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Personnel “turnover” on a design team can’t be addressed until it happens, right? In a literal sense, that is true, but in reality, viewing turnover that way is short-sighted and extremely problematic.
Before the pandemic, design team turnover was averaging more than 25 percent. Now, after the “great resignation,” it’s like a revolving door. No sooner than you have learned a new name, you are interviewing again, learning yet another new name. There is no continuity, everything is disjointed, style sheets aren’t adhered to, subtle nuances specific to particular advertisers are missed, and learning curve issues are a daily challenge. A publishing operation simply can’t operate within constant revolving door chaos . . . it just doesn’t work!
For smaller teams, a looming hole means panic and stress, with typically only two weeks to fill the position. Being selective and fully vetting candidates doesn’t happen in such a compressed timeframe. Frequently after it’s too late, it becomes clear a candidate oversold themselves, isn’t going to mesh well with the existing team, or has red flags you would have seen if you had vetted them more fully.
If you can’t fill the position in time, existing design team members are forced to pick up the workload, increasing your costs and decreasing team job satisfaction. Vacation time and quality time with family get kicked to the curb. Outstanding design work doesn’t happen under such circumstances if prolonged.
Let’s face it, “there are other places to work,” and publishing, when it comes to compensation, isn’t the top of the ladder for a talented, experienced designer. Quite likely, the existing team member is leaving for more money. It’s currently an “employee market,” so replacing them will likely cost more.
It’s not supposed to happen, but existing team members often get wind of the new hire’s salary. When that happens, operations can experience a mass exodus that makes the original hole to fill look like a divot — now you have a real problem, multiple holes to fill, a.k.a. catastrophic turnover.
Even though profit margins were already slim, what you budgeted for design team payroll for the year, melts down, and you are forced to step it up to compete for talent.
Let’s assume you navigated all of the above and stabilized the ship until the next turnover bug hits the design team. That exercise costs a lot of money in hard costs such as recruitment ads, background checks, drug testing, etc. Those costs pale compared to the soft costs: onboarding time by HR, management time for orientation and workflow training, etc.
Commensurate with their salary, the costs of a new hire can run between $4- and $20 K. Since there is certainly more turnover to come — when you multiply those costs over 5- and 10-year increments [no matter the size of your design team] those dollars add up to a lot of money.
So, when you assess all the above: stress, time consumption, increased chances for more turnover, the likelihood of errors that could cost you business, inflated payroll, and all the money expended in hard and soft costs — why would you do it once, much less repeatedly, year after year . . . if you don’t have to?
There Has to be a Better Way to Deal with Turnover
We all know what doing the same thing repeatedly while expecting a different result is called. However, until a viable alternative is presented, we think the repeated scenario above is “just the way it is.”
The good news is that by partnering with Adroitsqure, “the way it is” no longer has to be. Instead of “kicking the can down the road,” awaiting what you know will come: more attrition and turnover, you reach out now to create peace of mind.
A 30-minute call, a little time to onboard you onto our proprietary platform, and a pass or two operating in parallel to ensure you feel confident . . . all at no charge whatsoever, and you’re done, no more worries or issues with turnover on your design team ever again.
Yes, it is truly free and that simple! You’ll be ready for whatever comes, and there is no obligation whatsoever to utilize our world-class design team until you have a need. It’s called “futureproofing,” also called “thinking ahead,” instead of having to panic every time the attrition and turnover bug hits your design team again.
Consider what you will be missing from now on:
It gets better, not only will you never have to worry about turnover ever again, but challenges with vacations, leaves of absence, maternity leaves, and health issues disappear going forward as well.
All boats rise because we “play well with others,” smoothly integrating with existing teams. Existing teams are happier due to reduced workloads, and management can “manage” instead of constantly orienting and training new hires.
It may be a daily or weekly newspaper, shopper publication, magazine, specialty publication, supplement, or whatever, including sales collateral for some new initiative. You may want to launch a new publication or website to grow revenue without risking hiring until you test the waters. Think of Adroitsqure as push-button staffing on the fly, whenever and however you may need world-class design.
Adroitsqure is completely scalable upon demand, ramp up to meet any challenge at the snap of your fingers . . . no sticky contracts or long-term commitments required. Just a world-class design team ready when you are and idled at no ongoing costs when sidelined at your discretion.
Procrastinating, a.k.a. “kicking the can down the road” when it comes to turnover challenges, just makes no sense when there is an easy solution at hand. There is a “better way” to deal with turnover; reach out to Adroitsquare today to prepare you for turnover tomorrow.