Nowadays there are many communication-marketing agencies choosing to promote their employees to keep them, says Andre, division manager of Antal International, “but the problem is, in most of the cases, their experience isn’t there yet.”
In that past, it usually takes 3-5 years for an AM (account manager) to be promoted to AD (account director) in an agency, according to Antal’s survey, and their experiences are usually very discipline focused, for example, an auto AD usually have 5 years auto industrial experiences. However, recently, it only takes 1-2 years for an AM to be promoted to an AD, as many agencies offer a much bigger package and higher title simply to keep their employees from hopping away.
“The most effective way for us is to promote them, because we really can’t afford to keep losing people” says Amanda, HR manager of an advertising company. According to Antal’s latest survey, the media talent market has never been more competitive, “It is really a candidate driven market in the communication industry”, says Wang, “because this industry in China is still very young, and so are the talents, therefore many young professionals become Account Directors in their early 30s, while in a more mature market, the AD level professionals are usually in their late 30s.” and more importantly, so many foreign companies have entered China market in the past 10-20 years, which make China a real candidate driven market. So finding and keeping great professional people has always been a big headache for many HR managers.
“A timely promotion may not be a bad way to retain staff sometimes, but it’s definitely not the only way to keep your good employee,” says Mr Wang, “developing sound retention program and career development programs are also of crucial importance when you are facing a serious brain drain problem.” In many cases, according to Antal International experience with candidates, the reasons why employees choose to leave may vary according to different situations: it might be the lack of communication with their managers, or their problems with the clients. In that case, it might not be a bad idea to set up a third party consulting, which employee can go to talk their problem, and for those who want to leave, try to transfer them to other departments or serve another client. An efficient recruiter is great, but sometimes we can’t help but asking: is our HR function too simple?
In today’s communication industries, pitching some new clients everyday isn’t as refreshing as before, in most cases, do we hire new people or offer higher title simple because he/she is the right candidate or simply because this is an urgent project?
Andre Wang runs Antal International’s Media Sales & Marketing team based in Beijing and Shanghai. This division recruits high-performance profiles for Advertising, Marketing, and PR agencies, as well as ‘in-house’ media profiles such as PR Managers and Communication Managers across industries.
For further information please contact media@antal.com.cn or telephone +86 10 6410 8866.
