Long Read - The great talent war

The arrival of COVID-19, and restrictions on physical movement, has been both an opportunity and a curse.

Less time getting ready for the office. More “me” time.

Home-office melded into one and agencies are reporting big savings in real estate costs. But is there a cost in connectivity, in loyalty?

Feeling overworked? You’re not alone. Savings in commute time tend to, without strict discipline, become extra working time. Industry insiders report growing annual leave balances. Who wanted to holiday when COVID-19 restrictions could be applied at any time?

And why does it always seem like there aren’t enough people to get the work done?

Jobs were shed in 2020 as agencies went into protection mode to meet an expected economic downturn. But since then employment has surged as ad spend reaches record levels with brands scrambling to dip into the wallets of consumers.

The latest MFA (Media Federation of Australia) census shows a 19.1% increase in the industry population, and higher-than-normal vacancy levels.

Australian media agencies employ a record 4,412 people compared to 3,703 in 2020 and 3,902 in 2019. At the same time, the industry has a vacancy rate of 12%, about double the normal levels of around 6%.

Virginia Scully, people and culture director, Hatched: “I actually believe the way we worked before the pandemic was already broken. It’s just supercharged the process. I find it baffling that we achieved anything in large scale open plan offices five days a week, two hours in traffic a day.”

Scully sees the Great Resignation as more of a great re-evaluation. “It has shaken us up,” she says. “We’ve had to look within and employers who don’t prioritise their people and humanise work will find it challenging to attract and retain great talent.”

But the pandemic changes have their own problems. Scully says a re-prioritisation of people is needed if organisations are to retain staff and revenue.

“We work faster and longer due to things like tech availability anywhere everywhere, reduced travel, and change happening faster than it ever has in history – and it’s only going to increase,” she says.

“We are forced to make huge organisational decisions almost in the moment, as the rules shift and change. There is no yardstick for decision-making because what’s happening is unprecedented in the modern workplace context. So businesses are forced to make some of it up as they go along. There’s a lot of pressure and increase risk in this.

“Burnout is a major issue with the World Health Organisation suggesting overwork is now one of the leading causes of heart attack and stroke globally.

“We are also seeing women as the main carers juggle teaching and caring and, as a result, their health and their careers are being significantly impacted.

“Mental health, loneliness and disconnection, focus and purpose is getting more difficult. Increasing annual leave balances – people not taking holidays or proper breaks to switch off and rest. Hybrid work moving between home and office for different types of work experience. These human impacts are certainly not good nor are they sustainable.”

Claire Monteilh, director of people and wellbeing, UM: “By allowing remote working and/or setting regional hubs, the opportunity for organisations is two-fold.  They will improve talent retention for organisations but will also provide employment opportunities in areas - and to people - who traditionally wouldn’t have had access. In turn this creates greater sociological and economical diversity in their workforce which benefits an organisation’s innovation power and contributes to the greater good of society.”

Thomas Tearle, CEO, Australia & New Zealand at VMLY&R :“I heard Charles Day from the Looking Glass Leadership Practice recently say that this is less a moment in time but rather the beginning of something new.

“That until we retreated to our lockdown cocoons, we’d been working to the same set of rules and expectations for the last 150 years. A set of rules that were created for the industrial age rather than the world we live in today.”

He doesn’t know where it will end or settle. “But is it good? Yes. We’re free from those expectations now and it’s incredibly exciting for us to try and navigate this time as leaders. The important thing for our team is that we are genuinely connected to each other, through our work and to our clients and their businesses.

“I’m not sure if it’s a great resignation or really a great reassessment of what people want in life. No longer is it really enough to push through being fine. I think people are really looking for something more, to feel more fulfilled and really go in search of happiness.

“Whilst it’s always difficult as a leader to see good people leave your team, you just have to be grateful for their contribution and wish them well.

“We’ve found that when people are choosing to leave us, more often than not, they are actually choosing to go client side and try something new, which also softens the blow somewhat.

“On top of that, it’s hard for me, personally, to feel too bad about it because I left a role I loved last year to try something new myself and I am so glad I did.”

Claire Gallagher, internal brand director at branding agency Principals, says the most obvious change from the pandemic is location. Remote and hybrid working looks to be the new norm.

“The implication of this for some organisations is increased flexibility, the ability to tap into talent anywhere in the world, and for some, there is a significant cost saving,” she says.

“For employees, remote or hybrid working presents real challenges to their sense of belonging, teamwork and purposeful work or a genuine sense of meaning. As social beings this sense of connection is critical. We are also, according to Austrian author and neurologist Viktor Frankl, intrinsically motivated by a fundamental search for meaning.

“This shift to remote working also has an impact on setting and maintaining agreed service standards, customer or client experience and quality. How does this happen consistently in an environment with no feedback, on the job mentoring or coaching, where you have no opportunity to watch and observe ‘how things are done around here’?

“Certainly, at the start of the pandemic, the focus for most organisations was to keep things on track. Now there is a renewed focus on productivity, creativity, quality standards and innovation. Internally, the focus also appears to include diversity and wellness. The cynic in me believes the diversity point links to creativity and wellness to quality, retention of talent etc.

“Personally, I think it is interesting to observe that we are more isolated now than ever yet one of the taglines that emerged early in the pandemic was ‘we are in this together’. It does invite questions around messages, intent and the role of leadership in the ‘new for now’ normal.”

Pauly Grant, chief talent officer, Publicis Groupe ANZ: “We had already introduced a flexible working framework prior to the pandemic, so for us it was more an evolution than a complete change.

“That being said, we have had our offices closed on and off over the past couple of years, so there have been long periods where people didn’t have access. We are fortunate that we work in an industry where work can be successfully done remotely.

“As an industry, prior to COVID our employee value proposition (EVP) was based around social connection, strong teamwork and culture. With remote working, this is the area of working and connection that has gone through significant change. It is something that used to be the glue to our cultures and teams. It is critical that agencies evolve or reinvent how they create this stickiness and commitment in the new world – how we begin to use the office when we return, and how we create a Life Experience (LX) as opposed to an Employee Experience (EX).”

Grant doesn’t see the Great resignation in Australia at the scale of other countries. “But there’s no doubt that last year, our industries and others experienced a lot of movement,” she says. “In the advertising industry, we’ve seen a ridiculous hike in salaries being offered in a smaller than ever talent pool.”

At Publicis Groupe, Grant says this is starting to settle. Borders are finally opening and agencies are recruiting internationally again. The mobility program at Publicis also offers opportunities for a new career in a different agency or a different craft. Last year, 11% of roles were filled internally.

Creating a “well” organisation. Grant: “Over the past couple of years we have done a lot of work across Publicis Groupe and our agencies to ensure we are providing wellbeing support for our people. We have implemented the Mentally Health standards, and rather than just rolling them out, each agency conducted a deep dive change management process. This meant there was a real impact and change in our agency cultures and approach.”

Kristy Camarillo, head of people & culture, The Royals: “Any previous hesitation by employers about the practicalities of flexibility, face-to-face meetings and remote working has been smashed by our collective experience of the past two years – we can operate remotely with great success.

“It finally feels like the focus has moved to evaluating success on the quality of outputs vs duration of attendance. A win for everyone – employees and employers alike.

“Here in Australia, we don’t seem to be experiencing the ‘Great Resignation’ more the ‘Great Consideration’. There is no question that talent is re-evaluating what is really important to them and questioning the role work plays in their life. In response to that, organisations are having to re-imagine the way they operate to attract and retain top talent.”

The job market

In Australia, talent appears to be in short supply

Thomas Tearle at VMLY&R: “It’s a tough market right now, that’s for sure. It’s up to us to ensure our business is strong, that people want to stay and that people want to join us because they believe in what we’re doing.

“The Brit in me tells me that once the borders open up that things will begin to ease but maybe that’s too simplistic a view. Time will tell.

“Of course benefits help but they must be real tangible benefits rather than tokenistic things. The things that made our office spaces fun are obviously less important now, although we wouldn’t be getting rid of them. We must invest heavily in our team’s lives and careers to grow together.”

Claire Gallagher at Principals: “While the landscape may have changed, the rules still apply – to position yourself as an employer of choice you need to build employee advocacy by creating a strong employer brand, delivering positive employee (or human) experiences and telling your story in credible and relatable ways.

“At the moment there is much confusion around what is important: are we in it together? Is it remote or hybrid or other? Are we developing our people or our tech (AI)?

“One of the claims organisations are making is about prioritising employee wellbeing or wellness and championing diversity. My challenge is – prove it. How are you fostering a genuine sense of team, personal value, connection? How much time do you spend talking and listening to your colleagues? Are you asking how people want to work or mandating three days in the office? What rituals have you put in place to forge a sense of team in the last 22 months?

“Organisations who want to endure – this pandemic, a great resignation or other – need to authentically connect with their people, creating a sense of shared purpose, belonging and positivity.”

Pauly Grant at Publicis believes there are two factors contributing to the talent shortage.

In the 12 months to September 2020, Australian net overseas migration was 85,100 which was a significant decrease of 64.5% lower than the previous 12 months (Scanlan Institute). In the 2020/2021 year, net migration dropped to a negative level for the first time since 1946.

“This coupled with up to 10% of agency roles filled by visa holders meant we were all challenged by the lack of talent,” Grant says.

“On top of the stop in the flow of international talent, people are seriously evaluating their lives; what they want to do, and how they want to live.

“Many moved out of major cities, changed careers to follow their passion project, or took on a completely different craft. This has meant that we have lost many from our industry.

“At Publicis, we have responded in a number of ways, working with our global offices to secure staff internationally. We have launched our global ‘Work Your World’ initiative (media release provided) which enables staff to work around the world. This is particularly helpful for those with family abroad and who may have been considering relocating back home. It also gives everyone the chance to reconnect with global experiences, and assists with talent retention and attraction.”

Claire Monteilh at UM: “Working exclusively from your bedroom or lounge can feel quite isolating and therefore may seem to offer very little difference for some people to work for agency A or B, hence the ease of movements of some staff in search of connectivity and greener pastures. 

“Throw some money at a shrinking industry talent pool and you have a recipe for disaster.  Australia, however, is a unique market and the stringency of some of our lockdowns has fuelled generations of dreamers with anxiety and fears of uncertainty stopping them in their tracks of hoping for something better. 

“Organisations that continue to inject connection and inspiration in spite of external factors will succeed in keeping their workforce engaged.”

Erin Jakubans, chief people officer, Initiative: “Put simply, isolation has been brutal to our industry. The pandemic has forced life re-contemplation enmasse. People, across all countries and industries, are re-evaluating where they work, reside and live and many difficult decisions to overhaul current situations have been made.

“As an industry with high international talent sourcing, combined with a junior workforce who need more than ‘a job’ to keep them motivated, we’ve experienced a real draining of the talent pool.

“This has the unintentional, and somewhat dangerous, side-effect of talent inflation. As agencies fish in the same pond, a talent bidding war ensues. This has resulted in significant, and frankly, unsustainable inflation in remuneration and role progression, especially at the junior-mid level, with expectations far beyond people’s tenure and capabilities. The industry needs to be careful to not collectively set up its future stars for failure.

“In terms of solving this crisis, there’s a few things we need to do as an industry. Firstly, start fishing in newer ponds. University graduate programs are brilliant, but should not be the only source of graduate inflow, especially if we want to foster greater diversity in talent and thinking. This is why we launched our Iso Internship, to get more regional and rural talent into our industry to reflect a more representative workforce. Through this program we observed 15% of our intern talent coming from communities well beyond the bubble.

“Secondly, we need to do better at keeping our people. There are too many systemic causes for talent exodus that simply need to be addressed. ‘That’s how it’s always been’ is not a reason to continue doing it. In 2019, we launched Stay or Stray at MFA EX to diagnose and interrogate the factors behind why people stay and why they stray. Overwhelmingly, the response kept coming back to purpose and empowerment. If people felt they had a bigger role than ‘employee’ in a business and were given the autonomy and support to action it, they were far more likely to weather common triggers for leaving such as salary negotiations or difficult clients (which are still important of course). Whilst before my time, the insights gained from this are being used to directly solve our biggest detractors.

“Lastly, we need to re-sell ourselves to the world. Now that borders are re-opening up and people can once again entertain living and working abroad, we need to make sure Australia is the first port-of-call for key international talent. Again, this increases our overall diversity of thinking and opens up new ponds so we don’t outbid ourselves into obsolescence.”

The hybrid workplace

The latest talent survey by recruiters Aquent -- of 1,635 professionals working within digital marketing, creative and development -- shows a mismatch between senior management and staff on how long we should be in the office.

Aquent analysed the results by seniority and found that senior managers think more time in the office is better. Half of C-Suite respondents believe that being in the office three or four days a week is the ideal model for hybrid working. But 70% of those in non-managerial positions see one to two days as about right.

Alex Kenning, managing director of Aquent Australia: “This disconnect illustrates that when organisations develop a remote working plan, they must consider and consult with all employees, of all levels. For women, the number one priority for their next role is flexible working arrangements, followed by good leadership. Men were quite evenly split across flexibility, interesting work, leadership, and career progression opportunities.”

Is this about control? About managers wanting to eyeball staff with sleeves rolled up, building a head of steam, seeing that they sweat when doing the job, rather than measuring success or otherwise? 

Virginia Scully at Hatched: “It’s old school trust issues and, yes, control. But the controllers need to be the people doing the work. We need to give them clear measures of success and let them go – do it on their own terms.

“Hours in the office are great for connection and fun but trying to enforce behaviours that don’t work personally will lead to disempowerment, disengagement, bitterness and with that comes a much greater risk than working away from the office.”

Claire Gallagher at Principals: “Any disconnect is a result of a breakdown of communication. Successful organisations have leaders who understand this is personal, appreciate employees have tensions between home and work, they work harder to connect and elevate others, check-in, share feelings, listen, make people feel heard, valued, included. Leaders respect the life-work balance of their people.”

Pauly Grant at Publicis: “I think a lot of it is intergenerational. Many of our senior leaders have spent all of their careers in an office, so it is what they are used to and what they enjoy.

“At Publicis, our flexible approach means individuals, teams and agencies can work in different ways – working hours, days that suit them and their lives. It’s important to recognise that we are all individuals with different rhythms, and life requirements.”

On keeping staff, Grant says: “We need to keep the fun and social connection with each other, but if companies are still just relying on free lunches and table tennis to create a culture, then they will inevitably lose their people.

“More and more we need to consider people’s ‘Life Experience’, with a recent Gartner Future of Work Reinvented report revealing 82% of staff want their employer to see them as a person, not just an employee.

“Taking a  holistic approach to employees’ wellbeing and envisioning a shared purpose creates a deeper, more meaningful connection between an organisation and its people.”

Thomas Tearle at VMLY&R: “In all honesty, we’ve definitely felt the mismatch but as we looked a little closer, we actually began to wonder if this is less about seniority and more about the sum of a number of factors…  The person’s specific craft, their role, tenure (onboarding takes so much longer at home), the need for them to positively influence or impact others, the comfort and ability to focus more or less at home or indeed in the office, as well as their family situation. It all feeds into people’s preference and not specifically about leadership cadence.

“It’s so easy to look at it and diagnose it as senior management wanting control but I honestly believe it’s more about leaders wanting to ensure that there’s enough collaboration, peer to peer learning, that the work is of the right quality and that people are happy.

“The trick is working out how, when and where we do that and being ok with the fact that we don’t have the perfect answers yet.” 

Initiative’s Erin Jakubans: “Far from control, it’s about providing growth opportunities that simply don’t exist in a remote virtual world. Whilst flexibility is an absolute priority, especially at an individual level, we also need to push for a hybrid return to office solution.

“While some staff have expressed a desire to stay 100% remote, the sweet spot is around two  to three days in the office, with equal time being spent working from home on an annualised basis. With so much of our industry being the intangibles, the ‘vibe’ of the office or the osmosis learning you can only get in a room with others is critical, particularly for those starting out in the industry.”

Kristy Camarillo at The Royals: “It’s no longer about control (it may have been a few years back), it’s now about the quality of output.

“People coming together at the right times can be a powerful thing. It can harness the wonderful power the collective can create, enhance a sense of connection and belonging and help us find common meaning in our work.

“As far as any mismatch in expectations of how often we should be in the office, we are all searching for just the right balance as we navigate our way through the old way of working to the new.”

Free lunch and table tennis. Is it all about the benefits?

Virginia Scully at Hatched: “Not at all. It’s more about psychological safety, trust, flexibility, clear roles designed to strengths with opportunities to stretch and grow and upskill to stay ahead, having opinions heard at every level and a genuine care factor. These are far more beneficial than perks.”

Kristy Camarillo at The Royals: “It’s always about the benefits, but what people value and place a premium on has completely changed.

“New benefits need to reflect what’s most important to people. The stuff that matters today includes things like redesigned work hours and new leave schemes, training and clear career development plans, wellbeing programs, and additional insurance options. These are the types of benefits – not a free lunch or table tennis – that will drive a more agile, loyal, motivated and productive workforce (although the odd free panini sure tastes good).”

Thomas Tearle at VMLY&R: “Of course benefits help but they must be real tangible benefits rather than tokenistic things.

“The things that made our office spaces fun are obviously less important now, although we  wouldn’t be getting rid of them. We must invest heavily in our team’s lives and careers to grow together.”

Claire Gallagher at Principals: “Organisations scramble to define their Employee Value Proposition (EVP) in competitive talent markets. The latest claim will move, like a Mexican wave, from organisation to organisation – we do diversity, we will develop you, we are inclusive or your wellbeing matters.

“In reality, the one thing that will make a real difference is leadership. The role of leaders is to set the course, unite and align people behind shared goals, enable the team and unlock their potential, create environments where individuals, teams and your organisation can thrive. While benefits are nice (believe me, I’d love a paid gym membership and am regularly available for lunch!) but they don’t drive discretionary effort.