By Mike King
Of course, any agency’s greatest asset is its people. That goes without saying. Pretty much any agency head will tell you that, but the reality is that most agencies don’t operate that way. Staff in many PR consultancies are overworked, poorly trained and given little support. And in tough times, where staff retention becomes less of an issue it tends to get even worse.
I’ve seen PR agencies openly describe themselves as ‘PR sweatshops’, seemingly proud of the fact that they overwork and exploit their staff, claiming that this is what clients want to see. I beg to differ. Clients want to work with the best people and the best people work where they are happiest.
That’s why, at Johnson King, we place so much emphasis on not only trying to recruit the best people, but also on providing them with ongoing training and support and a clear progression path. And on the whole our approach works – we’ve got a great staff retention rate (and not just during a recession).
Ever since we started, we’ve always put a huge amount of effort into providing ongoing training and support to help people develop the skills they need to excel and progress. Good training alone isn’t enough, not unless you want to exist as a training ground for the rest of the PR industry. Which, frankly we don’t. So it is very important that we are able to provide clear career progression paths and ongoing feedback so that people know how they are doing and what they need to do in order to progress to the next level.
The flip side of operating an open meritocracy, with ongoing assessment and feedback, is that you also have to accept that not everyone comes up to the required standard. When an agency’s greatest asset is its people, individuals that don’t come up to scratch have to go. Not pleasant for anyone but essential if standards are to be maintained.
A critical factor that is often overlooked in the PR consultancy world is the importance of a friendly, professional environment with a decent work life balance.
All of which is why I feel particularly pleased that Johnson King has just been awarded “Best international specialist consultancy to work for” by The Holmes Report. Most significantly, this is an award that is based on the individual responses of agency staff. Each and every member of Johnson King responded to an online survey, and we won the award based entirely on their input. We must be doing something right.
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