I recently got asked this question: Do you think the agency team structure should include only full-time staff and talent or expand into contract and part-time? The reality is there are very, very few agencies that only operate today with full-time talent. Most of you have a blend of go-to 1099s or contractors that you use on a regular basis.
Some of you have actual ongoing contracts with those folks who’ve locked them in for a certain number of hours. In some cases. They may even come into the office if you’re in the office to do some of their work or to attend meetings. And I think one thing that’s really trending and I think it makes a lot of sense is part-time employees.
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03;17 - 22;21Hey, everybody. Drew McLellan here from Agency Management Institute this week, coming to you from Vancouver, B.C. So you can see the Vancouver Bay is behind me and it is a beautiful morning. So following my new standard of answering the questions that I didn't get to at the Build a Better Agency summit last May because of the kidney stone.22;27 - 50;29Here's one of the questions that I would have answered in the live Q&A. Do you think agency team structure should include only full time staff and talent or expand into contract and part time? The reality is there are very, very few agencies who only operate today with full time talent. Most of you have a blend of go-to 1099s or contractors that you use on a regular basis.51;01 - 01;09;08Some of you have actual ongoing contracts with those folks who've locked them in for a certain number of hours. In some cases. They may even come into the office if you're in the office to do some of their work or to attend meetings. And I think one thing that's really trending and I think it makes a lot of sense is part time employees.01;09;11 - 01;28;22So it may be that you don't need a full time fill in the blank, or it may be that you have a great staff member who has a life change. Maybe they're managing an elderly parent’s care or they're brand new parents, but for some reason they want to cut down to 25 or 30 hours or whatever it may be.01;28;24 - 01;48;16And many agencies are getting very creative about compensation packages that allow their employees to not work full time. Obviously, there's impact around benefits and things like that. But if you can have the talent, especially if it's somebody who's worked for you for a long time and they're a great team player, they live inside the culture of your organization01;48;16 - 02;14;28well, they represent the agency well and they have a skill set that you need. Part time work is a great solution to help them have the life balance they need and still have the talent that you need inside the agency. So I would say 95% of agencies are a blend of probably mostly full time people, probably a handful of tried and true contractors and one or two part time people.02;15;01 - 02;41;11Now, there are also agencies that have completely flipped that model. They have no employees and all and everything they do is based on contractors. So long term commitments from contractors and they may actually buy out most of that contractors week. But for one reason or another, the business structure makes more sense for them – sorry, seaplanes – for them to remain a contractor versus a full time employee.02;41;15 - 02;55;17So I guess the short answer is you're very creative about figuring out the best way to serve your clients and your team with a mix of full time, part time and contract labor. All right. I'll see you next week.
