Is our industry attracting the right talent for tomorrow?

We need to have a view on what talent we will need in the future, what will be important to them and how we organise them to do great work.

[For more top marketer perspectives on talent, look out for Marketing Magazine’s The Talent Forum on 12 November at Four Seasons Hotel. Look for more details below.]

In the future, there are two forces that we need to command if we are going to succeed: globilisation and convergence.

Globilisation is nothing new but is having a growing impact on the type of talent we need to bring together. We will need greater diversity of talent everywhere, both multi-cultural and multi-discipline.

The convergence of media and technology has changed all of our lives; how we interact with each other, how we interact with brands and how we make our brand choices. It has created a need for specialist talent in areas such as search, mobile, social, data and so on, and also people who can bring these disciplines together to deliver great work that has an impact on business value.

Going forward, as the rate of change starts to outpace our ability to learn, we will need talent that can not only adapt to change, but is excited by it. People who are adaptable, collaborative and thrive in environments of uncertainty.

What will be important to talent in the future?

Aside from the usual needs and desires of employees, there is a growing trend for the best young talent to want to work for more tech-focused, less bureaucratic organisations or to set up on their own.

Our industry needs to become more flexible and fluid to attract this type of talent and to effectively deliver business value to our clients through media.

The growth of digital as the norm and of programmatic is putting a greater emphasis on data and technology.  Balancing people and data will be key. There will be a greater need for analysts who are comfortable with data, bringing the IT crowd to front and centre of marketing.

Organising Talent

The type of talent we attract is important, but we need to create environments in which this talent can thrive. All agencies have great people, but the difference lies in how we organise them and how we create structures built for convergence, collaboration and innovation.

In organising talent effectively, the culture we create is critical. We need to have a clear vision that our people believe in and a set of values that informs our behaviours and drives that culture; values that we hire against, reward on and that are consistent throughout the organisation.

The writer is Sean O'Brien, APAC CEO of Carat Asia Pacific. For more top marketer perspectives on talent, look out for Marketing Magazine’s The Talent Forum on 12 November at Four Seasons Hotel. 

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