How to Fix Your Agency's Low Morale Problem. The top three causes of low morale were company leadership (73%), lack of advancement (45%), and dissatisfaction with work (38%). How to Fix Your Agency's Low Morale Problem 1) Assess your own management and leadership skills. If you’re seeing only one of those (or neither), you probably have gaps as a leader and manager. How might you ask current and future team members to help you fill those gaps? Often, the executive leadership team is good at managing people -- but the middle managers aren't always as competent. When I do anonymous Employee Culture Surveys at agencies, I often get feedback that employees feel confident about their agency's future… but they're unclear how they fit into that future. I ask team members the following five questions to find out how happy they are with their work, and what I can do better as a leader. Based on their answers, I can improve my leadership and management, as well as improve the business overall. Once you equip your team with more skills and experience, it also makes it easier to promote from within -- which helps solve the "lack of advancement" morale problem.
As an agency leader, do you have a plan for what you’d do if 30-50% of your employees quit?
You might be at risk right now, according to the latest Campaign US survey on agency employee morale.
To summarize from this recent HubSpot article on the growing agency morale problem:
- Nearly half of all agency employees report having “low” or “dangerously low” morale in 2016 — up from one-third in 2015.
- Roughly 30% of agency employees are actively looking for new jobs. (I venture that even more would leave if approached with a strong opportunity.)
- The top three causes of low morale were company leadership (73%), lack of advancement (45%), and dissatisfaction with work (38%).
Now that we know there’s a problem, how do we solve it?
The good news is that the top causes of low morale are primarily within your control — so you can fix them at your agency.
How to Fix Your Agency’s Low Morale Problem
1) Assess your own management and leadership skills.
As Manager Tools notes: “The definition of an Effective Manager is to achieve results while retaining your team members.”
Be honest with yourself — are you getting results and retaining your team? If you’re seeing only one of those (or neither), you probably have gaps as a leader and manager.
According to Glassdoor, a former agency owner spent most of his time at the race track instead of leading his agency. That’s not a good message for employee morale.
You may need to get perspective from someone outside your agency — we often lack perspective on ourselves. You can reach out to a business partner, your romantic partner, a business coach, or a “frenemy” at another agency. But you have to make it safe for them to share honest feedback, or else you’re defeating the purpose.
Be aware that their perspective may hurt at first. In my first 360 review as a manager, current and past colleagues said I was good at getting things done… but not at making it fun for everyone else. That wasn’t fun to hear, but taking it to heart meant I could start improving.
2) Hire people to fill in your gaps as a leader.
Improving your weaknesses only goes so far. I believe managers should focus on maximizing their strengths, and then recruit others to balance out their weaknesses.
If you’re great at sales and big-picture thinking, but you struggle with operations, you’ll probably never become great at operations. And you’re also unlikely to enjoy operations anyway. Instead, hire a great operations person — someone who excels at the things you don’t enjoy.
If you’re great at operations but struggle at people-related nuances, get help. At the very least, seek out insights from someone with better people skills before you roll-out an agency-wide initiative that might make people unhappy.
Reflect for a moment: What are your gaps as an agency leader? How might you ask current and future team members to help you fill those gaps?
3) Help your middle managers upgrade their management skills.
When I speak with front-line employees at agencies, I see a pattern of problems around middle management. Often, the executive leadership team is good at managing people — but the middle managers aren’t always as competent.
Part of the issue is usually the agency’s fault. If you promote people who aren’t ready to manage others, it’s not surprising that your new managers will struggle. Give your middle managers the tools they need to succeed, and be ready to coach them on coaching their employees.
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