Human resource management, a relatively new area in the agency
world, must look at giving its function a real business edge, said
Dentsu Young & Rubicam HR vice-president Noel Pearse.
Making the crossover to the agency sector with more than 20 years of
client-side HR management experience, Pearse sees this as his key
responsibility.
"I don't think there is a soft side to HR. It's an investment in
business so our best people can do their best work."
Pearse, who has handled HR assignments for Rothmans in Europe and
Asia-Pacific as well as Pizza Hut's regional operations, said he was
surprised that the industry had left people management issues to chance
for so long.
"At the end of the day, people are our only resource which is why it
surprises me that the industry worldwide has lagged behind enormously in
tackling this issue compared with other businesses," he said.
He is one of the latest key HR placements by an agency network in recent
months. Grey Worldwide: Asia-Pacific and Saatchi & Saatchi both
appointed regional HR chiefs in the last couple of months.
Cost is believed to be one of the main reasons why agencies have been
this slow in pushing the issue. "HR costs money and it's been a case of,
'do we want to invest in HR or put in another business development
person or another creative?'," said Pearse.
But there appears to be a rethink on the HR front, with the agency
business climate turning tougher as clients grow increasingly demanding.
Another driver has been the rising career expectations of
candidates.
"If you're looking to the market to get the best and brightest talent,
then you're going to have to provide an environment that allows them to
do challenging work and offers them opportunities for personal
development and growth."
He said his role will be to provide country heads with tools and
resources, and challenging their thinking about people decisions and
their consequences.
Within the region, he said the perception of the network in the eyes of
potential candidates "varied a lot by market", with its Thai and
Singapore agencies being among its strong performers. "Our market
perception in Hong Kong has not been particularly strong and we've
started to do something about it. We have a new general manager (Luca
Valdrighi) and his brief is to get the agency back to its rightful
position," Pearse said.
"In five years, if the impression of DY&R is that it's the hot place to
work because of the challenging work, the opportunities and it has good
people and leaders, I would have done part of my job."
