It is (now) a truth universally acknowledged that a change in the work paradigm is upon us. 40% of employees considered changing their jobs in 2021 based on Microsoft’s Work Trend Index survey of over 30,000 people in 31 countries. Generations to come will be using ‘pre-COVID’ and ‘post-COVID’ terminology to describe the huge changes the global workforce is undergoing.

Closer to home, barely a week has gone by this year without news reaching our ears of another stalwart leaving the industry. Agency leaders looking for a different way of life amidst declining margins and a talent crisis, clients keen to work with purpose-led brands that can deliver real relevancy to an increasingly woke consumer.

And yet, I can’t help but look back on how 2021 marks some significantly positive shifts for our industry. In true Stockdale Paradox style, we must balance the reality of 2021’s challenges with unwavering optimism as we disrupt long-held workplace conventions for the better.

1.     Workforce over Workplace

Remember how much emphasis we used to put on giving our employees free breakfasts? Describing an office pool table as a ‘perk’ and focusing on what artwork was on the wall? Having the ‘right’ postcode to attract the ‘right’ talent? Frankly, in a post-COVID world, who cares. We must place our focus wholeheartedly on our workforce itself – the lifeblood at the centre of our business – people working from home, office or anywhere in between. A recent Prudential survey found the pandemic has led to huge concerns from employees around career progression and skills development. 2022 planning has started with a different focus point; how we can combine intrinsic (ownership/purpose) and extrinsic (salary/status) motivating factors for our people. After all, success without fulfilment is failure.

2.     Attitude is everything

Much has been written about the emerging importance of leading with ‘soft power’, the value of empathetic leadership has never been more important. Genuine connectedness with our teams and our people is crucial to driving business success. Anyone reading this who can hand-on-heart tell me they don’t fangirl the hell out of Jacinda Ardern whatever she does may as well close their browsers now. And the reason this is exciting as we look ahead to 2022? Because it translates into how we are succession planning. How we should hire for attitude and train for skill. How we should hunt for diverse talent from new places who are hungry and passionate and (shock horror!) never went to school. New attitudes bring new questions, new perspectives, new eyes, new passions and a whole bunch of creativity.

3.     The short and the long of it

It’s funny how we know that financial success for our marketing clients comes from a combination of long-term brand building and short-term sales conversion. And yet in our agencies, we have tended to undervalue the former and focus only on the latter - mostly at the expense of our people. We have historically rewarded success by looking at short-term impact – how fast a team got a campaign out the door, how late someone stayed on a pitch, how early someone got into the office. It’s tragically ironic that these metrics for success drive such high levels of burnout, but the pandemic means we are now working more closely than ever with our clients to protect our people and focus on the long term health and success of teams moving forward – rewarding the value they create. Steve Davis’s announcement just last month on the APA’s new policy that production companies should not schedule shoot days of more than 12 hours is a testament to how our industry is taking a focus on long term wellbeing of our talent seriously.

4.     Innovate This

Now we’ve all digested Facebook’s Meta rebrand, it’s time to focus on how we face our own new emerging reality. The surge in eCommerce at the height of the pandemic (a 27.6% increase in 2020 globally vs. a 12.5% increase the year before) presents the beginning of the single greatest marketing opportunity we may have ever experienced for our clients. Moving away from fixed selling touchpoints into new virtual, social or live commerce arenas might sound like something out of Ready Player One, but these spaces offer an entirely new canvas on which to paint. It’s a real creative sandbox and I for one can’t wait to see what kind of ideas we can generate as an industry in 2022 and beyond. 

5.     Save the Bees!

The focus on our environment continues apace; the recent Ad Net Zero report confirms that from operational emissions of IPA agencies alone, an average of 3.4 tonnes CO2e per person is produced, with 58% of emissions driven by business travel. This latter point, as we know, declined significantly over the pandemic, and despite a steady return to normality has not rebounded in the way we might have expected it to. Couple this fact with the introduction of the AdGreen Levy – a recommended 0.25% of the cost to produce an advertising asset being passed on to help reduce emissions from production, and things are really looking up. Change is coming fast, and it’s good.

So back to Jim Stockdale and his paradox. The brutal reality? 2021 has been so hard for so many, starting with those interminably long, cold months in lockdown and slowly dragging to a close with growing anxieties around new variants. The source of that unwavering optimism? 2021 has brought wholesale change to individuals, communities, businesses, even governments in some cases. Our industry has been forced to self-reflect. There is an energy in the air, a desire to move forward and make positive, lasting change. Onwards.