Welcome to Episode 61. This episode is about people and culture in a creative agency.
It’s particularly relevant if you’re an independent agency owner because my expert guest, Sarah Brewster, Managing Director of Fresh Seed talks to me about why attracting and retaining staff is the biggest challenge in the industry at the moment.
She shares:
– some tips for how to recruit effectively
– advice for navigating issues such as diversity and inclusion, safety at work and the MeToo movement
– and why she’s seen a loss of kindness post-pandemic.
She also shares why IR 35 has had a huge impact on freelancing, plus ways to ensure equal pay across the business. This episode is jam-packed with tips.
If you’d like to receive weekly updates and tips about agency account management, then please head over to the Home page, where you can sign up for my weekly email and check out the details of my Account Accelerator training programme, which is designed to help agencies expand existing client business.
Transcript:
Jenny 00:02
Today I’m delighted to welcome Sarah Brewster, who’s the MD of Fresh Seed. Fresh Seed is a company that offers a wide range of people and culture services for creative agencies and the creative industry in general. Sarah, welcome.
Sarah 00:16
Thank you, lovely to be here.
Jenny 00:18
I’m really excited about getting into the questions. So, just to start us off Sarah, would you mind spending a few minutes talking about you, your background and why you started Fresh Seed?
Sarah 00:27
Yes, thanks. So, I started life, gosh, a long time ago, in the creative industries. It’s far too long ago and I won’t tell you the numbers! I worked in PR and web design and in those days web design was new media. Then I went on to work in games and various other creative organisations. During my time in those companies, I obviously gained a lot of experience and a wider breadth of knowledge and issues that were in the industry. Some of those were around mental health, some were around poor behaviours, generally by leadership and team members towards each other and just general behaviours. And that led me to do a counselling qualification that then led me to where I am now with my career in terms of organisation, design and development and organisation’s psychology. And all of that became the sum of me starting Fresh Seed really because what I wanted to do was bring to people and organisations a way of managing people that was accessible, I suppose. I think, quite often in the industry, people are so busy moving forward that they neglect the people issues. Also in this industry, we do have a higher than average issue with mental health. During those early years, and doing a counselling qualification, I realised that it was a way to help individuals thrive at work and come back into work. And all of that led me to set up Fresh Seed. I had quite a horrible experience myself where I was made redundant after having a baby. And I thought, ‘Well, I don’t want to work for someone else ever again. I’m going to start my own business.’ And that’s how it began.
Jenny 02:41
Amazing. And typically, are your client’s independent agency owners that perhaps aren’t at the size where they have an in-house HR Department or people in a Culture Department?
Sarah 02:53
Yes, it’s entirely that. We work across the sector. So, we don’t just work with agencies, but we work with the whole creative sector. So, our models respond to that which means we’re very agile, I suppose. And we always work with businesses that are scaling, who are beginning to have HR needs in a way that perhaps they didn’t when they were just 5 or 10 people.
Jenny 03:20
Great. So, you started in the creative industry, you saw the problems and you thought, right, I can help? And you upskilled yourself. Is that why you feel so passionate now because you experienced a lot in your background – poor behaviours, etc. Is that why you feel passionate about Fresh Seed?
Sarah 03:42
Absolutely, completely. It’s been an interesting journey working in this industry. It’s not for everyone, that’s been tested in many ways. But I love this industry; it’s what we create, it’s incredible. And I really just passionately believe that the talent that puts all that content out there needs to be nurtured. And that nurture doesn’t come through financial planning or through forecasting or even that manufacturing model, that corporate model. It comes from really nurturing and tailoring a response to help people thrive. And because my background is not purely HR, I’ve got that psychology background, as a business, we’ve really got to the nuts and bolts of behaviour, as well them providing an HR package that suits them. And that’s how we get this culture to thrive. So yes, I’m completely passionate, massively passionate about it.
Jenny 04:55
Before I carry on with the questions, you said something earlier I just wanted to ask you about. You said that you were made redundant. Did you say that was after you became pregnant or after you had a baby? Isn’t that against the law?
Sarah 05:10
So, I was made redundant just four months after going back to work having had my baby. Yes, it’s highly illegal.
Jenny 05:20
What is the law around that just for anyone listening that perhaps has a staff member that’s pregnant and maybe isn’t up to speed? Hopefully, they will be.
Sarah 05:29
If you’ve got a member of staff who’s pregnant and going on maternity leave, then you have to honour the statutory paternity regulations. There are loads of those available online to access, you don’t have to come to us for that. Although do! But you can get that through ACAS and places like that if you need to. But yes, a woman is entitled to up to nine months maternity and longer, but nine months is paid on statutory. And they have to have a minimum of two weeks after the baby is born. They can choose to come back to work if they wish to, but most women don’t. And in terms of what happens after the baby is born and then they come back to work, it’s a grey area that you dismiss, but in my instance, it was discrimination. It was discrimination because I was made redundant because I’d had a baby and they knew that I was going to have more. That’s why they made me redundant.
Jenny 06:45
Did you take it further at the time?
Sarah 06:46
Yes, yes. That’s all outside of court, through solicitors. And just for the record, their solicitor in any conversation like that, should start without prejudice. And their solicitor didn’t start the conversation without prejudice because he said, it’s probably prejudice. This is wrong.
Jenny 07:07
Wow, fantastic. Well, thank you for sharing that. That’s quite an experience. I can see why you feel so driven to help others. So, can you tell me what are the typical challenges that creative agency owners face when it comes to people and culture?
Sarah 07:23
I think the biggest challenge at the moment is attracting and retaining staff. There is a shortfall of about a million people because of Brexit. And how do you overcome those issues? It is massive, isn’t it? If you can’t get people and it’s widely seen through the great resignation, that people have changed the way they work. Because of COVID, people have worked from home, and they want that. And how do you compete with that? If you’re a small business, what can you do? It’s a real dilemma for businesses to really think themselves creatively and get themselves out there, particularly when they can’t compete with salary and when they can’t compete with benefits because they’re a small business. It’s a real challenge. There are ways that you can be more creative but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the quick fix, because it isn’t.
In terms of staff retention, I think one of the biggest challenges when you’re moving really fast, is you forget to communicate. And you as a leader when you’re not communicating with your staff, it shows you don’t really care. And although that might not be your intention, and it may not be what you mean, and you might be a great bloke or girl down the pub, and you might want to be the first at the bar, but if you’re not there, present and communicating and giving people information about where the business is going, people make their own assumptions. And all of a sudden, you’ve got a ‘Them and us’ culture or you’ve got somebody who’s underperforming or so on and so forth. And these issues become quite toxic, quite quickly. So, staff retention is not really just about salary and benefits. It’s about all the bits that you forget to do. And I think those are the really big issues that agencies have got at the moment.
But I think there’s a huge overwhelm Jenny. I think there’s a huge overwhelm of information out there. There’s a diversity and inclusion thing that’s going on. Across the sector, there’s issues with safety at work, bullying and harassment and things like the MeToo movement. How do we overcome that? Well, it’s all of us collectively doing something towards it. That’s the way forward. But again, if you’re a busy agency, quite often it’s easy to neglect those things. And it’s quite easy for you to bring in your own bias into these things. And when there’s a real overwhelm of information. There’s a lot of What and Why out there and very little How and I think for agencies, it just becomes too conceptual, too theoretical and not tangible.
Jenny 10:33
So, agency leaders, not only are they overwhelmed with the amount of new policies that they’ve got to get their heads around and implement, but also, from your point of view, the key thing is retention. Retain your good people because it’s tough out there at the moment. I didn’t realise it was 1 million shortfall, wow. You’re probably going to share some other challenges, but let’s just roll with those couple at the moment. In terms of the communication, I thought that was really interesting. How do you help leaders understand what great communication looks like?
Sarah 11:11
Yes, that’s a really good one. We have been developing some training with clients for this and it’s something we’re actually going to roll out as a product. We really recognise, and I have done throughout my career, I think it’s quite a commonly thought thing to be honest, that communication is neglected. And I really think that some of it is just getting leadership to sit down and listen because it affects your bottom line. And really, who wants a toxic person in the business because they didn’t communicate? No one; it’s an energy drain. So, what we started to do was roll out some training for the clients and it’s grown organically into something that now is a product. We’ve got a new website being created and it’s a product that will go on there. Top tips for communication is active listening. It’s opening your ears, not coming in with your own assumptions. Quite often, if there’s an issue with people, if you’ve got favourite in the situation, you’ve got to be an adult, you’ve got to step back and go, ‘I can’t have a favourite in this. I’ve just got to have a look at where the facts are and what the evidence is’. And then it’s about having a proper conversation with people and resolving it. So, if it’s issues, resolving it in a fair and reasonable way. If it’s down to the fact that you’re not communicating, find someone to help you if you struggle. Accept that we can’t be everything. And in agencies, particularly the small agencies that are scaling as well, you’re trying to be everything, because money is everything. And you’ve got to recognise sometimes you can’t. And what’s really important is developing your people, because that employer brand is so key. It’s as important as the brand that you put out to your clients. And in fact, in some ways, look at Gymshark, a great example. They’ve got the most incredible brand. And that brand is not just because of what they produce. In fact, the brand is probably better known for how they look after their people in some ways rather than the gear that they produce. And that’s a great analogy for what you could be. It isn’t unachievable.
Jenny 13:44
I so agree with this. And obviously, I’ve worked for many, many years in agencies and I lived bad culture! And you’re so right, it does affect the bottom line because an unhappy ship is going to affect how they are dealing with your clients. They are the ambassadors that are out there dealing with your clients, that’s going to affect your bottom line, just as you said. So fantastic initiative about the training. Is it for the leadership team or is it for the owner only?
Sarah 14:13
Totally for the leadership team.
Jenny 14:15
So active listening, how to have a conversation, how to resolve issues among the team, what else do you cover to help them?
Sarah 14:25
Boundaries. How to lay proper boundaries. So, understanding what you’re asking of people. And we really get them to think about that in terms of job adverts and recruitment, right through to conversations that they’re having with staff performance. And one to ones, like check-ins if you like, when we really get them to think about that in a really different way. We don’t train, ‘You must do it this way’. We don’t do that. We get people to be real in the room and share and get involved. And it gets some amazing results. I’ve had people cry on me because of the results that we’ve delivered. And it’s really powerful because they’ve never thought about it or recognised that it could be so achievable. It’s good stuff. It works.
Jenny 15:23
It sounds fantastic. I love the initiative. And as you say that kind of training, that kind of awareness from the leadership team is going to retain the staff they’ve got presumably, in terms of the attraction of new staff. That’s supporting that, it’s going to help that, isn’t it? Because happy ships are going to tell their friends, they’re going to talk about it, they’re going to do well. But what about the attraction piece? How are you helping your clients currently with attracting staff?
Sarah 15:52
So, we’ve got a real ethos around job adverts and that recruitment piece and about being creative with your brand. So really getting your identity to stand out. And my whole background isn’t corporate. So, I haven’t ever really applied a corporate view to recruitment if you like, or any of the HR function, or people function. My belief system is just, as long as you’re following the law and there isn’t a risk to it, let’s have fun with it. So, in terms of your brand that gets out there with recruitment, let’s have fun with it so that you stand out from the minute people read it. And it works. I’ve recruited people for my team. Alexandra will probably be listening to this at some point, and she is a complete case in point. She just loved the advert, because it was different. It spoke the language of who we are and what we are. Lots of organisations talk about values and that’s super important that you identify your values but that’s not all that should be in the advert. There’s so much more that you can say about the personality of your business in the advert that makes people say, ‘This is different. This is something that speaks to me as an individual.’ And even if you’re a small business and you haven’t got heaps of money, if you can work flexibly and people can work from home, if people can bring their dog into work or even mention the fact that you might have a great family package or whatever it might be, those things attract people in a way that they wouldn’t otherwise have done. It’s just another job advert for another designer or account manager or whatever it is. It becomes generic, why would you? But if you’re creative with your job ad and it stands out, then it’s surely, it’s the language of the business? Win, win! We’re creatives.
Jenny 17:53
Can I ask you what you did with your adverts now, I’m intrigued? Why was it attractive to your business partner?
Sarah 17:59
I basically just said about who we are. That we’re human. That we’re humans dealing with humans. We’re not dealing with machines. That we’re adults and the way that I approach work is about interaction. I said we work in a variety of industries within the sector, so it’s fast paced and it’s fun and sometimes it’s hard work because it’s really fast. And people want things from you now, and when they mean now, they mean yesterday, not in 10 minutes time. So, it’s hard and fast. I talked about the support that goes in the business to support people to grow. And it works. I’ve got a great team. It’s a small team, but it’s a great team, and they love it. And what also happens is that we talk all the time, we’ve got a great network between us. We work remotely sometimes and sometimes we’re in an office together. But all throughout the day, we’re just as connected, regardless of where we are because we talk all the time. Sometimes, we’ll jump into calls if we’ve got a challenge but we’re open with each other. And I really believe that people are humans. And humans are not just the sum of the thing that comes to work. We’re so much more than that. So, if you’ve got a dog or a washing machine that’s broken down, or a mum that’s not very well or children that need you then, of course, you’ve got to find a way to balance that. You can’t just come into work and be that myopic. You’ve got to be broader in your thinking about how you manage people and what you allow them to do. And that for a small business is so powerful because that’s something you can do. That’s something you can offer. When you’re bigger, there is a difference in those organisations. But when you’re little, you can be a little bit more flexible, you can be a bit more fun, and you can be a bit less serious about it all. You can get that out there.
Jenny: Yes, because you don’t have to get a massive amount of approval from higher up, it’s just you. And you’re ultimately going to attract the right type of person for your business that you want to work with. So, love it. Great tip, get creative with your adverts. And the other thing that you mentioned, one of the challenges for agency owners, was the overwhelm. You’ve got D&I, safety at work, the MeToo movement. And how do people navigate that? Any tips?
Sarah: Oh, it’s really difficult, isn’t it? I have clients that say to me all the time, we really want to get this right. What do we do? How do we get this right? Top tip is you’ve got to be actively conscious of your own bias. You’ve got to be actively aware, and you’ve got to work on it.
We use a T bar analogy. I think that’s probably quite commonly known. So, the analogy works that you progress through your career on a ladder. So, you go up, up, up, up. But what part of us do we work on this? So where are we working on the skills that might not necessarily be relevant to the up in so much as going from an account exec to an account manager to an account director to client services and so on and so forth. Heads of departments and then further up the ladder. At what point do we stop and say, actually, in order to get better at this management bit, we need to do this? So, what we say is, when it comes to diversity and inclusion, when it comes to the MeToo movement, when it comes to safety at work, you’ve got to be working on that bit, that T bar. You’ve got to be conscious of the stuff that goes across the edges, you’ve got to be conscious of your own bias, you’ve got to be looking at ‘Where’s the evidence?’ So, if you’re entering a situation where someone’s saying they don’t feel safe, don’t dismiss it because you don’t think it doesn’t exist. Listen, find the facts, find the evidence. If you’re struggling to do that because you’re too busy, get someone to help you. But don’t ignore it. Because the more you ignore it, the bigger issue it becomes and the more toxic it becomes.
Remember that being creative with your brand at the beginning, if you create it with your brand and then you still get it wrong, that message gets out there to small industry. We all know each other somehow; it all becomes incredibly easily known. So, forget your bias move, remove that and be a bit more agile in your own thinking about what can I do that’s different here? So that’s one thing, safety at work, actively listening. Totally actively listening. Then actively listening again is the same bias mechanism. But it’s really what are you hearing? Diversity and inclusion, that’s really looking at what have we got in the business? Are we only ever recruiting the same type of person? And often we are because often we’re using our friend, or our mate’s mate. And that’s okay, to an extent, because that’s what happens in a small business when you’re first starting. But if you want to reach your clients and you want to reach those networks, you’ve got to be different. And you’ve got to accept that the people that come into your business are going to challenge you and you may not always like what you hear. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that what you’re hearing is wrong. There’s a difference, there’s a real difference between whether someone is being unreasonable and unfair, or whether someone is actually just pushing you and challenging your thinking. And if you think about that diversity piece and what your audience is asking for, it’s changed enormously through COVID, the Black Lives Matter Movement has massively moved forward, and we’ve had a really big change. And it’s what people are asking for. They’re asking in that whole great resignation, it’s one of the issues that they’re asking for. Is this a diversity piece? So, you can’t ignore it. It’s not going to go away either.
Jenny 24:33
I’m just thinking of agency owners listening. I suppose, prior to the pandemic, if you are a local agency, maybe you would struggle to attract local talent as there wasn’t such a diverse mix of different skills and different types of people with different backgrounds because you were enforcing everyone being in the office all the time. Now the pandemic, in a positive way, has meant that you can recruit and have people working remotely. And presumably, that then opens up where people are recruiting from? Are you finding, over the last couple of years particularly, that agencies are looking further afield to get that mix and also to get the right talent because of the remote working?
Sarah 25:18
I think they’re still slow to remember that. I think it is beginning to shift. But I think there’s this been this feeling that everyone suddenly comes back to work and we’re going to move really quickly. And there’s a sudden, ‘Oh, we can’t recruit in the same way, what’s changed?’ I think there’s also a misconception a little bit around what diversity is, particularly the recruitment piece, when you’re putting your adverts out there with these fantastic messages about being diverse and inviting a more diverse background to sign up or apply, what you’ve then got to do when you’re looking at those CVs or those applications is just remember the journey that people have been on to get to you will look really different. So, what are you looking for in a CV? Are looking for another designer, developer or account manager? Or are you looking for someone who’s going to push you? And they may not have had a straight journey to get to this role and you’ve got to be really conscious of the fact that there’s a spark almost, that’s there. And yes, remote working is definitely one way of tackling it. But if you’re always applying the same lens to recruitment, you’ll never get a diverse workforce, you’ve got to be thinking differently. When you put that piece at the bottom of the ad, it looks great. But if you do nothing with it, what’s the point? If you still recruit with the same lens, what’s the point of having it? You may as well not bother.
Jenny: What are these typical lenses that sometimes you see again, and again? Why are you insisting on X? Can you share?
Sarah: I think it’s; I’ve got a gap, I need to fill it yesterday. So, I’ll just go with them because they look great. They look great on paper; they look like they can do it. I might do a little bit of a LinkedIn search, I might look at The Dots or somewhere else and look at their profile on social media. Yes, they seem all right, I’ll get them in. It’s not responsive.
We talk about three things in Fresh Seed. We talk about the reactive work, the responsive work and the proactive work. And quite often the industry is in reactive, not responsive, proactive work. And I think in recruitment, it’s often because they’ve gone, ‘Oh God, we’ve got a new client. Oh, God, we’ve got to do…’ Rather than stepping back and being a bit more strategic and saying, ‘We’re going to go for those sorts of clients therefore we’ve got to start building those relationships with those people now. It might not necessarily mean that we want them straight away, but we can do recruitment through LinkedIn and other sources. We can warm people up, we can get to know people, we can start to look at what are we asking for, differently, before we go out to that client and win that piece of work. So that means that when we are winning that piece of work and we are looking for that diverse pool of people, we’re already aware of what we need and it’s not responsive or reactive. It’s just we’re already there, we’re already on that page. And I think that’s something across the sector that people don’t do, they don’t plan it at all, they just fill a gap.
Jenny 28:58
Great advice, great advice. Build the bench. Build the bank of people that you have. Build the understanding of who’s out there, build relationships and have coffees. Lovely advice. Do you think that sometimes it’s down to the actual business model that agencies typically have? Like charging by the hour, there’s not a lot of margin, you’re always looking at the numbers. And I’ll be really honest with you, I remember my days at Publicist, we were in a panic because we won a piece of business. We hadn’t been building the bench. This guy came along and it was, well let’s go with him. But we hadn’t done the same amount of due diligence, not due diligence from a technical point of view, but there were some gaps. I don’t know if you’ve got those statistics to hand, but recruiting a bad hire, the wrong hire, can be hugely financially costly, can’t it?
Sarah 29:55
About £30,000 it can cost you. Which is your bottom line isn’t it? £30,000 is a lot of money. But it’s also a huge energy drain. If you’ve recruited badly and you’ve got to go and do it again – gosh. And then if you’ve taken on a recruiter to do that for you and then that person doesn’t work out, you’ve got to pay anyway. We’ve talked to people who’ve been taken to court because they haven’t paid because they hadn’t recognised that when they first engage with a recruiter, if the person didn’t work out, they’d have to pay a tapered fee. And they think, ‘Well, I don’t want to get the money back.’ It has recruiters for a reason. It isn’t as simple as just having a coffee with your mate, unfortunately. It’s just a huge energy drain, not to mention all the admin that goes with it. It’s one of the pieces of the industry, I think, that is the most broken. But I think it’s also one of the pieces of the industry that done well, is beautiful.
Jenny 31:10
Can you give any examples, you don’t have to name names, but anything that you’ve seen, where agencies do it really well?
Sarah 31:17
Not recently, I have to say. I think prior to the pandemic, the world’s that a similar style of the Gymshark kind of thing. I have seen some not agencies, but theatres, do some amazing recruitment. And really create a beautiful brand package that’s just incredible. I haven’t seen it with agencies recently. I think it’s been incredibly reactive. I think a lot of agencies use recruiters, as well. And that means you don’t have to really identify that brand in perhaps the same way. I think when you’re small, you don’t have an HR function that can do it. So that can be why you go to a recruiter I suppose. So no, I haven’t recently, I’d love to see more of it. I’d love to be able to help people do it as well, that’s why we exist. But I haven’t got any examples, unfortunately, Jenny. I’d love to. If you’ve got any out there, please share them. We’d love to hear about them.
Jenny 32:32
Great. And we’ll put your contact details in the show notes for sure. Anything else that you’ve seen over the last few years, particularly? I think Fresh Seed has been going for over three years now?
Sarah 32:45
Yes
Jenny 32:46
So that was just before the pandemic, then the pandemic hit and then we’re coming out. So, what did you see before and what have you seen after? What have been the biggest changes?
Sarah 32:56
Oh, it’s been immense, hasn’t it?
Jenny 32:59
It’s a big question!
Sarah 33:03
I think beforehand, there were a lot of leadership challenges. There was a lot of pushing for flexible working, pushing for people to think differently about their brand. And the diversity issues were really beginning to get traction and noise. Then through COVID, it’s been such a different world. Lots of businesses furloughed, lots of businesses really struggled and there was a huge amount of anxiety, huge amounts of stress and struggles. At one point LinkedIn was literally like the Wild West. It was so empty, it was bizarre. And it was very tumbleweed through that. And gradually businesses started to come through that furlough machine and unfold themselves.
I think what we saw through COVID was a lot of kindness and support and helping each other. That’s gone. It’s much colder, it’s much harder with everyone clambering back over each other. There’s a lot more aggression, there’s a lot more competition. Even in the recruitment piece I know, agencies have recruited, they’ve gone through it, they’ve offered the contract and then the person’s gone somewhere else. It’s a different marketplace at the moment. As I said before, it’s a huge energy drain but it’s also really difficult. If you’re a small agency it’s so difficult to compete with those ones that can give you a broader brush. So, we’ve seen a really different kind of change over the last three years and some of it’s been great and some of it’s been really stressful.
Jenny 35:08
Would you say that the power is very much in the hands of the talent now of the staff because as you said, Brexit, we’ve got a 1 million deficit, people have decided to go freelance. Are you finding that the big network agencies, for example, that can perhaps afford to pay more are attracting the staff?
Sarah 35:36
Last year, IR35 came back in. And I think that’s had a huge impact on the industry. There was one point when one recruiter said to me that she’d lost two-thirds of her candidates because of IR35.
Jenny 35:52
And for those listening, I know what it is, but could you share what it is for anyone listening that doesn’t know?
Sarah 35:57
It’s a tax on individuals. But it’s complicated. There are some real specialists and I’m not a specialist in it so I’m not going to give you the ins and outs of it. But the top line is, if you’re an employer that has over 50, staff, a bottom line of £5million or a top line of £10million, you’re eligible to pay IR35 on each contractor. And what that means is that the contractor, my husband’s one, I’ll give you him as an example. He’s a UXer. He’s had his business for the last 12 years. As a contractor, he is looking for his new roles or contracts all the time. And the IR35 means that as a business, he’s paying his corporation tax and his payrolls and so on and so forth. So, he’s already paying tax. If it goes inside IR35 he’ll have to pay 40% of everything he earns. So that means that suddenly his day rate has gone from being quite a reasonable day rate to being huge in order that he can still earn the same money. And why should he be penalised for something that isn’t his fault? So IR35 has really changed the way the industry operates. Freelancers in some areas of the industry are more able to pick up little bits of work and that’s great. I do feel that that was really relevant during the pandemic because it was that pivoting thing. I hate that word but unfortunately, it’s out there. So, I think what we’ve seen is that change. Whether it’s sustained, I don’t know, I can’t see into the future. But yes, IR35 has had a huge impact on talent and I think that, therefore, has meant a lot of people have gone in house. And that’s made it hard. And people are a lot more selective now, as well. So, I know one agency has got an issue with designers because they’re a lot more specific about what they want to work on, rather than being a broad brush. It’s a buyer’s market if you’re looking for a job.
Jenny 38:43
Yes, absolutely. And this is the first time in a long time that we’ve seen this. Can you talk for a minute, on the subject of equal pay for small agencies? It was drawn to my attention, recently, with a project that one agency was working on. They found that ensuring that everyone’s getting equal pay, there’s a model that you can apply, but the model was specifically for organisations for over 500 or 5000 staff – I can’t even remember. But any points of help for agencies that are ensuring equal pay?
Sarah 39:26
There are some models out there, some job evaluation models out there that can help with that sort of thing. If you’re a small company, I wouldn’t go down that corporate road.
Jenny 39:38
You can’t apply it can you?
Sarah 39:41
What I do, and we’ve worked with some clients and we’ve helped them do this, I suppose boxes is the way to do it and in that box- it’s like the bottom and the top of what that role has. So, it gives you that succession piece in it. So, at the bottom of that role, let’s say we’re talking about an account exec moving up to an account manager role. So, you’ve got an account executive who might come in at an entry level and you can recognise what those steps would be, and how are you going to get them to be at the top of that, to enable them to be promoted to the next level. You might not necessarily have the promotion but you’re at least encouraging them to grow. So, it’s kind of looking at in categories if you like. And that means that you’re making sure that everyone who comes in, more or less at that bottom level of whatever that role is, you know what to pay more or less, and then you can scale it. So, once you get in them, so the account manager analogy, once you get them into the account manager analogy, you can do benchmarking yourself. It’s not an exact science, but you can look on job boards and recruiter’s websites and get a feel for what roles are paying. It’s a bit like buying a house. A role can be put out there, at a certain price, but whether they actually get that money is a bit of a grey area, but probably, they’re more likely to. So, you can use some benchmarking data for yourself there. In terms of equal pay, what’s historically been an issue is that, and where it becomes harder to understand, is what some people were more likely to be, in certain roles. So, you might like to say, you find women in marketing and PR rather than, say, finance or even account management. So, when you’re looking at equal pay across an organisation, you want to make sure that you’re not just looking at individual departments, but looking at measuring it against the whole organisation. And what I’ve noticed recently, for example, office managers are a great example of this. Office managers used to be just put in admin because, ‘You’re not really worth paying much,’ and women are historically office managers. And so, what we’ve seen is a real shift in that concept, around that diversity piece. And yes, they might be an administrator but they’re still really, really valuable. We’ve begun to see that there’s a parity now. Office managers are now getting £40,000-£50,000 which is a really good salary and justified, because to be honest, it’s a really hard job. And so, it’s being mindful that you might have an admin person but they’re as important as an account, exec. They’re probably doing something similar in terms of role parity. So just being mindful. Don’t get caught in your bias about you’re ‘just that’, so they should be paid poorly. I can just imagine some office managers listening and thinking, ‘Right, I’m going to make a phone call to my boss!’ This is a great example of obviously, how you are supporting agencies in their growth because what you’re talking about there is the extension ladder of people being promoted. So, are there any other key considerations for agency owners, in terms of how to scale and grow? My biggest wish in that area is please, please, please think before. Don’t react, think, just recognise, I am going forward with this work, we’re beginning to win more and more of this work. What do we need in our team? How do we need our team to progress? Who do we need? Do we need a project manager? Do we need an account manager? Do we need an extra designer? Do we need this but think! Don’t fill the gap. Think! If you could do that as an agency, it would be music to my ears.
Jenny 44:30
And it comes down to this leadership skills piece, doesn’t it? Really, because that’s proactive planning for the future, for the way your business is expanding.
Sarah 44:39
Yes, and you know what it does? It pays forward. You might think this is just HR going ‘ah, ah, ah!’ But I have been around the block enough. If you don’t do it, you end up with all kinds of problems. You recruit the wrong people because you’re recruiting in a hurry. You don’t get your diversity right so that has a knock-on effect. You’ve got toxic issues that arise because you’re too busy to communicate, you’ve got all of these problems and suddenly you’re bringing HR in as the helicopter to fix it, not the cultural piece to develop it. And what does that say about you? Does that say that you’re always in that reactionary space? You’re not doing your best work in that space anyway. In our psychology of humans we need, we’re better, we’re more creative when we’re not in that fight and flight mode. And often, if you’re reacting, always filling the gaps, you’re in fight or flight. It’s as simple as that. So, just think, take a breath, step back. If it’s too hard, pick up the phone to someone who can. Whether that’s people like Spencer and Peter who have been around the block and done it loads know this, whether it’s us or whether it’s someone else that you know that’s an ally, do it, because it will pay forward. It will be, probably, one of the most valuable things that you ever do for your business.
Jenny 46:00
And for those listening that don’t know, Peter and Spencer, they are the Cactus consultants who are co-founders of the Agencynomics community and co-authors of the book. And I’ve just realised the time, Sarah. I could go on talking to you forever. I’ve got loads more questions, but I’m really conscious of your time. I want to ask a really good question before we wrap up and you tell everybody how they can reach you. With toxic environments, we’re in the people game, aren’t we? You’re selling people, people are so, so key to this business, the agency business. Do you think agency owners recognise when there is a toxic environment?
Sarah 46:45
My initial thought there was no, but I think that would be unfair; I think they do. I think often they do. I think what often happens, and isn’t just agencies, it’s certainly sector-wide, it’s probably broader in other industries too, people bury their head in the sand. People don’t like conflict. Who likes conflict? We’re trained professionals and I can tell you, hundreds of the HR community would go into a room shaking, with conflict. Nobody likes it. However, in a situation of conflict, there are some great things that you can do that are your ally. One of those is recognising that you will be in fight or flight. Start taking yourself back, looking at your facts and evidence and getting support. If you can’t do it yourself and it becomes really toxic, then you need support. If you can mediate, mediate yourself. If you need to bring someone in, pick up the phone to us. We know loads of mediators, they’re great, they will help you. And be adult about this. Be adult. It’s really hard. Lots of conflicts and toxic environments can really grow. And when it’s your baby, it feels so personal. It feels like you’ve failed, it feels like you’ve not acknowledged, and it feels like it’s just horrendous and it’s never going to end. But it does end. And it does get better. And there are some amazing ways that you can resolve things. And I’ve seen people who I honestly thought were going to be enemies forever and have these big fallouts, end of days and unions getting involved and all kinds of dark behaviour. Then they’ve turned around to mediation and burst into tears and become each other’s best friends and we go out – we’d never have bet on that. So even the worst scenario can more often be turned around. So don’t avoid it. And from the HR side of it, the more that you avoid it, the more costly it becomes because the more that you have to get support in to help, you are more at risk of it going into an employment tribunal. And employment tribunals, whether you win or you lose are a huge drain on energy. And if you lose, a huge cost. Now you are insured, but regardless sometimes, outside of the insurance, there’s still more cost. It’s not something you want to deal with. It’s not something anyone wants to deal with. They can be avoided with the right cultural development and the right ODD in place (that’s Organisation, Design and Development). You can avoid tribunals in most instances, so don’t avoid it.
Jenny 49:45
Great, great advice. So, listen, Sarah, I can imagine there are some people listening that maybe suspect that they’ve got an issue somewhere in the area of people and culture and they would love to chat with you. Can you tell us who would you ideally like to work with and who would you like to be contacted by? Can you just give us a flavour of some of the services that typically you can offer and where to get hold of you?
Sarah 50:08
We are just in the middle of being incredibly creative ourselves and creating lots of models. So, to do that, we do a lot of training. What you should know about Organisation, Design and Development is that a lot of that sits in training. A lot of that sits in helping you develop your business to be the best that it is. So that’s training and workshops, we do a lot of that. We’ve got models that essentially are your own personal HR manager, but at a fraction of the cost. So, you’re still paying, perhaps more than you would do for a transaction off the shelf type HR consultancy, so you aren’t paying more, but with that you’re essentially getting an in house person. So, we get involved in the nuts and bolts of how you operate to help you overcome issues. We recognise them, so you don’t have to take that load off. And the other thing that we’re developing right now, which I’d love people to talk to us about, is we’re creating a model that’s got a subscription model. And in that model, it will have three components. It’ll have HR support (HR helpline support) a Mentoring and Coaching model and a Continuing Professional Development part element. And that’s anyone from an office manager, operations manager or owner leader who is running the people culture bit all themselves. I’m not fussed about what your job title is, I’m not fussed about you doing that bit of HR that you might not really want to be doing or you’re overwhelmed, or you don’t really know where to access that information. That’s a pilot that we’re beginning to set up. So, we’d really love people to get to talk to us about that. But talk to us about any of it because we love it. We’re also a phone call. So, we’ve always said to people, and that’s one of our USPs, is don’t feel put off by the cost, find the value in what we do. So come and talk to us. If you need support, even if you think it’s silly, we won’t. We’ll be there. Even if you just want to ask us something like, ‘I need to put on an event’, you might think that’s way too stupid because why would HR and people and culture do anything to do with that? But I’ll tell you what, we’ve done it all. We’ve sought catering facilities, we’ve done events! We joke about what we’ve done as an HR function that we should never have been doing. So, look, it doesn’t matter what the problem is. That’s not to say, we’re events organisers, we’re not. We are people in culture. Pick up the phone, build a relationship, get to know us. We’re fun, we’re not corporate, we take it creatively, just like you do. And that’s us really.
Jenny 53:00
Great. And what’s the best way that people can contact you.
Sarah 53:03
So, you can find us through our website, which is going to be updated. So, it should launch very soon, fingers crossed. Or you can give us a call on 01926 357355 or email sarahb@freshseed.co.uk Or find us on LinkedIn. We’re on Twitter as well. But we’re not very good at Twitter.
Jenny 53:34
We’ll put all of the links and the number there in the show notes. So, Sarah, it’s been an absolute pleasure. I really feel I could talk to you for longer. Thank you so much for joining me and sharing everything that Fresh Seed does.
Sarah 53:47
Thanks for having me. It’s been so much fun. I’ve loved it. I could talk all day to you!
