One of the great things about working in PR is the variety. No two days are the same and if you’re working with the media, let’s face it, anything can happen. It’s also a competitive industry. There seems to be no shortage of PR graduates looking for jobs and the numbers of journalists wanting to move across to PR is increasing.

The problem the PR industry has, is retaining that talent. When I started my career in 1998, PR, at least in agency land, was very much about ‘climbing the ladder’ – from account executive, to senior account executive and so on. It was about money and status.

Today and in the future, talent retention has got to be about flexibility. In your early 20s, you don’t mind so much putting in the 12 hour days, heading into the office five days a week. Your work life and social life blur together. Once you get into your 30s, the novelty starts to wear off.

Forget the ‘duvet days’

Agency HR teams can come up with as many duvet days, cakes on your birthdays, or free massages as they like. Having worked in a number of agencies both in the U.K. and Australia, what many are failing to provide is true flexibility and accountability.

Yes, the media cycle today is 24/7. Yes, editorial teams are shrinking and journalists have to write increasing numbers of stories every day. If your job involves working with the media, social or otherwise, you need to be putting in those hours, chained to the desk. Right? Wrong.

Focus on outcomes

The problem, as a female dominated industry, is even more acute after women have had children. There is a reason why there are so few people in PR agency land after the age of 35. They’ve either burnt out, gone freelance looking for flexibility or in-house, choosing to work for companies that offer more than a few weeks paid paternity leave.

As an industry, we have to get better at making flexible work, work. The focus should always be on the deliverables, rather than the hours spent in the office. In PR agency land, you’ve no doubt seen the following: PR goes on paternity leave to come back ‘three days a week’, which as we all know, is four or five, just squashed into three days, to find she (let’s face it, it’s usually a she) is not ‘allowed’ to do client or media facing work. ‘What if the client calls her on her day off?’ So she’s left to write case studies and media releases. She gets bored. She leaves. She goes freelance or finds herself a job in-house.

Scrap the hierarchy

As if coming back to the PR industry isn’t hard enough. Already a tough job, being away from the industry for even six months, journalists have moved on, publications have folded, new ones started, clients have come and gone, existing ones have changed their focus – it’s so incredibly hard to get back into. You can’t just rock up and start rolling out the lesson plan you delivered last year.

One of the reasons I left my agency job in Australia was because I couldn’t work one day every couple of weeks at home. ‘You have a team to manage’ my boss would say. And there I think lies the problem. Not only do we have to embrace flexibility in our industry and give people the tools they need to work from anywhere they choose, but we need to scrap the hierarchy.

Trust is key

We have to get away from the ‘what you can’t see you can’t manage’ mindset. If we had more trust in the PR industry, between ‘employer and employee’, we wouldn’t need ‘managers’. We don’t have them at BENCH. We didn’t have them at an agency I worked for in the U.K. We had a flat structure. And it worked. It does work, extremely well.

Companies in the U.S. such as Zappos have scrapped their managers. Australian companies such as Atlassian and Canva are following suit. It’s a bold move for PR agencies which have structured themselves this way for decades, but it just doesn’t work. Staff churn remains too high and the client suffers. They have a new ‘account manager’ to bring up to speed every three months. And pity the journalist who has to try to remember the PR’s name.

Finding good PR talent is always going to be a challenge and that won’t change in the future. What we need to stop is the ‘burnout’ and offer flexible roles (and decent paternity leave) to enable both men and women to continue working in the PR industry or be able to come back. We have to trust that the people we work with, will do their jobs to the best of their ability and it’s up to us, as employers, to provide them with the flexibility and tools they need, to do just that.

When PR agencies engage freelancers, it’s often to help with one-off projects or fill in while someone’s on leave. Freelancers become a quasi-team member for a limited period of time, then when they’re no longer needed they’re off to the next job. Like a Mary Poppins of the PR world.

But the number of freelancers is on the rise – in the U.S. it’s expected that half the workforce will be made up of freelancers by 2020. As more employees leave full time work in favor of flexible working arrangements, there will be as many independent workers as there are salaried staff.

So what does this mean for PR?

In order to move with the times and continue to attract the right consultants, PR agencies will need to shift their thinking about the way they utilize freelancers; not just hiring them as a stop-gap solution, but looking to employ them longer term, working as an integrated part of the team.

A new structure

The PR agency of the future will need to restructure the business to allow for multiple employment options, tailored to individual staff needs. Moving beyond the rigid constraints of full time office-based staff, PR agencies will need to expand the way they work by welcoming independent workers as part of the team; not just as an extra set of hands to pick up the slack, but leading accounts, managing clients, and mentoring staff.

By creating a flexible, independent team of consultants who are able to work in the way they’re most productive – which doesn’t always include a traditional workday – this will mean a more efficient workforce delivering maximum results. As long as PR agencies implement the right procedures and invest in technologies which allow for staff collaboration, freelancers can become as much a part of the team as full time staff.

It’s easier than you think

While some PR agencies are already working with freelancers on a long-term basis, others have reservations about bringing freelancers – especially remote workers – onto the team.

• Continuity: Understandably, agencies don’t want client accounts to be disrupted with a high turnover of freelancers. But this can easily be avoided by being clear about expectations upfront and making sure the freelancer is in it for the long haul
• Intellectual property (IP): Freelancers can often work for multiple agencies at once, so it’s reasonable to be concerned about your agency’s IP. But it’s important to remember a freelancer’s reputation is their lifeline, so they’re unlikely to break confidences and risk getting a bad rap
• Visibility: Some employers simply don’t feel comfortable with people working off-site, but as the trend towards remote working becomes the norm, this isn’t something that can be easily avoided. As long as KPIs are met and work is delivered on time, where the work is done shouldn’t matter
• Culture: A strong agency culture is the backbone of PR so it’s a valid concern that independent workers won’t feel part of the team. While it’s true that freelancers miss much of the daily banter, there are still plenty of ways to ensure they become part of the team, whether that’s set days in the office, face to face WIP meetings or attending social events

The happily independent workforce

There are many advantages for PR agencies to shift towards a more flexible, freelance workforce. It’s cost effective, it can help reduce over-servicing, and having access to a pool of specialized freelancers means more opportunities for growth.

Most importantly, studies show that freelance workers are not only more productive, but they’re happier than full time employees. Given public relations is continuously ranked as amongst the most stressful professions, it’s time to take a serious look at how PR agencies can change the way they operate by employing independent workers to help create a more sustainable, more enjoyable work environment.