Experience matters, writes Melissa Mullins, managing partner of Avenue C, and on behalf of the Experience Advocacy Taskforce. But reflecting on the journey of a friend, she thinks the industry needs to reframe how it thinks about “experienced” staff (even if they haven’t turned 40 yet!).
I was speaking to an industry peer the other day, highly experienced, successful, in her late 30s, and she told me that lately she’s been thinking a lot about her industry exit strategy. Not to travel overseas, not to spend more time doing a pursuit she loves, not to take a role in a more fulfilling industry… simply because she couldn’t see how this industry could accommodate her in her 40s and beyond.
The late nights, the constant training of new recruits, the lack of ‘next steps’, the ‘work hard/play hard’ culture. As a female approaching 40, she literally couldn’t see herself as a 50- or 60-year-old still working in media (unless she took on an even bigger role which she didn’t want).
This made me incredibly sad. Not so much for her, as I am absolutely certain she will go on to do great things, but for this industry; for the fact that we allow years of experience and knowledge to literally walk out the door, every day. In fact the stats reveal that only 18.5 per cent of our media workforce is over 40 years vs the Australian workforce average at 62.
Why does it matter you might say? One person moving on gives a chance for another to move up?
It matters because experience matters.
To have experience means you have made mistakes — countless mistakes — and in the process of course-correcting those mistakes you have grown and learned how to do better next time.
By default, our industry collectively improves with experience. Our solutions get better and are less subject to error and therefore our results improve for the benefit of the brands we represent.
Whilst that may sound blatantly obvious, in the process of working with a team who have an average of 16 years of industry experience a piece, I have found something less obvious to be true. Experienced people in your team also bring incredible diversity of thought.
Here’s why: When we are recruited as a junior and move into an agency culture, for the next 5-10 years, our experience is moulded by the culture of that agency, our learnings become the training of the more seasoned team members and in many ways, we are moulded into the likeness of the people who are already there.
In contrast, when you hire people who have had decades of industry (and life) experience, they bring something completely unique and fresh to the business. They are who they are. Whilst this can have its own challenges to the team dynamic, the payoff is worth it for the fresh thinking and alternative perspectives they bring. Perhaps they have worked overseas, raised a family, launched a brand in a new market, run their own business, or worked in a complementary industry. All these experiences garnered over years of working in different environments and likely at many different agencies, means their perspectives are broad and diverse.
The fact is, when you start to bring together a team of not like-minded individuals, you bring new and dynamic thinking into the mix and that friction is essential for creativity. Harnessing those disparate and sometimes conflicting opinions can be challenging, but if successful, produces the very best work and arguably an even stronger work culture.
So, how do we keep experienced people in this industry? I urge you to not look upon an aging workforce as a tired or has-been workforce, but one that if harnessed correctly, can bring incredible dynamism to your business.
A workforce that may be more expensive than a younger workforce, but most likely more efficient, reliable and surprising at the same time. It may mean rethinking your business norms around staff development and work ‘perks’ for this age demographic (as they are unlikely to be inspired by the same old training modules and social events), but if you can get it right, the impact to your team could be transformational.
And if you are approaching the ripe old age of 40 (!) and are thinking that you have nothing left to offer this industry, please think again. Your experiences make you uniquely you, giving you a different perspective to everyone else in the room, and that in itself, is worth its weight in gold.
