In the previous years, job migration wasn’t a rampant as it is now, more so in marketing. A study conducted that indicated a serious turnover problem in the marketing world. It revealed that the average tenure of a marketer is 2.6 years. In Kenya, that number is even less. A key reason is articulated to the influx of young people in the profession and the continuous treatment of marketing departments as cost centers instead of revenue centers. With the fast-paced nature of advertising, creativity is key, and it’s not something that can be stored, it is natured. Most companies fail at this by hiring talents who end up leaving within a short span of time.
Here are some of the reasons contributing to this.
1 Stunted Growth Curve
This is perhaps a career lesson most learn while on the job. A person’s work life is defined by the company you work for. The allure of working for a big brand or pay-cheque is one that is not easily overlooked when they are making career moves. They sign for brands without necessarily questioning how the company works or if they prioritize personal and professional growth. Far too many young people are guilty of being quick to pick companies based on their reputation and social space. It usually doesn’t take them long to notice that you get far more growth and career credit for being the tenth employee at a growing company than they will get for being the 100th employee at an agency that is at the peak of growing its staff. This is usually followed by a switch to a company they feel they can grow with and get more recognition.
- Being Viewed as Disposable Assets
Most businesses cannot operate without marketers yet most continue to view the people in those departments as disposable role players who can easily be replaced. Meaning that you can’t entirely blame a millennial employee for jumping from one job to the next after short tenures. Marketing is a high stakes department that is full of pressure just as any other department in the company, so companies that invest a little in their marketers can go along way in hanging on to great talents after hiring them. Marketing is the center of the buying process, a simple bonus based on results could just be the incentive a person needs to feel valued and remain agile enough to ignore the temptation of filling out that job application they may come across elsewhere.
- Bureaucracy
Many young marketers come with a crafted skill of being able to sell their ideas, expertise and visions beyond what they were hired to do. It may be through creative designs or proposals for brands they want to prioritize to add some juice to the strategic conversations in the company. But as is the case, there is usually an old guard who has been in the company longer, therefore “knows the customers better” who reviews the work and more often than not heavily criticizes and kills their ideas before they can be built upon. In some cases, the work is implemented with little or no mention or accreditation to the actual brains behind the work by sidelining the young creator. Such act brings about a wave of discouragement and affects the level of comfort of someone who may want to expand their influence and ideas. They eventually end up leaving.
In today’s crowded market space, getting ahead of your competition could be a simple thought process and any if not all ideas should be given a framework that can allow them to be examined in detail and built upon to be tested.
The key to reversing and retaining most hired talents still remains a challenge to most brands, especially in this digital era. As they execute their functions, companies also need to come up with ways to make sure they keep young employees happy and producing great content that helps build both the brand and their careers.
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