who needed it the most. Back in the day there were no dogs in agencies and now, by no means standard, it's far more common than you'd think it would be. Little things can make big differences and the owner managed agencies have recognised that as much as the networks.
How individuals feel and react to stress is different and yes, perhaps the fast pace of the creative sector isn't for everyone but I did think the article was a little unfair. I'd suggest at the moment that resourcing is tricky for agencies and so perhaps people are working longer hours but agencies do realise that this is unsustainable and most are trying to ensure that they compensate in some way and that employees know they are appreciated.
A happy employee is a productive employee and and unhappy employee, will generally leave. The market is such that there are plenty of jobs out there for agency staff and the cost of replacing people is high. As ever, it's much better plan to keep hold of a (good) existing employee than it is to find a replacement.
I'd hate anyone to be put off coming into this industry which is exciting, vibrant and fast paced by thinking that it's full of horrible bosses who will be sending them WhatsApp messages in the small hours and humiliating them in front of colleagues. That's genuinely got to be an absolute minority and not my experience at all in talking to both job hunters and clients. Major changes have taken place in this sector and I genuinely hope we continue to attract the very best innovative and creative individuals to choose this sector for a long-standing and rewarding career.