How to recognise and prevent agency burn-out
The fast pace of the advertising and marketing worlds is part of its enduring attraction, but running on adrenaline isn’t healthy or sustainable, so how can we minimise burn-out? Dr Norman Swan offers his tips…
Burn-out is a catch-all phrase for people who are tired, chronically stressed, have lost interest in their work and can’t find motivation.
It’s a messy combination of symptoms where chronic stress gets conflated with depression, anxiety and tobacco, alcohol and other drug use.
The last thing any agency needs is churn of creative staff or loss of energy and innovation. Agencies know, a disengaged account manager or creative lead can send clients looking elsewhere, so they put a lot of thought into office design and how to balance a high-octane environment with what appears to be opportunities to ‘chill’.
However, as an observer of the industry for many years, I’m amazed at its capacity for self-delusion that all this effort and investment is paying off.
“These managers are therefore unable to recognise distress, depression and anxiety or worse”.
Nope. What happens is agencies get rid of those people, and then bring in a new batch of ‘young hotness’. Then start the cycle all over again.
I used to have an ECD who would wave a pile of CVs/folio at anyone who couldn’t work all weekend and say “Do you know how many of these I get a day? It’s up to you”.
Depressing if widespread
The agency industry seems to have quite low income Vs. output ratio in comparison to other marketing environments i.e. Media Owner, Technology Vendors, Consulting and Client side. The fictional glitz and glam is the attraction for industry entrants/grads.
Trouble is that churn is expensive and personally costly
pay peanuts get monkeys….simples
Has a no-tolerance policy ever worked?
Good point. I could have chosen my words better. It’s more about fostering a culture where is not cool.
As always ….very well said Con