See if this feels familiar — “I’m so frustrated with the younger employees because their expectations and understanding about the work is very different. They set very firm boundaries around sort of their personal life and their personal time, and they’re not willing to do the things that I need them to do.
For example, I’m frustrated that they won’t attend after-hours networking events. I’m frustrated that they won’t travel to client meetings. I’m frustrated that they will not invest some of their own time and professional development.”
Does that sound like how you’re feeling? I totally hear you on all of that. But the reality is this is not them. This is us. This is our fault.
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Hey, everybody. Drew McLellan here from Agency Management Institute this week coming to you from New York City.
So we're here with a peer group, and one of the conversations we've been having this morning is – see if this sounds familiar to you. Most agency owners are north of 35. Not all, but most. Most agency employees are in that 35 and younger range in a lot of cases. So one of the conversations we've been having with the owners today has been the frustration. And their frustration is voiced this way: I'm so frustrated with the younger employees because their expectations and understanding about the work is very different. They set very firm boundaries around sort of their personal life and their personal time, and they're not willing to do the things that I need them to do.
So, for example, I'm frustrated that they won't attend after-hours networking events. I'm frustrated that they won't travel to client meetings. I'm frustrated that they will not invest some of their own time in professional development.
Okay, I totally hear you on all of that. But the reality is, this is not them. This is us. This is our fault. We have created this.
So if you think back to pre-COVID and then COVID and then right after COVID, it was challenging to hire and we're struggling to understand our younger employees. And honestly, many of you have behaved and made decisions out of fear. And one of the things you have not done has been very, very clear about the expectations. Yes, you share a job description. But in that job description it doesn't say, my expectation is you're going to belong to a local networking group and attend one of those meetings an evening a month. I expect you to spend five hours a month of your own time on professional development.
Our work isn't always 9 to 5. You may have to – in fact, you probably will have to – work late a night or two a month to get the work done.
Whatever, whatever it is for your agency, and for each of you, it's going to be different. But we're very frustrated that our employees don't just natively do what we did back in the day or, and more importantly, what we want them to do or need them to do for the business to advance. But because we've been so fearful about finding employees, keeping employees, we also have not articulated that as a requirement for the job.
How can we blame them? We never said to them, this is a requirement of the job. And you know what? If you are clear on the front end,
That's not what I'm saying. But what I'm saying is, if you if you believe that certain roles in your organization are going to have to live by certain rules, like attending networking meetings, working after 5:00 on occasion, whether it's for an RFP or a deadline for a client or whatever it is, you need to articulate that as an expectation and a requirement of the job.
So now you can do that moving forward as you hire. But how do you course correct? You need to start having conversations with your employees about the consequences of them not being willing to do that, which is: look, you're not going to advance in your career as quickly. You're not going to be as eligible for bonuses or raises. There's going to be a ceiling to your professional development and your career growth and your and your, title growth, if you're not willing to do these things. Whatever that is for your agency, you need to be clear about it and you need to help them understand it's not really an optional activity for some roles or some paths to growth. That it is a part of the job.
So this is on us. We have to be better. We have to be less fearful. We have to be more clear about our expectations with our employees of all ages so that they can meet those expectations. It's not fair to hold them accountable to the expectations when we haven't positioned them as expectations, they are positioned as a request. A request implies I can say no. If you are like: nope, I need them to do this in the account service role or in a creative role or whatever it is, then you need to express it as an expectation, not a request.
This one's on us. All right.
Hopefully that's helpful. See you next week.
