You need to know this:

• There is a growing level of experience across media agencies, with a year-on-year increase in the number of people with six to 10 years’ experience while those  with 20-plus years’ experience has doubled in the past three years.
• MFA CEO Sophie Madden told Mi3 this is an undervalued development in the recent MFA census and shows another side to the ongoing debate around churn rates for younger members of the industry
• Media agencies are now seeing a trend towards the "boomerangs". These are people who have left media agencies for other sectors or to go client and media owners but have since returned with a higher level of experience
• The MFA says there is a legacy issue of thinking that industry is getting younger, while recruiters and agency leaders are finding themselves hiring for more senior roles
• OMD CEO Aimee Buchanan says a major driver behind these stats lies in media agencies moving away from their transactional legacy around media buying towards a more consultancy-led approach
• Clients are leading the way: more marketers are looking at the balance of staff on their business and the experience levels of their executive leadership team

A new trend has emerged for media agencies - "Boomeranging".

The phrase is being used to describe those who have left the media agency sphere, gone on to other sectors, areas of agency life or swapped to client-side, but have then returned with a greater level of experience.

While the concept has been documented by recruiters in other sectors, MFA CEO Sophie Madden says the trend has only recently emerged for media agencies.

"One thing we can’t measure at the moment is this boomerang factor in the industry. It’s an untold story," Madden told Mi3. "We often look at, churn because it is easier to measure when someone leaves the industry, but what we know is, of those people who leave, a number of them return. This is something that we currently can’t measure."

One suggested 'boomerang' driver is the transformation media agencies are undergoing to keep up with client needs.

Madden says the evolution and rise to prominence of areas such as adtech and martech have seen agencies employ more senior staff with experience from other areas of the industry.

“Then there are those that are adding to the years of experience by entering the industry sideways, from sectors such as finance, data science and tech," she says.

As a result, the number of agency people with fewer than five years’ experience has dropped to 46% of the industry (from 49% the year prior). Overall, the average industry experience is now 8.1 years, up from 7.7 years the year prior. Agency tenure is also up, at 3.4 years.

Staff turnover has remained stable, with "regrettable losses" at 27.2% and "non-regrettable losses" dropping to 6.7% (from 9.0%).

Clients creating the demand

OMD CEO Aimee Buchanan says one of the factors influencing longevity is the shift by media agencies from their transactional legacy as clients demand more consultancy. 

"That can't be delivered by a junior person," Buchanan says. "So you have the expectations of the craft and the industry shifting. Secondly, agencies are realising the significant cost and time that goes into rehiring and replacing those individuals."

Clients will accept young talent on their accounts, but they "still want a strong executive leadership team on those bigger pieces of business," she adds.

Buchanan claims that around 2% of people with four or more years experience have exited OMD within the last 12 months, whereas roughly half of the leadership teams in Sydney and Melbourne have returned to the business, albeit over a longer time period.

Flexibility not getting the flick

Flexible working has continued to rise in prominence, with the opportunity to work from home available to 98% of media agency employees (up from 94%), and 8% of the workforce employed part-time, according to the MFA census.

"When I started out in this industry flexible working didn’t exist, partly due to the lack of available tech, but also because it wasn’t viewed as acceptable. But that has completely changed, including encouraging people to feel as though they can have a family," Buchanan says.

"Parents coming back from leave is also something that we’ve seen as a big factor in the trend. Another stat from us is that 92% who went on parental leave in 2019 returned once it had ended. That means only 8% didn’t and only a few years ago that was much higher, with only around 30% coming back."

OMD hasn't been the only agency to back flexible working arrangements. Earlier this year Publicis Groupe completely overhauled its approach, launching a new manifesto, 'Liberté'.

As part of the new Publicis approach, a range of measurement tools, working behaviours and processes have been developed to support managers and staff to deal with a new, more fluid environment.

Examples of these working behaviours include: 

• Set your boundaries: opting for hours that better suit working lifestyle
• Focus on outputs: Forget clock watchers, its results that matter
• People are all different: flexible working is... flexible, i.e. different for different people
• Use tech to your advantage - there's a reason comms platforms are popular

"The key outcome here is a combination of absolutely looking at increased engagement and lower turnover, but it's all hand in hand. If someone is happy in their role which is what I would link into mental health - happiness - then they're going to want to be in that organisation," Publicis Groupe Chief Talent Officer Pauly Grant previously told Mi3.

"It will also, as a result, give better work to our clients because happy, healthy staff members mean great quality work and diverse thinking and in our industry, when you don't have a product as such, we have to bank on our people being at their best, in all facets of their role."

Other key findings from the MFA Census:

• The census once again revealed a zero pay gap between men and women’s average annual salary. By comparison, the Australian national pay gap remains at 13.9%, as measured by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA).
• Significantly, the proportion of women leaders has risen to 44% of all management roles held by women (up from 37% the year prior).
• Staff numbers in media agencies are up 5.6% year-on-year, with MFA agency members employing 3,902 people.
• This represents the fifth-consecutive year of jobs growth in the industry. If all current vacant roles were filled, the industry population would rise to 4,156 people.