Hustle & Show
The job market in digital communications has been crazy in the last few years. Coming out of the pandemic, digital staff have seen mass layoffs as management reorganize and shed the people they hired to work in an all-virtual office. Many of us who always worked remotely before the pandemic are now captured in aggressive—and unnecessary—Return-To-Work mandates. RTW for digital staff are frequently underhanded layoffs since few people can uproot their lives and move to a new city or state to be in an office in which they have never worked.
As digital staff are removed from the payrolls (through layoffs or attrition), the economy is growing again and more work needs to be done. Managers seek out digital agencies and independent contractors to fill in, as they learned to do during the pandemic. The once temporary stop gap has become the permanent staffing solution.
The increase in “temporary hires” does add to the overall job pool for digital communicators. However, the opportunities are ephemeral and wages depressed. The switch to “gig” work creates a constant job hunting cycle.
There are plenty of digital jobs, on the surface, but the wages are significantly lower than pre-pandemic levels and mostly temporary. Thus, digital workers are all competing for the few decent-paying and permanent jobs out there. Meanwhile, we hop from one contract gig to another every few months. The quality of work suffers and the profession is in free fall.
The House Always Wins
The job dynamism trend is well documented across industries, but the reasons are clouded in macro-economic theories or crystal ball readings of employment data. The general consensus is the job market is bad in large part due to the lingering effects of the pandemic (and political decisions in Washington). Employers are too skittish to hire up even if the economy is growing, the story goes.
I don’t think the dynamism is caused primarily by post-pandemic angst, nor is the bad economy an immutable market force. The current state of digital jobs seems to be a well planned and intentional shuffling of staff into gig work—and using agencies to replace digital departments—instead of maintaining digital expertise in house. Employers fleshed out during the pandemic how much labor can be exploited or cut and get at least adequate results. Quality and measurable outcomes take a backseat to reducing costs.
Anxious digital communicators contributed to this market realignment by knee-caping themselves during the pandemic while in survival mode—and never rebounded.
What management learned
- Save money on labor costs by consolidating many jobs into one or two staff members. If a person gets upset and quits, there’s always fresh talent willing to do the job for less money on a contract basis.
- High turnover rate and hiring costs are worth it as long as you don’t see any obvious digital problems.
- Customer frustration due to poor digital quality is always negligible. Any loss of business/profits can be simply rectified with temporary solutions.
- At any time, you can hire a temporary contractor or agency to “clean things up” as a quick fix and/or run a short-term marketing campaign. No long-term commitment required.
- Agencies or contractors are cheaper than paying permanent employees’ salaries and benefits to run a functional digital department.
- Continuously hiring “temporary” digital workers/agencies for projects is accumulatively more expensive, but it looks cheaper on the books per quarter.
How digital pros responded
Digital professionals rallied to meet the crisis without communicating to leaders the impact of budget cuts and extra work loads. When their efforts were rewarded by layoffs and further budget cuts, they quickly moved to contract work or new jobs with the same problems.
- Take on more and more work from your employer without complaint to make yourself immune to layoffs. This sends the wrong message and is ultimately self-defeating
- Accept temporary contractor help for an immediate need. This risks sabotaging the argument to hire full-time positions.
- Use an agency for a short-term project just to get something off your desk. Staff really need an on-going contract with an agency to fulfill routine digital needs and carry out larger, long-term projects.
- If you see layoffs coming, proactively jump to a contract job as a “filler” while you search for a stable/permanent job. Again, this sends a terrible message to employers that your job can easily be made into gig work, and you may not be improving your job hunting prospects.
- In a jittery job market, under bid yourself to get any job. Digital staff, including those working contracts, should never drive down their own wages out of knee-jerk survival instincts. Self-inflicted wage/rate degradations only encourage exploitation and drive wages even lower.
- Digital agencies low-ball bids to keep the lights on. Below-cost bids inevitably leads to laying off agency staff, doubling workloads, and not hiring additional staff—reinforcing the market downgrade.
It's a draw
The zero-sum gambit in digital staffing benefits no one. Employers damage customer relationships by delivering shoddy and frustrating websites, apps, and ads, etc. because no one’s in charge of overall quality control. Customers can easily move on to someplace else if the digital experience is terrible. And digital professionals undermine their own profession by accepting wage reductions, unstable employment, and mistreatment.
During challenging times, small but mighty digital teams excel. Successful businesses understand that an in-house digital team is fundamental. Adept digital pros do the core work and maintain operations, while working strategically with external agencies to provide expertise and manage larger project. Freelancers are hired to supplement staff as needed. That’s what we all should have learned from the pandemic.