Last year, London’s School of Communication Arts 2.0 published the results of a survey which asked alumni to report on their experience in the industry, post-study. And while the majority of respondents described a positive start to their careers, some had encountered difficulties in the form of uninterested creative directors, unreasonably long hours – which often seemed imposed for the sake of it – and outright sexual harrassment.

When CR caught up with Marc Lewis, the school’s dean, he was quick to reassure that it’s a minority of students experiencing the above, and that SCA has removed problematic agencies from its roster (the university is a social enterprise, funded by sponsoring agencies, brands and consultancies who, in return, get access to SCA’s students).

However, he also stressed the need for agencies to handle placements and new starters with greater care. “I think that not only is there a conversation to be had about making placement experiences better, and a whole bunch of stuff around that, there’s also the question of why are people offering placements anyway,” he says.

According to Lewis, after SCA shared the report he received an influx of emails from ECDs and CEOs, worried about whether their own agencies were at fault. He says their uncertainty, in itself, suggests some of them are failing at a critical part of supporting newcomers. “That probably means there’s not a really good open culture, and an open sense of what’s going on, on the floor, and a sense of ownership and connectivity from all levels of the organisation,” he explains to CR.

I quite like the idea of being able to see everybody. But if you’re going to have an open-plan, put the leaders in the middle of it so they can see everybody

Lewis, who’s defiantly not a proponent of WFH, believes that successful placements require empathetic leaders with plenty of in-person time – which he says is critical to picking up on the subtle signals people broadcast. “I feel that, in agencies, open-plan’s not a bad thing,” he explains. “I quite like the idea of being able to see everybody. But if you’re going to have an open-plan, put the leaders in the middle of it so they can see everybody, and be aware of when to put a hug around somebody, or give them an extra brief or bit of learning. What I’m seeing in a lot of agencies is a huge chunk of open-plan because it’s cheap, and you put all the cheap worker bees in there, and then the management – the people that are supposed to have empathy – go into some nice office, perhaps on a different floor.”

As well as creating a better connection with new hires, Lewis believes agencies need to work harder to nurture people. There’s the obvious part of making sure creatives are being given briefs and constructive feedback on their work, he says, but there’s also ensuring people feel safe, have room to explore what they can contribute to an organisation and understand that there’s someone invested in them, and their learning.

“Nurturing can be that there are people that look a bit like you, or remind you of what you could be on a good day, or who you aspire to become,” he adds. “It reminds you why you’re going through the pain…. Nurturing is recognising that what goes on outside of work is what you bring to work, so making people feel comfortable outside of work is going to make them feel more comfortable inside. All these things are at our disposal as managers or leaders or hirers or churches or people. And mostly they’re good, agencies are mostly good people, but when there are bad actors or bad apples, they definitely show up as exes amongst zeroes, as Dave Trott might say.”

Invest time in putting together your list of the right people that you want to bring into your agency, and you’ll find them in schools like mine

Lewis suggests companies could benefit from getting involved with aspiring creatives earlier on. That could be by setting briefs and doing mentoring, but he says some of SCA’s sponsors go further, and set aside time for getting to know each year’s cohort of students. Lewis illustrates this with one of Havas’s creative partners, who visits SCA several times a year to spend time with the students and observe how they respond to briefs.

That means when portfolio day arrives, they’ve already decided who they want to hire and who would be a good fit for their agency. “Invest time in putting together your list of the right people that you want to bring into your agency,” says Lewis, “and you’ll find them in schools like mine, or projects like Brixton Finishing School or D&AD Shift, or whatever your thing is.”

Agencies can also build relationships before they hire someone by inviting students to visit their offices. According to Lewis, SCA has carried out research showing that this can be hugely influential in helping aspiring creatives decide where could be a right fit – which potentially avoids any mismatches further down the line. “The first thing that every agency that wants, and needs, and is capable of looking after, emergent talent needs to prove it by going and helping emergent talent where it’s being incubated, and before it’s transplanted into the agency,” he says.

There’s no way we could have run this business model in other vocational sectors. To me, there’s something really democratising and collaborative within most creative people

And perhaps the relationship needs to go further even than that. A recurring theme is that many young people are unaware of the opportunities the creative industry offers, and the broad range of jobs available. “It’d be even more helpful if they could spread the word about advertising, or at least the creative economy, in schools and colleges,” says Lewis.

The good news is the sheer amount of goodwill, and commitment to helping newcomers, that is bound up in the creative industry. It’s clearly represented by the agency sponsors that support SCA in teaching students that might not otherwise have access to this kind of education. “There’s no way we could have run this business model in other vocational sectors … I just don’t think a magic five law firm would have done that,” says Lewis. “I don’t think a group of management consultancies would have done that. I don’t think a Dyson or a collective of engineering firms would have done that. To me, there’s something really democratising and collaborative within most creative people.”

schoolcommunicationarts.com; Top image: Shutterstock/Yuliya Chsherbakova