The media industry is full of brow-beaten, disloyal and poorly performing staff led by uncaring and disgruntled chiefs, unwilling to train up the next generation – and that is just what the bosses think.
In an independent survey, conducted for headhunters The Lighthouse Company by Work Research, senior executives across the media industry – from agencies to media owners – gave their candid views on the state of the business today.
And it is a far cry from a report published by Mars UK in January which claimed marketers were “the happiest UK office workers”.
The study reveals a general perception that the media industry does not value its employees sufficiently, with 37% of senior executives believing that the industry just pays lip service to caring for its people.
Although optimism in growth prospects is fairly high (59% in agreement), the media industry is failing on staffing issues, with perceptions resoundingly negative when it comes to dealing with poorly performing staff and planning succession management.
Some 69% of leaders believe the industry is ineffective in dealing with poor performing staff and 61% of them believe that media companies are poor at planning succession management.
Allied to this, only 8% believe the industry gives its current generation of managers the right training to become the next generation of leaders, leaving businesses potentially exposed to future instability and uncertainty.
Loyalty in the media industry is also at a critical low, with only 7% of bosses believing staff are truly loyal to their company and 32% believing employees to be deeply disloyal. Individual fulfilment is also at a serious low point, with the majority of industry senior executives admitting to be unfulfilled in their current role.
Founder and chief executive of The Lighthouse Company Kathleen Saxton said: “There is a lack of professional fulfilment within the industry. People feel that they aren’t valued by their business, which leads to a lack of loyalty among staff at all levels of a business. Flawed management is the root of the problem. Businesses are leaving themselves exposed to risk, especially as there is an evident lack of succession management and leadership planning, which we would not expect to find in other professional service industries.”
The survey also revealed that the most common senior level skills gaps across the industry to be creative technology, mobile, data/econometrics and social media – all key to the creative industry’s success – even more so, when the four most desired companies to work for were revealed as Twitter, Google, Channel 4 and Facebook.
Another key finding – although not particularly surprising – was the great appeal of stock options for senior managers when they are looking to move jobs.
This was the most appealing factor of all those researched for the second year in succession, meaning that companies in high growth phases that are able to offer senior executives sizeable stock options are a much more attractive proposition to potential senior recruits than PLCs or businesses offering no stock.
While salaries and bonuses in the media industry may not be a match for those in the City, the lure of a significant pay-out in the eventuality of an IPO or sale shows no signs of losing its appeal.
