CAREERS MEDIA: Agencies get creative with staff perks in bid to beat the dotcoms - 'Non-financial carrots' the key to wooing talent

Advertising agencies in Singapore are increasingly resorting to "non-financial carrots" to retain staff in a bid to stave off dotcom poachers, according to Morgan & Banks' third quarter job index survey. The most common type of non-financial benefits were family-oriented, such as family medical cover, paternity leave and family travel benefits. Other enticements included leave entitlement for staff who had been working away from home for an extended period and creative salary packages to help reduce personal taxation bills. With dotcoms offering extremely attractive salary and stock option packages, agencies have been pushed into offering other types of incentives in a bid to prevent key staff members from moving into the realm of cyberspace. Organisations most likely to offer such benefits were in the advertising sector, with 85 per cent of respondents stating that they now provided non-financial benefits, the survey for the July to September period found. Morgan & Banks regional director for South Asia Barry Vienet said that staff retention was an issue of most importance in the ad sector since advertising professionals were the people dotcoms sought the most for their branding and marketing experience. "In the past, the prospective employee had to sell him or herself. Today, that has reversed and the employer must sell the organisation to the job-seeker. This is a significant shift and it is a recent development," he told MEDIA. While Hong Kong still placed a higher emphasis on the monetary rewards of the job, non-financial incentives were also being used, but not to the extent in Singapore, Morgan & Banks regional manager, human resources, Kevin McCormick said. "Agencies in Hong Kong are now focusing more on informal rewards such as recognition, increased opportunity to work on key projects as well as being given the chance to work in overseas offices," Mr McCormick said. "This is all through increased communication, especially with key personnel, but it's not across the board." Overall, agencies in both Singapore and Hong Kong reported that they would continue hiring more people in the third quarter because of better economic fundamentals which is fuelling an increase in advertising spend. In Singapore, 84 per cent of respondents said that they expect to increase staffing levels, and 14 per cent saying there would be no change. The figure for Hong Kong was 43 per cent and 57 per cent respectively.

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