HR departments at marketing firms challenged to manage employee database with high turnover

Posted by Justin Hesser on October 10, 2012

In an industry as modern and evolving as marketing and advertising, companies may find that their turnover rate is slightly higher than that of other industries. According to a salary survey by industry staffing agent Major Players, this may be due to junior and middle level employees prioritizing their personal career development and seeking out better positions and opportunities.

This also gives solid reasoning for human resources departments to invest in custom software, as high turnover increases the complexity of their workload.

According to the survey, nearly 30 percent of workers moved to different companies in the last 12 months. Of this percentage, 16 percent were at the same level and 13 percent moved up the ladder. In addition, of those that moved, only half received a pay raise and 37 percent stayed on the plane and 13 percent took a pay cut.

Furthermore, one in 6 permanent professionals received an internal promotion while freelancing rose by 88 percent in the “digital technical jobs” field, showing that the market movement isn’t just between companies but has even involved freelancers and internal adjustments.

“In this market, creatives know they have to fight harder and sometimes make sacrifices to gain that top-level experience and stand out from the crowd,” said Jack Grafton, CEO of Major Players, in a press release. “This, combined with the invention required for sophisticated digital, integrated and social media campaigns is creating an increasingly elastic job market, not just in freelance but in perm as well.”

With such an active job market, human resource departments in these firms should be sure to keep a sharp eye on their employee database systems. By consulting FileMaker developers, these firms can invest in custom software that will allow them to more effectively track personnel movement. This can be especially helpful if one firm prefers to hire more freelancers – which require different paperwork and payments – than permanent positions and vice versa.