Should your agency be worrying about staff retention?

I’ve been in Singapore for coming up to a year now.  I’m loving it – it’s a dynamic time for our industry, where not only are the possibilities endless, they are also probable.There is an extremely confident, fast-moving and ambitious talent pool here –  more so I think than any other market – thirsty for options and opportunities.  These people are gold to an agency if – and it’s a very big if – you are able to create the career that they will thrive in and (importantly) want to stay in.Since we created iris in 1999, a band of brothers and sisters with an ambition to do things differently – we’ve always felt an extremely strong duty of care to our people.  We were a tight knit group and wanted that to remain constant as people joined and we grew.But we had no idea just how fast we would grow.  And during times of rapid growth, it becomes easier to look at commercial data (income/profit) and product data (winning new business, winning awards) as a measure of how the agency is doing.  And much, much harder to have genuinely distinctive ideas around people and the culture of talent – and how the people in the agency are doing.So – we started to worry about ‘retention’.  And that’s where we got it wrong. And it's where a lot of agencies in Asia are still getting it wrong.Even the term ‘retention’ has negative connotations. You shouldn’t have to ‘keep people’.  We don’t want to ‘keep people’ – you want to give them a reason to stay.  And if there isn’t a reason – then that’s alright. We’re not for everyone – no agency is.  The second you stop trying to keep your best people, and start talking to them about what they need fulfilled in order to want to stay – you’ve cracked it.I have seen first hand how an agency can benefit from flipping the business upside down when it comes to managing careers.We recently lauched ‘Myris’, after challenging ourselves to get better at ‘people’.  Built around the principles of clarity, audacity and candour, ‘Myris’ is essentially a technology enabled personal career creation tool. We created profiles for every person working in the business – with options for them to input their own goals, chose a career coach, outline their aspirations (inside and outside the agency), and their desired learning agenda – a career roadmap created entirely by them, with support from iris in achieving it.  We wanted people to take more responsibility.Circular conversations about things like ‘churn rates’ are pointless.  As are annual ‘performance reviews’, where the insights and feedback are too late to make any difference, and in many cases, the same as the year before.  Our industry should be putting more trust in people to take control of their own career journey.And in Asia specifically, I think agencies are pretty bad at this.  People rotate much more often than in other markets – happy to surf from one place to the next.  It’s assumed that in order to get the best deal or a better option, you’ve got to move every year.This creates problems for the creative agency scene. Our industry here is still forming, is naturally competitive, and is somewhat short of either ‘distinctiveness’ or ‘differentiation’.  And the reaction from some agency leaders I’ve spoken with on the topic has been “that’s just how the industry is.  Treat it for how it is – people will join, people will leave.”But I think that the best, creative minds here are looking for a home, where they can flourish and feel empowered and stimulated.  They want more trust, and they want more control. The current ‘churn’ situation in Asia need not always be the case.Market trends can be changed.  And it can be changed if you spend more time having open conversations about what people want, and creating career opportunities for them on their own terms.  That’s why people stick around.