What you need to know:

• Recruiters and industry surveys are showing high levels of poor mental health after more than a year of rampant poaching, salary inflation and lack of talent.
• Mark Coad says more experienced talent end up plugging holes beneath them – “they don’t get dragged up” – and that can lead to flourishing or burnout.
• Kirsty Tavae from TKR Recruitment says many are already being paid above market rate – but are miserable, and often feel they should have jumped ship when they had the chance. But no-one wants to take a pay cut.
• Spark Foundry’s Imogen Hewitt says it’s time to rethink hiring practices. Forty per cent of Spark’s data and analytics team are from outside the industry – a lab technician and former Athlete’s Foot assistant, for example.
• Andy Wright from Never Not Creative says the Mentally Healthy survey, due out in October, will show more than a third of the industry displays moderate to severe depression.

Burnouts

The talent crisis is contributing to higher rates of depression and anxiety in marketing and agencies as rampant poaching, over-promotion, high salaries and vacant roles start burning out younger talent.

A little over a year on from IPG Mediabrands Australia's CEO Mark Coad’s prediction that inflated salaries – and expectations – could lead to people being “thrown in the deep end” too quickly, and now industry surveys and anecdotal stories are reporting just that.

More than a third of agency staff surveyed in the 2022 Mentally Healthy report displayed moderate to severe symptoms of depression on the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS), while almost half have discussed their mental health with a colleague.

Recruiters say they are seeing first hand the impact of rapid career progression and above-market salaries.

“The minute you bring up mental health, there’s a big pause. They don’t know me, but after we dig a bit deeper, I ask again. Then boom. ‘It’s so stressful, I’m drowning, no career progression, I took a counter and I shouldn’t have’. They regret not moving,” TKR Recruitment’s Kirsty Tavae said. She estimated 70 to 80 per cent of those she contacts – mostly headhunting those not in the market for a new role – end up sharing about poor mental health. But, she adds, they’re often being paid well above market rate.  

“Some of the numbers I’m getting I’m like ‘Woah. How? This role does not pay that’. The role I’m offering is paying 20-30K less than they’re on. Some of the agencies, the [Account Directors] are on $140K. It’s insane. They’ve placed themselves out of the market without being a Senior AD or Group AD.”

Tavae said despite the stress and anxiety, the vast majority won’t move – even if it would ease the mental burden.

“They’ve become so comfortable with the salary, it’s no longer a conversation they want to have. No-one wants to negotiate down,” she said.

“If everyone went back to basics and did their training properly, they would have a much more rewarding career because they’ve been properly trained.”

Flame out or flourish: Coad

A year ago, Coad said he had seen “problematic” hiring activity. Now it’s people burning out or succeeding. And empty roles are adding to the pain as newly promoted people have to ensure the work is done despite shortfalls.

“We are seeing it. It’s a combination of people getting paid above their post – they’re either going to flourish or flame out – and, invariably, people are not only doing their own job but getting dragged down into roles. They don’t get dragged up,” he said.

The agency community is relatively young – the Media Federation of Australia’s 2021 Census found an average age of 31.9 – but the majority of talent are younger.

“Burn out is prevalent in our industry for sure, but to say the whole industry is burnt out, is extreme. We are inherently a young industry,” Coad said.

“Not many industries have people under 30 in senior management positions like we do. As an industry we need to focus on people’s long term career goals and provide supportive environments for our people to grow and thrive. For long term career sustainability that means appropriate elevation to senior remits for industry Young Guns.”

Mentally Healthy

Preliminary figures from the 2022 Mentally Healthy Survey show 36 per cent of more than 1,300 people surveyed display “moderate to severe” symptoms of depression on the DAS scale. The survey, which is still open and asking for more agency respondents, is compiled by Never Not Creative, UnLtd and Everymind.

“Those reporting lower levels of mental wellbeing are more likely to witness others taking the credit for their ideas, have felt undervalued compared to other colleagues and believe their opportunities to progress have been restricted by their managers,” Andy Wright, creator of Never Not Creative, said.

“If we want to make a dent in the mental health issue in our industry we have to focus a lot more on how we work. The typical wellbeing initiatives employed by businesses are a 'nice touch' but we need to take a deeper look at the causes vs just treating the symptoms.”

Interestingly, while 45 per cent of preliminary survey respondents said their workplace made mental health a medium or high priority, only 21 per cent said they believed the issue was being addressed effectively. 

A green shoot from the survey was that while 47 per cent have spoken to a colleague about their mental health in the past 12 months, more felt the stigma around it is declining. 

Look outside

For the first time in Australia’s history, the Australian Financial Review reported, there are more job openings than people to fill them. Spark Foundry CEO Imogen Hewitt said it’s time to look outside the existing talent pool. More than 40 per cent of Spark’s data and analytics team are “non-industry hires”.

“We have a lab technician, a retail assistant from Athlete’s Foot, and someone from pharmaceutical research,” she said.

“I think there are just sort of some legacy beliefs that we have that I think could do with some pretty serious challenge. We don't have tertiary education as a qualifier on our recruitment ads anymore.” Rather, they look at a set of personality traits – attention to detail for one – that trump experience.

But external hiring works better in some areas than others. “I don't think that you can hire laterally necessarily across the full suite of agency services. It’s genuinely more difficult,” she said.

“We have lawyers – they are a really good pool for the client team… For people who are used to less fast paced industries, it's literally like their eyes light up. They're like, ‘this is way better than what I was doing before’, so it's not all doom and gloom.” 

The Mentally Healthy survey can be found at this link.