Good company culture is not a nice to have

Is this obvious? Are people thinking, erm yeah tell me something I don’t know…

If you have a website, in theory, you have a business, but without people, your website does not do anything. If you have really talented people working for you, then chances are you have a good business (or website in this case).

I’m not sure what it’s like in other industries but for the advertising industry, everyone seems to know each other and the turnover of talent is high. Look at Campaign’s Movers and Shakers column – they are never stuck for people moves.

Having the best people is a business’s ultimate competitive advantage and let’s make something really clear, good people will always go and work for someone else if they don’t like the company culture.

Getting good people in the door is hard because good people are always known to the right people. Let’s take up-and-coming creative talent. All the advertising agencies will know who they are, because as I say, everyone in adland seem to know each other.

Some agencies are doing talent recruitment really well. Let’s take Saatchi & Saatchi’s New Directors Showcase. It is such a brilliant initiative. Every year they offer up-and-coming talent a platform to showcase their work for free at Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity (not this year, thanks Covid-19)

And what’s so good about it, is it doesn’t have an agenda (unlike most things at Cannes). It’s not selling you anything, it’s not putting a special service in front of your nose, it’s literally saying to creatives, show us what you’ve got.

Not only do most people know who is doing cool stuff, they are also being targeted by recruiters every, single, day.

Since recruiters are watching these talented people, this adds another layer of competition. People will always ask their contacts what’s it like to work at that agency and if your current staff don’t have anything nice to say then I promise they will run a mile.

So let’s bring back culture to the top of everyone’s agenda, because not only is it important to get the best people but keep them too or you never know, they might just be against you on that next new business pitch when they should be with you.