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The beating heart of the creative services industry is people.
Human capital is the greatest asset of any creative service company. However, as an industry, we are seeing average agency turnover rates that hover around 30%. Staff costs represent the single largest expense area on an agency P&L, so staffing and team-building represent a significant opportunity for agencies. Here are a few considerations that are paramount when building teams and structuring talent operations.
Prioritize fit over talent
Every company wants the best talent. But it’s important to understand the difference between finding great talent and finding the right talent who is also the right fit.
Fit is about talent that can seamlessly integrate into your organization. These individuals should share your values, complement other individuals in the building and, most importantly, be aligned with the opportunity and expectations in the role.
Fit is more important than talent. Good fits tend to stay longer, are happier, act as guardians of the culture, and self-regulate to ensure that standards are kept high. The best way to find great fits is to create a process for hiring. The process should focus on who conducts the interviews, how many rounds of interviews, and what sort of questions are you looking to get answered from each interview.
Investing the time into this process will repeatedly provide a return on investment.
Faster hiring can lead to suboptimal outcomes
So often the mandate to the talent team is to try to fill open roles as quickly as possible. Without speaking in absolutes, hiring faster leads to higher turnover versus sticking to your established process.
There are many reasons a company may feel pressure to fill an open role quickly; a new client win, organically growing business, investing in a new discipline. Businesses of all sizes have been in this position before. When you hire fast, the standards that would normally be in place tend to buckle a bit.
Filling the role becomes more important than filling the role with the right person. Hiring the wrong person creates a potential domino effect. It can create different situations that take up time and money and risks alienating others on the team. Sticking to the formula you’ve created is going to pay for itself in spades over the long run.