'Disruption is part of what we do, and I really respond to that'

Looking at the world of advertising, a lot has changed over the past six or seven years, according to Pauly Grant.

“Back then, it was known for being very fast-paced, with fast partying and everything else,” says the chief talent officer for APAC and ANZ at global advertising giant Publicis Groupe. “I think that has completely changed.”

Well, yes and no. For a start, Grant is quick to admit that advertising will never be slow-paced.

“Our product and our thinking has to be on the very precipice of what’s happening next, which creates urgency into translating that and then implementing it for our clients. That’s what makes it fast. That’s what creates this sense of urgency.”

A creative and innovative environment it may be, but not everyone stays.

“You either love it or you don’t,” she says, adding the ones who enjoy it are “the curious souls, definitely people who are looking to absorb information.”

Putting that into demographic buckets, Grant says 57% of the payroll are millennials, and the Gen Zs have just outnumbered the Gen Xs.

There are even a few baby boomers on the books.

“Experience is knowledge – I meet people who have left the industry and feel like it’s going to be hard for them to get back in. But that’s not always the case,” she says.

The road to Publicis Groupe

Grant made her way into HR via the side door: “I studied nursing at university,” she says.

“I loved the first year, but the second year was medical and surgical – and I started fainting. I decided, ‘I really don’t like this.’”

Grant moved on, working in a variety of organisations until she found her calling during a stint as office manager in a building supplies company.

“It was highly populated with people from different ethnic backgrounds, who did not have a voice, and they raised with me that they weren’t paid overtime on the weekend – and they didn’t know what to say,” she says.

Grant took it up with the owners: “I started the conversation to say, ‘How can we do this better? These people are working hard. How do we reconcile this?’”

After that, the penny had dropped.

“To have a good business, you need happy people,” she says. “And that’s the foundation of everything I do, so I continued on a pathway.”

Grant landed in the world of advertising in 2005 when she was asked by Adam Ferrier, then co-founder of Naked Communications and now founder of Thinkerbell, to come onboard as head of people and culture.

“I was employee number five, my first time in this industry and my first pure people role,” she says. “It was an incredible experience – I had free rein in creating this engaging, thought-provoking environment, physically and culturally.

“I’m a big believer that when you get those things right, you will get brilliant work. In our industry, people are our product.”

Opportunities for promotion

The Sydney office of Publicis Groupe, down the harbour end of Pyrmont, houses ad brands such as Saatchi & Saatchi, Digitas, Zenith, Starcom and Spark Foundry. “We talk about Publicis as a connected platform, which enables people to come in and create lots of different careers and establish lots of different skills – we don’t have barriers between this mix of organisations,” she says.

Grant provides an example, where someone who starts as a strategist at the PMX media agency might want to test their skills in a creative agency, “and then they start to work out that their career is not linear,” she says.

Employers are starting to work out they will need to create very different constellations of career paths to keep workers, she says.

“That’s something we absolutely need to do for Gen Z, because that’s what they want. They want personalised learning pathways; they have lifetime learning as an expectation; and they have a level of tech as an expectation as well.”

Different ways to communicate

So, is Gen Z difficult? “I don’t think so,” Grant says. “No matter who you are as a human, everyone has a different perspective, a different approach. We can learn a lot from them.”

She recalls an interesting second-hand observation, however. A manager had noticed Gen Zs don’t necessarily like scheduled, in-person feedback meetings.

“The majority of their lives have been behind a screen, on Snapchat, text or whatever platform they’re using, and they become comfortable with that,” she says.

Grant’s advice was to try running the meetings on a tech platform and see how it goes.

“Too often, the generation above doesn’t want to change. But we can learn so much from the way they’re doing things – and flip it a little bit and understand there are different ways to communicate, to connect and to get the best out of people.”

Hiring in a tight market

Hybrid working arrangements were introduced in Publicis Groupe’s local operations in 2019, before the pandemic unfurled. The rule now that is workers are required in the office “more often than not”, meaning at least three days for full-timers.

“You’ve got to have reasons to connect – we absolutely believe in connection, in-person connection. It’s part of our vernacular of creativity and workshopping and coming together, not just internally but with our clients,” Grant says.

There are about 1,900 on the Publicis payroll, and she recruits a few hundred positions a year. The agency-silo structure allows opportunities to fill roles internally, Grant says.

“Say, for example, I’m an account manager and I’m ready to grow. My agency might not have that opportunity, but guess what? We’ve got 18 others that might.”

The HR team takes the lead in some moves, she says.

“If we see an opportunity where someone is ready for a move but we are aware there is no-one moving above them in that agency, we’ll see how can we give them an opportunity elsewhere. That happens regularly.”

Grant recruits from a deeper talent pool overseas now and then, and says she has noticed “the world is moving again – people are picking up and moving to other countries for work”.

Many workers will start a job happy to have landed it, but they will stay for the work-life balance, the location, a manager, learning opportunities, career growth and perhaps the fun.

“If you get that right, it will speak externally to candidates,” Grant says.

“Because our industry has always had a tight talent pool, we’ve always had to be progressive when it comes to people and work and creating a certain work environment,” she says. “Disruption is part of what we do, and I really respond to that.”