‘Your career doesn’t have to be your entire life’: Why some companies are encouraging side-hustles
Published 9/08/2021, Digiday.com
After falling in love with the white beaches and crystal waters of St Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands while honeymooning in 2012, marketer Stephanie Knoeck and her husband Ben decided to relocate there from Chicago in 2015.
In August 2020, after years of consideration, they started a boat charter company. “It was now or never,” she said. “I didn’t expect much from year one and have been pleasantly surprised. We’d love it to continue to grow.”
The Knoecks are two of 4.4 million people in the U.S. who started a business in 2020 — a 24% increase from 2019. But what’s more remarkable is that Stephanie remains a full-time senior director of client success at WorkReduce, a flexible staffing provider for the media and marketing industry. She’s still a career marketer, with no plans yet to step away.
And she isn’t alone. In the U.S., 34% of people started a side hustle this year, according to automated work platform Zapier, which surveyed 2,000 adults. Of these new part-time business owners, 38% were motivated by wanting to spend their time on something fun and creative, and 33% wanted to diversify their income streams, according to the same report.
While some employers may regard employees having a side hustle as an unwelcome distraction, others are actively encouraging their staff to pursue them. WorkReduce has developed somewhat of a side hustle culture and Stephanie’s colleagues have set up an eclectic mix of businesses, ranging from bike shops, doggy daycare businesses to podcast and YouTube channel hosting.
Founder and CEO Brian Dolan said it’s become an unintentional trend fostered by its fully remote and flexible workforce. For Dolan, it’s about reconciling the fear of distraction and resignation amongst side hustlers, with the benefits of engagement and satisfaction, especially in the face of the widely reported “Great Resignation” — citing the 1,000 open roles across the five ad agency holding groups WorkReduce services…(read full article)
Advertising Industry Freelance Staffing Platforms Get Investment in 2021
Published 8/13/2021, BusinessInsider.com
9 advertising staffing platforms that investors like Mark Cuban and Salesforce are pouring millions into as people flee agencies
The ad and consulting industries have shed thousands of jobs in the pandemic due to layoffs and burnout. A host of freelancer and staffing companies have risen up to match freelancers with employers. Some are attracting millions in funding from investors including Mark Cuban and Endeavor.
Advertising and consulting firms have lost thousands of employees this year, leaving them rushing to fill roles as clients start spending again. The crunch has helped give rise to talent-as-a-service platforms that help companies with staffing while making it easier for employees to go independent…
WorkReduce
WorkReduce CEO Brian Dolan.
What it does: Provides media-buying agencies with full-time remote employees in the US.
Investments: Undisclosed sum from individual investors.
WorkReduce exclusively fills remote, full-time jobs at media-buying agencies [and brands]. Its clients include the five largest ad holding companies — WPP, Omnicom, Publicis, IPG, and Dentsu — said CEO Brian Dolan. Unlike other staffing platforms, it also employs the people it places in agency jobs.
WorkReduce has raised money from individual investors such as former Tidal CEO Andy Chen, ex-Nielsen exec Dave Hudson, and Dave Smith, founder of media agency MediaSmith. Dolan, who declined to share finances or fundraising totals, said he’s starting another funding round.
WorkReduce’s monthly revenue has increased 400% year-over-year since March 2020, and company recently added payroll processing services for agency clients and named two industry veterans to its board, ex-Publicis exec Rishad Tobaccowala and Catalyst CEO John Durham.
“It’s a crazy market right now. One holding company has 300 open roles, and this is just for media-buying,” Dolan said..…(read full article)
Allowing Remote Work Is Not Enough To Stay Competitive. Businesses Need Pay Parity, Too.
Published 8/13/2021, By Brian Dolan, BuiltIn.com
Over the past month, a steady stream of announcements from large companies that some workers can continue to work from home some of the time indicates a newfound respect for remote work. Employers finally see that work can be done effectively off site, and that it’s beneficial for them and workers. On the surface, employers are embracing the remote work or hybrid concept.
They appear to have heard the loud-and-clear message from employees who want the flexibility to do their jobs effectively but with better boundaries around their personal life. Facebook, Google, and Twitter are among the big names that have extended work-from-home opportunities for some employees indefinitely. These companies say they want to support those who have been thriving off-site while others return to the office.
But for some, there’s a catch. If you stay home, you may face a pay cut, especially if you move away from HQ. The argument goes that if you’re not living in the city, you don’t need city wages. However, in reality it creates a risk of devaluing the work done remotely. It intentionally or unintentionally can indicate that remote work is not as good as work done in an office. By contrast, putting remote work on an equal footing is key to business competitiveness.
Don’t Unintentionally Penalize Remote Workers
Penalizing remote workers with lower wages sends the signal that in-office work is more valuable. It implies that the company prefers to have people in the office. Therefore, those who choose to work from home risk being seen as second-class citizens on their team and could be overlooked for promotion opportunities.
Deutsche Bank Research has gone even further, suggesting that those who choose to continue working from home beyond the pandemic should be taxed to support those who don’t…(read full article)
Can Agencies Adapt As The Future of Work Takes Shape?
Published 8/23/2021, MarketingDive.com
Attracting and retaining talent has been complicated by the shift to remote work and demands for better work-life balance, forcing agencies to be more flexible.
The many disruptions of the past 18 months have exacerbated preexisting staffing difficulties faced by agencies. As many look to build on recent momentum in advertising and boost growth areas, issues around how to attract and retain talent that can manage an increasingly tech-enabled advertising process are likely to remain top of mind.
Challenges that the marketing landscape faced before 2020 — from channel proliferation to tech disruption — accelerated as the coronavirus pandemic disrupted daily life, including where and when people work, around the globe. As demands by employees for better work-life balance have grown louder, agencies are under intense pressure to take a more flexible approach to staffing.
“During COVID, people were waiting to see what happened, and now that work is ramping back up, agencies and brands are saying ‘We have to get stuff done again, and we have to go fast,'” said Shannon Denton, co-founder of agency services platform Wripple. “Our clients were saying, ‘We’ve got to do more with less, we’ve got all this work to do. The volume and the complexity is growing and our budgets aren’t going up. We need to find a way to get this agility.”
Those challenges are being felt acutely at agencies, a space that was already expected to lose more than 50,000 jobs over two years amid a migration to in-house and gig economy alternatives, per a 2020 Forrester report. Legacy agencies could be particularly affected: Omnicom’s DDB has faced a “huge swell” of staff leaving amid friction and confusion caused by the agency’s new focus on data and digital, according to a recent Business Insider report…
“COVID accelerated some of the clients demands, and people started peacing out and leaving the industry. A lot of people looked at it and said, ‘I’m done with this. I don’t like it whether it’s an agency environment or a brand environment, this isn’t what I’m looking for.’ So we have fewer people doing the work,” said Brian Dolan, CEO of ad tech staffing and services platform WorkReduce.
Ad tech outpaces ability
Along with facing a multifront talent crisis, agencies will also increasingly be asked to handle more tasks with fewer workers as artificial intelligence (AI) and automation technologies take on more. Some creative and media agency tasks will be automated by 2021, per a separate Forrester report. Managing technology offers its own challenges for agencies…
The AI being used to execute more effective marketing is only as good as the people operating it, and those people must contend with environments that are often “chaotic,” WorkReduce’s Dolan said.
Prior to founding WorkReduce in 2015, Dolan helped build Dataxu, the demand-side platform that Roku acquired in 2019 and made the center of its ad offering.
“At Dataxu, we were putting overqualified people on boring work. There’s a lot of that throughout media buying: people doing quantitative work when they want to do qualitative stuff — a fundamental tension in the industry,” Dolan explained.
Another fundamental issue is how complicated it is to execute digital ad buys versus traditional media buys. The permutations of strategies, channels and creative continue to become exponentially more complex as the years-long shift to digital continues, yet often backend systems are based on legacy technology that hasn’t grown at the same pace.
“There’s this desire to do the greatest, coolest, most amazing stuff, and really push these tools to the limits, and that runs headlong into this complexity problem,” Dolan said.…(read full article)
Where Has All The Advertising Talent Gone?
Published 8/12/2021, ANA.net
There’s a disconnect in the ad industry. With the past year’s layoffs and restructuring, there should be no problem filling every empty job. And yet, over and over, I’m hearing from agencies that they can’t find the people they’re looking for. Many agencies that I’ve met recently have upwards of 150 open roles that they cannot fill. Why is this happening? Where’s the talent?
On the surface, it’s largely a basic skills gap. The ongoing drive toward digital and programmatic advertising calls for a different approach that requires specialists in nontraditional areas. But this is a shift that’s been happening for years, and there’s been time for the workforce to adapt and yet it hasn’t. Why not? This seems to be an issue of an industry needing to adapt as much as its workforce.
So where are the people who are needed? After having their workplaces shaken up and their lives turned upside down, many are rethinking their future and their long term professional interests. Meanwhile, the tech industry is facing its own shortage and has rolled out an appealing welcome mat. In addition, the next generation is proving to be more interested in money or public service than advertising.
Looking for Greener Grass
Typically, there are always people rethinking their future and their careers. That was around 15 percent pre-pandemic, according to the benefits company Mercer. Now, about 25 percent of US employees are planning a job hunt, according to a recent Prudential survey called “Pulse of the American Worker.” That number is 40 percent globally, according to a Microsoft survey.
What’s going on? There are a number of possible factors. From the comments we’re hearing, people got a taste of work outside of the office. They rediscovered previously ignored values like a decent work/life balance and they don’t want to give that up. They also realized how quickly and easily things can change, so they’re looking to take more control over their lives. The ad industry has always been a high-pressure place to work and for many, that increased during the pandemic.
Many people were pleasantly surprised to discover there’s life outside of the city. Those who clung to urban living because that’s where their job required them to be, quickly found out there’s a cheaper option with a bigger house outside of the commute zone. A cheaper cost of living means we don’t have to earn as much to maintain our lifestyle, so we can be more selective in our occupation, role, or how many hours we choose to work each week…(read full article)
Hybrid and Flexible Work Are Key to Attracting Top Post-Pandemic Talent
Published 6/30/2021, MediaPost.com
With an unprecedented talent crunch hitting at the same time that agencies and advertisers are navigating the question of if, how and when to return to the office, we conducted a survey of senior industry execs to gather data on how in-office policies will affect talent.
The shift to work-from-home last year was sudden, but the return has been anything but. The desire of employers to have their teams return quickly to pre-pandemic work environments is creating a tension between the majority of senior agency employees who want a flexible workspace but need to see clients and coworkers in person.
The issue is not just about when we go back to the office, but whether to return to the office full time. According to our recent survey of senior ad execs, only 13% plan to return to the office full-time, so where does that leave everyone else?
The assumption that offices would reopen and business life would revert to its fast-paced, hectic days with long commutes and demanding travel requirements is under heavy fire. We’ve seen what can be accomplished when things are done differently. It works. And in many ways, it works better.
However, our survey results indicated that the majority of senior ad execs are not clamoring to get back to the frenetic past. They want options. Some want to be back in the office, but others want the flexibility to be there part-time or not at all. If there’s any certainty in this transition, it’s that going back to the way things were threatens to cripple agencies by draining an already shrinking talent pool..……(read full MediaPost article)
WorkReduce Expands Media Staffing and Services Footprint to Support Global Demand
Published 8/6/2021, HRTech.com
WorkReduce triples business as brands and agencies worldwide seek new ways to bridge the digital media talent gap.
WorkReduce Inc, a data-driven platform for marketing staff augmentation and services, announced the expansion of its global operations to APAC and EMEA. Driven by increased client demand, WorkReduce is opening subsidiaries in Singapore and Switzerland to support global operations.
“Old ideas about working in advertising are being discarded,” said WorkReduce CEO Brian Dolan. “Our clients are looking at a major talent crunch, as business ramps up and digital advertising continues to accelerate, and it’s opening their eyes to new ways of working.
“We’ve had single accounts approach us to help staff 150+ open roles for digital specialists, which they’ve struggled to fill with high caliber talent. So, brands and agencies alike are searching for new ways to staff teams and ways to scale operations without sacrificing expertise and skill. WorkReduce provides a platform agnostic, high quality service layer as well as plug-and-play talent. The demand for our offering is at an all-time high. This global expansion underscores our commitment to delivering always-on, extraordinary service, wherever our clients are.”
Over the past 12 months, WorkReduce tripled its business revenue, managing significant growth into enterprise brands and publishers, in addition to supporting all global agency holding companies. As the economy resurges, WorkReduce is already seeing even stronger revenue and client growth across 2021 and beyond.
As the advertising industry faces a talent crisis fueled by pandemic-driven layoffs, attrition and a shortage of digital skills, more brands and agencies are turning to WorkReduce to augment leaner media teams and more efficiently grow their business. WorkReduce’s clients consider their partnership an integral long term business solution.
“Our clients need the assurance that staff augmentation or service solutions work the way they should, the first time. They don’t have time to vet talent, deal with the overhead of managing freelancers, or train general purpose staffing firms about the ins and outs of media buying and analytics,” said Dolan…
…“We have rapidly expanded our use of WorkReduce Service Desk globally,” said Chris Liberti, Global Ad Operations Lead at HP. “They have allowed us to staff quickly alongside our in-house organization, bringing a broad range of talent so we can scale operations and achieve optimal results and growth.” (read full article)
Agencies scramble to attract talent amid shortage
Published 8/2/2021, CampaignLive.com
As agencies face a talent crunch, they are re-evaluating their recruitment and retention efforts.
U.S. businesses are facing a talent crunch. As of May 31, The Bureau of Labor Statistics recorded nearly 9.2 million job openings, and nearly two in three consulting firms say they’re short-staffed, according to Bloomberg News.
Creative and media agencies, which laid off thousands of people during the pandemic, are now desperate to fill openings as clients start to spend again. Volatility in the U.S. job market is impacting the sector, said Marla Kaplowitz, president and CEO at 4A’s, which has shared guidelines with agencies for addressing the talent shortage.
“People are in a very different situation than they were pre-COVID and now employees are empowered,” she said. “They want flexibility and benefits, and as a result, companies have to think differently about how to motivate and engage people.”
The 4A’s has hired Temitayo Jegede as director of talent solutions to support its members with hiring and is working with regional HR committees to upskill staff. The organization is also launching a freelancer portal for agencies looking for talent on a project-basis.
But it’s not just the labor shortage that’s leading to turnover in adland. Bill Kolb, chairman and CEO at McCann Worldgroup, said people may have exited the industry in search of “a more stable job” without having to worry about the “peaks and valleys of the agency business” after experiencing massive layoffs last year.
Agencies are also increasingly looking for seasoned talent in niche roles that are difficult to fill, such as programmatic, data or analytics, said Sean Corcoran, U.S. CEO at Mediahub.
“This industry has struggled with talent over the last decade because of digital transformation,” he said. “There just aren’t enough people who understand programmatic, addressable, certain analytics or paid social. The whole industry is going to have to adapt in a truly significant way over the next year.”…
…Despite ad spend returning to pre-pandemic levels, WorkReduce, which staffs talent at media and digital agencies, tripled its revenues in the past year as the talent crisis has worsened, said founder and CEO Brian Dolan. The firm has worked with all of the major holding companies on a contract basis and has expanded into Europe and APAC.
“It’s really hard right now for agencies to take on a lot of entry-level talent because they only have the bandwidth to train up so many folks from scratch,” he said.
He noted that as the workload increases, the training issue is only perpetuated.
While recruitment and augmentation firms staff talent on a long-term basis, they are often considered a short-term fix. As agencies evaluate why people are leaving their companies and the industry at large, they are rethinking hiring and retention approaches for the future. (read full article)
WorkReduce Expands Media Staffing and Services Footprint to Support Global Demand
Published 7/27/2021, MarTechSeries.com
WorkReduce triples business as brands and agencies worldwide seek new ways to bridge the digital media talent gap.
WorkReduce Inc, a data-driven platform for marketing staff augmentation and services, announced the expansion of its global operations to APAC and EMEA. Driven by increased client demand, WorkReduce is opening subsidiaries in Singapore and Switzerland to support global operations.
“Old ideas about working in advertising are being discarded,” said WorkReduce CEO Brian Dolan. “Our clients are looking at a major talent crunch, as business ramps up and digital advertising continues to accelerate, and it’s opening their eyes to new ways of working.
“We’ve had single accounts approach us to help staff 150+ open roles for digital specialists, which they’ve struggled to fill with high caliber talent. So, brands and agencies alike are searching for new ways to staff teams and ways to scale operations without sacrificing expertise and skill. WorkReduce provides a platform agnostic, high quality service layer as well as plug-and-play talent. The demand for our offering is at an all-time high. This global expansion underscores our commitment to delivering always-on, extraordinary service, wherever our clients are.”
Over the past 12 months, WorkReduce tripled its business revenue, managing significant growth into enterprise brands and publishers, in addition to supporting all global agency holding companies. As the economy resurges, WorkReduce is already seeing even stronger revenue and client growth across 2021 and beyond.
As the advertising industry faces a talent crisis fueled by pandemic-driven layoffs, attrition and a shortage of digital skills, more brands and agencies are turning to WorkReduce to augment leaner media teams and more efficiently grow their business. WorkReduce’s clients consider their partnership an integral long term business solution.
“Our clients need the assurance that staff augmentation or service solutions work the way they should, the first time. They don’t have time to vet talent, deal with the overhead of managing freelancers, or train general purpose staffing firms about the ins and outs of media buying and analytics,” said Dolan…
…“We have rapidly expanded our use of WorkReduce Service Desk globally,” said Chris Liberti, Global Ad Operations Lead at HP. “They have allowed us to staff quickly alongside our in-house organization, bringing a broad range of talent so we can scale operations and achieve optimal results and growth.” (read full article)
People Are Fleeing the Ad Industry and it’s Leaving Agencies Struggling to Fill Open Roles
Published 7/2/2021, BusinessInsider.com
People are leaving the advertising industry in droves, and it’s challenging ad agencies trying to rebound from a crushing pandemic.
Brian Dolan, founder and CEO of remote staffing company WorkReduce, said some agencies have hundreds of open positions that they’re struggling more than usual to fill as many ad professionals are leaving the industry, and called it a “watershed moment” for the industry.
Sasha Martens, founder and CEO of executive recruiting firm Sasha the Mensch, said he’s seeing agencies struggling to fill even junior-level roles because “work is just not as important as it has been in the past for people.” He said agencies have launched hiring sprees over the past 90 days but predicted it would be a long time before they reach pre-pandemic staffing levels.
Burnout from agency work and the desire to work remotely are among the drivers. A survey of 423 marketers and agency employees by freelance platform We Are Rosie found that 63% plan to change jobs or careers this year, 40% demand flexible hours, and every respondent said they wouldn’t consider a job that doesn’t offer the option of remote work.
Many agencies are expecting employees to return to the office at least a few days a week. But Dolan said a recent WorkReduce study found only 16% of senior ad execs want to return to the office. He said some execs have told him they’d look for a new job if required to return.
Jay Haines, founder of executive search firm Grace Blue, said the big ad holding companies haven’t taken steps like Deloitte’s recent decision to let all 20,000 UK employees work from home permanently, leading to tension between leaders and staff.
One person who requested anonymity to protect their job prospects recently quit their job at one of the big ad holding companies in search of a client-side marketing role. This person said they felt overworked and underpaid at the agency during the pandemic, which like most has been understaffed due to layoffs.
“I’ve reached my limit with agencies,” this person said. “The issue isn’t just financial. You do less day-to-day work [client-side]. Less pressure is placed on you.”….
….Martens said some job candidates have recently negotiated 5% to 10% higher salaries from agencies than they would have gotten last year. One holding company exec said job candidates are asking for higher pay than usual as well as the option to work entirely remote, which the agency won’t allow. Haines said demand for talent is so high that one agency creative director making $150,000 was offered a $100,000 raise to work for a rival firm.……(read full article)
Ad Agencies Are Starting to Call Staff Back to the Office, and It Could Threaten Their Efforts to Hire
Published 6/30/2021, BusinessInsider.com
-Ad agencies are returning to the office after 15 months of remote work
-Approaches vary, with some agencies going all remote and others calling for staff to return
-Those adopting stricter policies may have trouble recruiting and retaining talent
Advertising and PR agencies are solidifying their return-to-office plans.
These companies want to encourage collaboration that can come with in-person work while protecting employees’ health and maintaining their pandemic-high outputs. But their plans are all over the map, which has led to confusion as employees compare policies and wait for the official word on how often they will be required to return.
Industry insiders also say companies with stricter policies may lose talent to those offering more flexibility.
IPG PR firm Weber Shandwick expects most employees to be back in the office three days a week starting in mid-fall, CEO Gail Heimann said. Brookyn-based agency Mother will require staff to work from the office from Monday through Thursday while Fridays will be permanent work from home days. Employees will also get 15 days a year they can work remotely.
Ad holding company Omnicom is expected to require people to work in the office most of the week, and WPP execs believe their company will do the same……
Several agency execs said that after months of working remotely, prospective hires are pushing back on in-office requirements. Recruiting difficulties could challenge agencies’ recovery from steep pandemic declines. There’s also the concern that as people return to commuting, it’ll depress productivity.
A May survey by remote staffing company WorkReduce found that only 13% of senior ad execs want to return to the office.
“I have had senior people call me to say, ‘If they make me go back, I don’t know if I will go back — I’ll just go someplace where I can go remote,'” said WorkReduce CEO Brian Dolan.
Other agencies have taken a more liberal approach — and seeing the recruiting benefits. Austin’s Proof Advertising let its 60-person staff go permanently remote last month. CEO Bryan Christian said this move has helped the agency hire; Proof recently added a pair of New York-based execs who otherwise wouldn’t have been on its radar.
LA’s Exverus Media will let its 25-person staff work remotely; CEO Bill Durrant said he plans to use the savings on office space to pay for gatherings like a summer party for employees.……(read full article)
The Rebirth of Agencies: Navigating a Shift Toward Flexible Talent
Published 6/22/2021, By Brian Dolan Forbes.com
This past year was tough on ad agencies. A drop in global advertising spend sent shockwaves through the industry. Furloughs and layoffs were widespread. Workforces and clients went fully remote for the first time. Customer behavior changed radically, and advertising strategies followed.
And amidst that chaos, or, in some cases because of it, a number of large agencies undertook major restructuring and technology initiatives. So, what’s next for advertising agencies? Will there be a return to the prior status quo, or will there be a new normal?
First, let’s not forget that things weren’t particularly rosy going into the pandemic. The agency holding company sector is notorious for being one of the worst-performing cohorts of publicly traded stocks, with revenues in decline in spite of global increases in ad spend. And, based on my observations of the space, revenue for the holding company conglomerates have been eaten away from three directions: consulting firms, advertisers bringing work-in house and a proliferation of smaller, independent shops.
Giant brands are a favorite client base for big agency conglomerates, with their complex needs and big ad budgets. But it seems like a number of advertisers used the pandemic as an opportunity to evaluate their agency partners, and many big accounts have changed hands or are significantly paring down agency partners in the hopes of saving money this year.
Agencies, meanwhile, are responding in a number of ways, including restructuring and taking a fresh look at how they source talent. For example, one major advertising and PR firm eliminated 6,000 roles (paywall) and is coalescing under six brands following years of acquisitions to centralize, consolidate offerings and streamline operations.……(read full Forbes article)
‘It gets really tricky’: With vaccine mandates, incentives now legal, here’s what it means for employers
Published 6/4/2021, Digiday.com
Last week the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission confirmed that U.S. employers can legally mandate vaccines for returning workers if they choose to, and vaccine incentives have also been rubber stamped, with a couple of caveats.
While some businesses, like Amazon and Walmart, have already offered cash incentives to encourage workers to get vaccinated, most haven’t followed suit for fear of entering dodgy legal territory.
But while the update has cleared up that particular gray area, it doesn’t render return-to-work policies any easier for employers. Unless you’re a legal expert or have a penchant for nosing through dense legal documents, across not just the EEOC but other relevant regulatory bodies, things can start to get easily tangled. Here’s a break down of key things to know.
Brian Dolan, CEO of tech platform WorkReduce, said it’s a very difficult situation for employers, who have to try and balance the health risks for their staff, with respecting people’s personal choices. His own cousin caught the coronavirus from a woman in his office who flouted mask guidelines, and so was off work for three weeks while he recovered. “That’s a terrible outcome for both him and his employer,” he said. “In general, employers are best served by staying out of their employees’ personal lives as much as possible, but this is one area where it gets really tricky.”
If you employ, for example, transplant recipients for whom the vaccine doesn’t seem to work well, the last thing you want to do is create further risk for them by exposing them to COVID-19, said Dolan. “Those might be employees you’d like to have in the office,” he added.……(read full article)
‘We’ve Gone Through A Global Trauma’: Digiday Research Shows Feelings Toward Returning To The Office Remain Mixed
Published 5/26/2021, Digiday.com
People have returned to the office in dribs and drabs over the last few weeks, on a voluntary basis, as pandemic restrictions have lifted and companies have begun phased returns. But the trials of the last year have left a deep imprint on many, and as such feelings toward returning vary wildly.
Digiday surveyed 329 people from across publishers, brand marketers, agencies and platforms, with the majority of respondents coming from publishers and agencies. When asked how they felt about their forthcoming return to the office, 24% said they felt happy at the prospect, 31% said excited and 19% relieved. But 43% said they felt anxious, 9% said they were scared and 27% said they felt stressed by the prospect….
“You’d be crazy not to build in flexibility now,” said Brian Dolan, CEO of talent management firm WorkReduce, which has opted to go remote-first. “If you’re mandating a 100% return to the office you’re really out of touch. The horse is out of the barn — you will limit who you can attract. And you will compete with people who are offering it, so it will make you look old-school, old fashioned and unappealing.”……(read full article)
Brian Dolan at WorkReduce: Remote work is here to stay.
Published 5/29/2021, eMarketingAssociation.com
The pandemic forced many agencies and brands (and many other knowledge-worker businesses) moved to WFH.
According to Brian Dolan, CEO/Founder at WorkReduce, remote work is here to stay.
In today’s podcast interview, Brian didn’t just discuss WFH and remote work, we also discussed the broader trends, including how technology has nearly erased geographical borders.
In my opinion, cities where high-end talent live and work, and in-person offices will remain important for the agencies and brands, particularly for training new graduates, and for maximizing productivity in the creative and strategy roles to allow for in-person meetings.
However, there is no denying the seismic shift towards remote work, particularly for the operational and grunt-work that supports any great marketing and media plan.
(watch full podcast)
Agencies Are Resuming Travel As Clients Request More Face-to-Face Time
Published 5/27/2021, BusinessInsider.com
Marketers are seeking facetime with their agencies again, but some ad execs are resistant to going back to crazy pre-pandemic travel schedules
- Agencies are traveling again
- Ad agencies say they are traveling for clients again. Mongkol Chuewong /Getty Images
- Ad execs are starting to travel again as clients seek facetime with their agencies.
- Agencies want to balance hybrid work with client expectations for in-person meetings.
- Some said they’re prepared to push back if asked to resume hectic pre-pandemic travel schedules.
Ad agencies aren’t fully reopened, but they’re gradually resuming travel as more people get vaccinated and clients request in-person meetings, new business pitches, and on-site commercial productions.
A new study by advertising staffing company WorkReduce showed 55% of ad execs said they were traveling again for business. Meanwhile, only 13% said they were returning to the office full-time, 40% said they were returning sometimes, and 46% said they were still working from home.
WorkReduce CEO and Founder Brian Dolan said most agencies want to maintain a hybrid work model and are trying to balance client demands for more facetime without resuming weekly flights and daily in-person meetings that were common pre-pandemic.
“There’s this real tension right now of people wanting to see their clients and wanting to see their colleagues but wanting to maintain some of the benefits of remote work,” Dolan said. “Everyone is really hoping to return to something that is hybrid.”……(read full article)
These Advertising Companies Hard-hit by the Pandemic Are Already Hiring Again for Hundreds of Roles
Published 5/24/2021, BusinessInsider.com
After a terrible 2020 when ad agencies shed 49,000 jobs, firms are growing again — and hiring.
“2021 indeed remains a difficult year in some parts of the world. But we have been recruiting again,” said Mark Read, CEO of ad giant WPP.
The holding companies say they’re hiring across the board as marketers ramp up spending. WPP’s GroupM expects worldwide advertising revenue to grow 10.2% to $651 billion in 2021 after a 4.1% decline in 2020. Ad revenue ticked up 1.8% in the first quarter at WPP while Omnicom Group grew 0.6%………
Brian Dolan, CEO and founder of advertising staffing company WorkReduce, which works with all the major holding companies, said the ad holding companies are trying to get back to pre-pandemic levels or higher.
“People I’m talking to are hiring very aggressively,” he said. “One division at a holding company has 130 open roles. People are coming to us with 10, 20, 30 openings at a time. They’re bringing people back who were laid off. There’s a sense advertising is back and it’s going to stay back.”
Are In-house Agencies Choking the Talent Pipeline?
Published 4/12/2021, MarketingDive.com
The advertising industry is experiencing a talent crisis of immense proportions that’s likely to continue unless changes are made now.
Amid the growing migration from agency to in-house advertising teams, the market has ignored the essential role that agencies have traditionally filled. Agencies have typically been the talent “farms” for our industry. They’ve owned the fundamental role of finding, nurturing and growing entry-level talent across all aspects of the advertising business.
The shift of these responsibilities to in-house brand teams is choking the pool of top advertising talent, making it difficult for both in-house and agency teams to fill open roles with candidates who have the right skill sets.
Leading by example
In-house ad agencies have been on the rise for more than a decade. Procter & Gamble led the charge by in-housing media to minimize its number of vendor relations and create greater cost efficiencies, with the goal of wresting more control over its brands. It’s a strategy that’s proved successful: Since then, P&G has expanded its in-housing ambitions to other aspects of its advertising operations, and inspired many large brands to follow suit…
Why Advertisers Shouldn’t Stop Using Those ‘Annoying’ Ads That Follow Consumers Around
Published 3/30/2021, Forbes.com
Bad news, folks. I just bought a shirt that’s been following me around the internet for a few weeks. And that’s just going to make the problem of ads that follow me around worse. Why?
Well, in spite of widespread consumer dislike and well-reasoned complaints from advertising insiders about their efficiency and implementation, these ads work extraordinarily well. And I just proved the case, which will spawn thousands more. How could this be?
Let’s start with my shirt. After a long, quarantined winter, I was thinking about short sleeves, spring colors and an end to Covid-19. When I saw this shirt pop up in a Facebook carousel ad from a retailer I had shopped with before, I clicked on it and liked what I saw. But a Zoom call loomed, and I closed the tab. That’s when the shirt started following me around.
My browsing triggered a Rube Goldberg machine of identifier synchronization among browser cookies, application identifiers and a range of ad vendors. A spiderweb of IDs representing me and my devices suddenly matched a set of rules entered by a marketer in multiple ad buying platforms. Settings for how long to follow me, how often to show the ad, and most importantly, how much money to spend buying ads targeted to get me jumping into action…
The Pandemic Is Pushing Brands Back to Hiring Advertising Agencies Again
Published 3/05/2021, BusinessInsider.com
The pandemic is putting huge pressure on brands, and it’s causing them to fall back in love with traditional ad agencies
In the summer, Splenda hired a social-media agency for the first time, Max Connect Marketing. Splenda had always handled its social-media marketing internally. But the pandemic increased the need for companies to communicate with their customers on social channels, and the sweetener wanted to keep tabs on what other consumer brands like Taco Bell and Kraft Heinz were doing, said Matt Thompson, the senior manager of social media for Splenda’s parent company, Heartland Food Products Group.
“Splenda wanted an external partner to help keep an eye on what is trending on social, see what others are doing, look for creative opportunities, and keep a finger on the pulse of pop culture,” Thompson said. Now Splenda’s team is sticking to social-media posts on recipes and internal company messaging, while Max Connect Marketing, in Utah, focuses on reaching larger audiences.
Splenda is not the only marketer seeing the value of agencies these days…
WorkReduce Partners with Donors Choose to Launch WorkReduce Gives Back
PRESS RELEASE
Published 2/17/2021, PRWire.com
Employee-centric program funding educational projects in local community classrooms
WorkReduce Inc, a data-driven platform for staffing specialist media talent, has partnered with education nonprofit Donors Choose to launch a philanthropic program, WorkReduce Gives Back. The program will help educate the next generation of Americans by providing financial support to exceptional teachers and teaching projects.
“At WorkReduce, we believe that the value of education cannot be overstated,” said WorkReduce CEO Brian Dolan. “WorkReduce Gives Back aligns with our commitment to training and education as well as to our employees, more than half of whom are working parents.”
An employee-centric program, WorkReduce Gives Back enables WorkReduce employees to select the projects they want the company to fund. WorkReduce Gives Back donates a portion of their client billings each quarter to fund these projects advocated by Donors Choose.
How Agencies Can Define A New Norm In 2021 After The Chaos of 2020
By Brian Dolan, Founder and CEO, WorkReduce
Published 1/12/2021, AdExchanger.com
If 2020 prepared us for anything, it’s to expect the unexpected. And with 2021 already throwing us curveballs, it’s not crazy to think there are more in store. But what does that mean for agencies? If there’s more insanity on the horizon, what can we do to create stability?
Get ahead of client needs
For starters, now is the time to build relationships. It’s become easier to get in touch with senior executives. The noise of the office is gone, we know who has cats, dogs and/or kids and the opportunity exists to make new and lasting interpersonal connections that can go a long way toward humanizing and personalizing our working relationships.
3 Ways Agencies Can Innovate to Stop Talent Churn
By Brian Dolan, Founder and CEO, WorkReduce
Published 12/20/2020, ANA.com
There’s an alarming long-term issue in the ad industry. Agency staff of all levels of seniority are leaving their jobs. I’ve seen it personally as my company’s business model helps backfill these gaps. My inbox is filled daily with requests from big agency brands to help keep their teams on track during this wave of people-churn.
Is anyone really surprised? There’s been a negative undercurrent of talent dissatisfaction in the ad industry that has grown louder in recent months fueled by the uncertainty and pivoting going on through the pandemic and economic challenges.
It’s something that we need to pay attention to if we want to attract, retain and nurture the top talent that will be the future of this industry.
The Path Forward for Ad Industry Diversity
By Brian Dolan, Founder and CEO, WorkReduce
Published 12/02/2020, MediaAudit.com
The agency bias has traditionally started early. The agency model has been largely driven by low-cost, recent college grads and concentrated in expensive metro areas like New York. That creates an implicit filter against socio-economic groups who can’t or don’t want to manage student debt on a low salary in a high cost of living area. The industry is therefore more attractive to people who come out of school without debt. Both of those factors correlate strongly with multiple dimensions of diversity.
Contrast that with another service industry like consulting, known for higher entry-level pay, and the results aren’t surprising. Add to that the natural bias that people prefer to hire people who are like themselves, and you have a talent funnel that’s been squeezed at the top resulting in a lack of diversity at the executive level.
Traumatized by your COVID Job Search? I know the feeling.
By Sarah Calkin-Ward, Head of Marketing, WorkReduce
Published 11/30/2020, Recruiter.com
I was recently unemployed for nine months. Feeling jaded by my job loss, I took the first two months on unemployment insurance as a relaxing family sabbatical, during which I completed a little in-house DIY and updated a bunch of my expired certifications so I could get back in touch with what I loved about marketing. By the time I started circulating my resume in March, the coronavirus pandemic had hit and the market was flooded with thousands of furloughed workers from my industry. The jobs dramatically dried up as businesses put recruitment on hold until after lockdown.
During this time, I applied for at least 200 positions for which my practical experience was a perfect match — including some that were way below my experience level, which I was willing to take to get back in the game. I received almost nothing but white noise in return.
Brands Increasingly Seek Indie Shops and their ‘nimble’ models in the pandemic
Published 11/17/2020, AdAge
Small agencies are holding their own against holding companies, but will it last or is this just a blip?
Brian Dolan, CEO of WorkReduce—which works across indie agencies, all five holding companies as well as marketers’ in-house operations to help them staff up and execute certain internal and external projects—says his non-holding company agency clientele “exploded in Q2 and Q3” in terms of new business growth. “These guys raced to the
forefront,” Dolan says. “I wasn’t sure what to attribute this to.”
Companies Settle Into New Normal With Focus on Working Parents
By Brian Dolan, Founder and CEO, WorkReduce
Published 11/6/2020, Recruiter.com
What do you do when you’re on a Zoom meeting and someone’s child suddenly pops up on the screen?
It’s bound to happen in this new reality, where parents are forced to run day cares and remote classrooms while keeping up with professional duties. And these aren’t the only employees with caregiving responsibilities; many are also caring for parents or spouses. This new normal is something we need to plan for if we’re going to support our teams so that they can work to their full potential despite the challenges facing us all.
How Companies are Preparing as Remote Work Increasingly Becomes a Norm
By Brian Dolan, Founder and CEO, WorkReduce
Published 9/28/2020, Toolbox.com
Although agencies have historically been reluctant to embrace remote work, many are now entirely rethinking their approach. In this piece, Brian Dolan, CEO and founder, WorkReduce speaks about how some agency execs have been approaching remote work and what is next.
Rose Kennedy Greenway Conservancy Partners with WorkReduce on Visitor Engagement Initiative
Published 9/23/2020, PRWeb
What’s even better than data and analytics? Beautiful data visualizations! When our friends at Boston’s Rose Kennedy Greenway Conservancy told us they were sitting on a mountain of data that they wanted to share with the public, we jumped into help build an interactive map. Now when you’re visiting the Greenway, or planning a trip, you can learn about which plants species are in bloom across the 17 acre park property. Hit us up to learn more about the process of building this tool, from data cleansing through accessible and mobile-friendly front end design.
WorkReduce launches Service Desk for Media Buyers with Flexible, On-Demand Support for Trafficking, Analytics and Creative
Published 9/10/2020, Techrseries.com
WorkReduce Inc, a data-driven platform for media buying talent, announced the launch of Service Desk, which offers a new way for media buying teams to support operational efficiency, in addition to creative resources for campaign creation.
John Durham Joins WorkReduce as Advisory Board Member
Published 8/13/2020, PRWeb
WorkReduce Inc, a data-driven platform for media buying talent, today announced that John Durham, chief executive officer and managing general partner of San Francisco-based marketing consulting firm Catalyst S+F, is joining the company’s board of advisors. Durham’s dynamic career spans over 23 years, in the marketing and advertising space.
How to Retool Remote Work For the Long Haul
By Brian Dolan, Founder and CEO, WorkReduce
Published 7/13/2020, Quartz
As the Global Covid-19 pandemic forced companies to disperse their workforce into their individual homes, many have been surprised to find how well it works. Even companies that adamantly opposed work from home options are finding that production has kept up with, and sometimes exceeded the pace of, their traditional model.
New Agency Layoff List Launches
Published 5/12/2020, MediaPost
WorkReduce is a platform that helps large agencies outsource media buying jobs. It’s run by CEO Brian Dolan. The firm works with the major holding companies and just started publishing what it’s calling a “minimum viable” list. It teamed with creative shop Said Differently to create the online site.
Agency Life: COVID-19 Will Cause 4 Permanent Changes
Published 5/26/2020, AdExchanger
The remote work experiment caused by COVID-19 will transform agencies.
Automation will become even more integral to agency workflows as consumer media habits shift, changing the nature of talent and services.
Working From Home: Getting Past that First Friday
by Anna Binder, VP of Product and Operations, WorkReduce
Published 3/30/2020, Aithority.com
It takes time to get used to working from “not an office” and being able to finish and deliver on all the things you still have to complete. There are some things that you must do to keep up productivity and protect your sanity.
Is the Current Crisis the Perfect Time to Adopt a 20-Hour Workweek?
By Brian Dolan, Founder and CEO, WorkReduce
Published 4/16/2020, Recruiter.com
Across the globe, everyone who can work from home is being urged to do so. This unexpected and unprecedented push into remote work is forcing businesses to rethink what work is and reimagine what it could be.
Tips For Working From Home Alongside Your Partner
by Anna Binder, VP of Product and Operations, WorkReduce
Published 4/9/2020, HR.com
Handling the ups and downs of work-life under one roof
Pitch Deck Shows How One Shop Has Pivoted Its Business Approach During Pandemic
Published 4/1/2020, AdAge
What impact will Covid-19 have on Advertising? We discuss this in a new article from AdAge.
The One Skill That Workers Of The Future Must Have
By Anna Binder, VP of Product and Operations, WorkReduce
Published 2/18/2020, HR.com
Hustle is the new soft skill requirement.
Silicon Valley May Have More Startups — But We Do Start-Ups Better
By Brian Dolan, Founder and CEO, WorkReduce
Published 2/28/2020, BostonGlobe.com
Our entrepreneurs aren’t as flashy — but they’re building more sustainable businesses.
Taking Media In-House Is not a Case of One Size Fits All
Published 12/27/2020, AdWeek
As experience shows, the realities are not so black and white.
The Agency Outsourcing Opportunity: Why Media Buying Outfits Need to Expand Their Talent Options
Published 11/26/2020, Recruiter.com
In my experience, large ad agencies have been uniquely resistant to the outsourcing trend, particularly in their cash-cow media buying divisions, even when their creative and public relations agencies have embraced outsourcing wholeheartedly. What gives?
