Staff

Staff

Intro

A varied and evolving talent pool

Employment continues at similar levels to last year at 1,814. The majority (65%) are employed in Creatives agencies and just over half within Independently owned companies.

Creative agencies employ 40 staff on average with Media agencies significantly more at 115 on average.

The largest area for talent opportunity within the industry lies within account management and media planning at 38% of roles. 34% of those employed by Creative agencies have Creative, Online Design or Production roles. The trend towards a more integrated agency offering is exemplified by increasing numbers of creative, design & production roles (9%) within Media agencies and by the rise in Media planning, SEO & other media roles (5%) within Creative agencies.

8% of all staff are made up of Executive management roles including Chair, CEO, MD or Managing Partner. 5% of the roles within the industry lie within the Finance department reflecting the resource need to manage increasingly complex pricing models, particularly within media.

Disappointingly, given how “people related” the industry is, still only 1% of the workforce are dedicated to Human Resources roles. However, we expect to see this increase as employer branding and staff retention strategies come to the fore in this increasingly talent hungry space.

Strategic skills continue to be in high demand, possibly more so than ever, as the industry seeks to provide the creative, digital and strategic thinking required by clients. And, in response to the Consultants continued inroads into the world of marketing solutions.

Winning the hearts of millenials

The Age profile of the industry is still heavily bias towards Millennials at approximately three quarters of the total workforce. Media agencies employ a particularly young cohort with half their staff being under 30 and only 11% aged over 41. Creative agency staff are marginally older with 34% under 30, the majority (38%) aged 31-40, and just over a quarter aged over 41.

Gallup research tells us that 60% of millennials are open to new job opportunities and the average turnover rate is 21%. As such, our industry is holding its’ own among this extremely complex talent pool with a churn rate last year of 18%, showing that our retention rates are higher than the industry average. Why?

A huge amount has been written about the Youth generation and their employment expectations. We have identified that the career needs of today’s 18-25-year olds are: Stability, Fair Rewards, Creativity & Variety, Flexibility, Transparency, Professional Progress Plans, Constant feedback and mentorship, Project Ownership and “freedom within a framework”.

The want to have, and measure, a positive impact on the organisations, and industries, they choose to join. They also hold the organisations they work with accountable for having a positive impact on society at large and want to work for progressive companies that are tackling the biggest social issues of our time.

We need to work hard to make ours a compelling industry that delivers on these needs. We are optimistic that, by having a laser focus on, and respect for, the next generation of marketing and advertising leaders - we will attract and retain the very best talent.

Jane McDaid, Thinkhouse

Signifigant movements on diversity

Nearly half the respondents now have a Diversity agenda. We are delighted to report improvements this year following our increasing efforts to push the Diversity agenda with our members.

The gender balance has improved considerably with females taking on senior positions (Chair/CEO/Managing Director/Managing Partner) rising from 20% in 2017 to 31% this year. This is directly in line with the UK figures released by the IPA in Jan this year with 31% of women in C-Suite roles. However, female Board Directors remain at the same levels as last year at 28% which is still considerably above Ireland’s average which stands at only 16% within publicly quoted Irish companies. Source: Irish Times analysis of 31 Irish publicly quoted companies – August 2017.

As part of our industry’s ongoing efforts to improve working conditions for everyone, we have again seen an increase in the number of our members providing maternity benefit to 85% of agencies. This has risen considerably from 53% over the past five years. And the duration of paid maternity leave has also risen on average by two weeks.

The advertising industry is under represented by non-Irish nationals as only 10% of our workforce are either non-Irish, compared to 17.5% of the total workforce in Ireland. However, it is more in line with the overall statistics that show non-Irish at 12% of our total population. (Source: 2016 Census of Population.)

IAPI is committed to creating a culture of diversity and inclusion within our members. I’m delighted with the success that this focus has achieved to date; self-expression coupled with a breadth of experience and opinion is the cornerstone of creativity, so having a truly diverse workforce is paramount.

Charlotte Barker, Deputy MD, Dynamo & Board Member, IAPI