Everywhere in the media at the moment is talk of ‘the great resignation’. I’ve historically taken this to mean individuals who have used the pandemic as an opportunity to recalibrate and re-define their life goals and typically change the job that they do - so for example, I have seen several people re-train as teachers and nurses, midwifery also seems a popular choice. However, the more common resignations that I have seen have been for individuals who are seeking new employers in the same industry. The number of recruitment briefs is at an all time high and clients are literally fighting over available candidates who are looking for a new job. Recruitment consultants are stalking LinkedIn to identify new prospects and trying to persuade them to jump ship for a fantastic new opportunity. From an employee perspective, in this industry (creative, advertising, marketing), there has never been more choice in finding a new opportunity.
I saw an article last week with a new take on the great resignation. It proposed that the great resignation is followed by ‘the great regret’.
I think there is a great truth that over the last 2 years, employees have been through it! Specifically in the last 12 months there have been record levels of employment and yes, the pandemic, caused a lot of people to look at their lives, re-evaluate their work-life balance, the satisfaction that they gain with their employer, the benefits that they receive, the flexibility and hours. Many candidates have been attracted to new employers with promises of ‘better’. Candidates talk of wanting their ‘values’ to align with their employer’s and purpose that goes beyond profit. All pretty idealistic and hopeful.
Now, this isn’t as yet something that I’ve seen enough of to make it a ‘thing’ but a recruitment site - The Muse has a statistic that 72% of new starters have experienced ‘surprise’ or ‘regret’ that their new job isn’t everything they thought it would be. Apparently even 48% of them were thinking about asking for their old job back. Had they been mis-sold a role and believed the hype?
I know that more and more businesses are looking at their own brand identity and employee branding. In fairness, this is mostly the big businesses out there - Amazon, Twitter, Meta, Microsoft. They want their employees to live the brand and ultimately to retain their employees. These businesses do a big ‘pitch’ to employees on their values and their brand identity but it’s much harder for smaller businesses to do the same.
The article was more honest than I’d have expected. It speculated that particularly in smaller businesses, they needed to be more transparent about what the role was thus avoiding disillusionment and dissatisfaction after 6 months. The majority of creative, marketing and advertising agencies in the North are owner managed and as such, they are pretty honest when it comes to selling themselves to new employees. I would also say that most employees in this sector, whether it’s client services, project management, creatives or digital marketing do have realistic expectations - perhaps it’s not the same in other sectors! Many of my candidates know that if they go to another agency they will be working with nice and friendly people in a nice working environment and they’ll have drinks at 3pm on a Friday and work nicely together to get the job done, have happy clients and essentially….pay the mortgage and have nice holidays.
Every agency I work with has a fast paced culture and because agencies are servicing their clients, employees know that if they go to a different agency…they’ll still be doing that and facing the same challenges as they currently do (albeit with different clients, campaigns and channels). 90% of the time, employees move for more money or career progression. Yes, work life balance does come up but in agency life, most employees recognise that they also enjoy the pace of life in an agency - no day is the same. That doesn’t mean they want to work 80 hour weeks (which is fortunately rare), but that the hours that they are working need to be enjoyable. And most of my candidates do love working in this sector, they love the creativity, the ideas, the profile of people who work in the sector. If I do come across individuals who express regret at moving role, it’s most typically those who have moved from agency to in-house marketing and then decide that perhaps the grass isn’t greener.
Perhaps other sectors are different. Perhaps creative agency folk are just more realistic. As long as they feel they are being looked after, paid well, given good benefits and have some progression on the horizon, they’ll be loyal. Perhaps they are too busy creating brand identities for their clients and they’re honest enough to say to prospective employees ‘this is who we are’ and ‘this is what it will be like’. I don’t generally come across mis-matched expectations 6 months down the line. So I’m not 100% convinced about ‘the great regret’ - those statistics certainly are not supported in this sector.
What is evident though is that if an employer is not currently paying an employee enough (when did they last get a raise?) or they have not had a promotion for a while, that employee is ripe for targeting by recruiters. Hiring salaries are being pushed upwards and employers are falling over themselves to find good staff. If you are not taking care of your employees as a business, someone else will and retention currently is a LOT easier than acquisition. Food for thought.