Low Employee Morale In Ad Agencies Raises Eyes and Concerns
I’m quite confident that employee engagement levels vary by industry and job functions. In fact I know that to be the case according to both Forrester and Gallup. However, this week I saw a new piece of research from Campaign USA that suggests advertising agencies are no different from other companies across the United States. It said that 70% have low employee morale and most are looking for new job opportunities.
I found this statistic to be astounding. Why? In my experience having worked in the advertising industry in the late 80s and early 90s, most employees who were working on an active accounts are truly engaged in their day-to-day activities. They came in early, worked late into the evening, and felt gratified to be able to make a serious contribution to the advertising product. Granted, advertising was not as proliferated as it is today with digital, social, blogging, online programming, etc. Advertising was simple. Newspaper, outdoor, radio, magazines and TV. Today advertising is so complicated and complex it’s hard to even call it advertising.
In fact this week is “Advertising Week” in New York City and the CEO of WPP, Sir Martin Sorrell in the opening panel discussion suggested that the organizers changed the title of the events, as quoted and advertising age ,"It's something else week, but it's not Advertising Week."
- The study reveals that employees working for companies they classify as having low morale are 3.5 times more likely to be job-hunting than those who work at companies that they say have high morale
- Overall, more than one-third of the survey’s 211 respondents — 37% — rated morale at their company as low or dangerously low, while only 29% said it was good or very good. Thirty-four percent said it was satisfactory.
- The single greatest factor driving down morale is management, said the respondents. Lack of advancement opportunities, salary and work-life balance were also highly cited.
- "Ego-driven, self-fulfilling, all-about-me attitudes," said one respondent on reasons for low morale at his or her company. "Rush projects, poorly planned projects, lack of project direction," said another. "Politics and sexism," said another. "Working in print media," said one respondent. "We are the Titanic."
The article goes on to explain that the reasons for morale being low can be fixed by high-engagement leadership, personal care, vision for the organization, and a true commitment to work-life balance. In agencies where those are strong and the culture is rock solid, the number of hours worked and the balance with home life becomes almost an irrelevance. If people feel they are on a path and are really part of the creation of something special, they are happy to commit — but leaders have to create that emotional engagement for that to happen.
In my opinion, another major factor for low morale in traditional advertising agencies is the diminished role of advertising agencies in general as strategic advisors and counselors to the overall marketing plan. Today some of those responsibilities and roles have gone to technology and strategy consulting firms; and that has delegated roles of advertising agency personnel to glorified commodity designers, production managers and traffic/project managers.
Finally, another contributing factor is the “sink or swim” attitude espoused by ad agencies. With the proliferation of the field, and its own successful branding as an attractive position, ad agencies are an attractive destination for new graduates. However, with this high supply, management can churn through entry-level employees as quickly as they come in. While millennials have been faulted for their lack of loyalty to one company throughout their career, who can blame them when the environment they enter lacks a strong training program or a management structure that will support them.
The advertising agency business is at a crossroads in regard to how it treats its employees and the value they see in their employees. Indeed, something has to change or the advertising agency industry, as we know it today will become, as Sir Martin Sorrell suggested, “something else".