Oh, look! Multiple open positions at Razorfish Health, Publicis Health, and Digitas Health—all within the Publicis Groupe network. The Pfizer fiasco is fueling desperate recruitment of bodies to fill workstations for the White holding company—which boasts a storied history of orchestrating monolithic mismanagement, monstrous mediocrity, and manic mayhem.
Wonder if miraculous Marcel is being utilized as an AI headhunter.
AgencySpy posted that Publicis Sapient CEO Nigel Vaz sparked controversy by integrating Harriet Tubman into a companywide conference call. Hey, Vaz is no John Schnatter—and the man insists he spoke of Tubman as a source of inspiration. Perhaps Publicis Sapient staffers will feel compelled to start an Underground Railroad to escape the poopy Publicis plantation posthaste. Hopefully, ignorant coworkers won’t compound the cultural cluelessness by mispronouncing Vaz’s first name.
Publicis Sapient CEO’s Reference to Harriet Tubman on Companywide Call Causes Friction
By Erik Oster
A reference to abolitionist Harriet Tubman by Publicis Sapient CEO Nigel Vaz during a company-wide call was perceived by some employees as culturally insensitive.
Vaz made the statements during a global, all-hands call across the company’s offices on Oct. 28. AgencySpy spoke with three sources who took issue with Vaz’s comments about Tubman, who was born into slavery before the Civil War and led others to freedom along the Underground Railroad.
“I shared a personal story about someone that inspired me as a child, and used a quote from her that I found inspirational,” Vaz told AgencySpy.
The quotation he shared with the staff was, “Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience and the passion to reach for the stars and to change the world.”
“In no way was Harriet Tubman referenced in any other context,” he added.
However, three sources present on the call expressed the view that it was exactly the context of the conversation they found troubling. In the call, which was described as a regular town hall-style agency update, he included a brief explanation of Tubman’s historical significance for those on the global call who may not have been familiar with her as a lead-in to the quote.
After sharing the quote, Vaz expressed his hopes that it would inspire employees as they look to what the agency can accomplish, sources told AgencySpy.
The three sources who spoke with AgencySpy interpreted this as implicitly connecting Tubman as a source of inspiration to the agency’s goals, recontextualizing her words (and, by extension, accomplishments) for the business world, something they felt was culturally insensitive.
“I can completely understand how equating Harriet Tubman’s story to business would be [insensitive]. However, in the context of the conversation I was having, I was referencing her as a personal inspiration from childhood who shaped how I think about the world around me,” Vaz explained in a statement to Adweek. “If my words were misinterpreted, that was not the intention. I believe the experience of Harriet Tubman and of slavery deserves space, respect and care.”
Ironically, the quote that Vaz shared with his staff can’t be conclusively attributed to Tubman. According to author Kate Clifford Larson, who wrote the 2003 biography Bound For the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman, Portrait of an American Hero, “This quote was entirely made up in 2007. There is no documentation, nor historical basis for this quote.”
Vaz was named CEO of Publicis Sapientin February as the agency completed a reorganization and officially retired the interactive agency Razorfish. He formerly served as CEO of Publicis Sapient International in the EMEA and APAC regions, and replaced Alan Wexler, who moved into a chairman role.
Publicis Sapient went through a staffing realignment in July, which sources said impacted around 100 employees and was related to financial performance. This year the agency has faced the challenge of a reorganization accompanying Vaz’s arrival, as it retired the Razorfish brand in the wake of its absorption into Publicis Sapient.
AgencySpy posted on the latest shuffling at Publicis.Sapient—the industry’s biggest digital dunghill. There’s even a new website featuring an embarrassingly bad video, demonstrating once again that digital agencies shouldn’t be allowed to handle creative assignments. Plus, the website appears to show off an oh-so-diverse staff—until realizing the tattooed hipster and crew are available for hire via royalty-free stock photography.
Publicis.Sapient Names New CEO as the 28-Year-Old Razorfish Brand Comes to an End
By Patrick Coffee
The reorganization of Publicis.Sapient has finally happened.
As part of its earnings call today, Publicis Groupe announced that Nigel Vaz will become the CEO of Publicis.Sapient, with predecessor Alan Wexler moving into the chairman role.
Vaz was formerly CEO of Publicis Sapient International in the EMEA and APAC regions.
The release goes on to state, “As part of this news, Vaz is also leading a rebranding of Publicis Sapient, which will see the company come together to create a single unified brand laser-focused on combining creatives, technology, research and analysis in order to provide a comprehensive service to clients in the digital business transformation (DBT) space.”
The subtext here confirms Adweek’s July 2018 report regarding Publicis’ plans to fold the 28-year-old Razorfish organization (which had since merged with Sapient) into Publicis.Sapient, which is one of the holding company’s four larger “solutions hubs.” Publicis never confirmed the story despite the fact that the Razorfish Wikipedia page currently reads that it “announced plans to sunset the SapientRazorfish brand and roll the remaining employees under the Publicis.Sapient organization.”
The description continues: “By fusing our experience, capabilities, customer experience and viewpoint, along with innovative engineering, within a culture renowned for problem-solving creativity, Publicis Sapient will be able to leverage its skillsets in management consulting and other emerging areas such as data and AI to deliver an authentic customer-centric approach to its clients, helping them digitally transform in the process. This people-centric approach to digital business transformation will continue to evolve alongside the preferences of clients and their consumers.”
In a statement, Vaz said he is “honored to take on the role of Publicis Sapient CEO at this time” and that he will work to integrate its “consulting, industry expertise, experience and engineering capabilities at scale while enhancing the culture and values, which have made us an integral business transformation partner since our inception”
As the July story noted, this merger has been going on for some time and went through multiple delays, as many such large-scale projects tend to do. Publicis has also made several efforts to streamline the organization—the July story also noted triple-digit layoffs, and multiple parties reached out to us after it went live to state that the ultimate number of U.S. employees affected was around 200.
It should be noted that SapientRazorfish employed more than 12,000 at the time, and the new entity includes 20,000 across 35 offices around the world.
According to sources close to the organization, more cuts came in recent weeks and primarily affected the creative side of the business.
A Publicis.Sapient spokesperson declined to comment beyond the release.
Razorfish came to life in 1990 as one of the original digitally-oriented agencies. Microsoft acquired the company in 2007 and then sold it to Publicis two years later for an estimated $530 million in cash and stock, with Razorfish and Sapient becoming one in late 2017. As of this moment, the RazorfishSapient website still exists, but that will not be the case for much longer.
Publicis missed its earnings goals for the final quarter of 2018, and while Arthur Sadoun said the results were “outstanding” given the “challenging” environment, he acknowledge that this quarter would make for a “bumpy ride.”
Adweek reported on layoffs at SapientRazorfish, revealing potential plans to “retire the Razorfish brand” and dump the remains into the global Publicis.Sapient dung heap. This is not surprising at all.
SapientRazorfish Lays Off 100 in U.S. as Publicis Prepares to Retire the Brand, Sources Say
Agency will reportedly be folded into Publicis.Sapient
By Patrick Coffee
SapientRazorfish, the “digital transformation agency” created by the union of SapientNitro and Razorfish, went through a U.S. restructuring this week.
Sources who spoke to Adweek on condition of anonymity said multiple offices were affected, with one putting the total number of layoffs at approximately 100.
The same sources characterized the move as the beginning of a larger plan to retire the Razorfish brand and fold the organization into Publicis.Sapient, one of Publicis Groupe’s four major “solutions hubs” that currently includes Sapient Consulting. Until late 2017, the Digitas organization was also part of that group.
“As we work to evolve Publicis.Sapient, we have been evaluating our business model to ensure we can be the best digital transformation partner to our clients,” wrote a company spokesperson. “As part of that process, we recently made the difficult decision to part ways with a small number of our people.”
The spokesperson declined to elaborate further and did not directly address or dispute specific claims made by Adweek’s sources.
According to a party with knowledge of the business, the downsizing was intended to correct a revenue imbalance noted in the company’s forecast for the third and fourth quarters of 2018. While the consulting division of SapientRazorfish has reportedly seen double-digit growth so far this year, the digital and creative portions of its practice have not been as successful—and the company may not meet revenue goals for 2018.
Another source told Adweek that Los Angeles and Cleveland were the offices hit hardest by this round of downsizing and that several executive-level leaders within SapientRazorfish were let go.
Publicis acquired Razorfish from Microsoft in 2009 for more than $500 million and spent nearly $4 billion on Sapient in 2015. Since then, the company has struggled to define its goals for the two organizations, eventually combining them to form SapientRazorfish in late 2016 and relaunching the brand early last year as a provider of six key offerings ranging from data management to artificial intelligence.
Beyond its consulting practice, SapientRazorfish’s offshore operation, which employs roughly 10,000 people in India and performed much of the back-end work on the Marcel platform, has been a marked success. Last year, the organization announced plans to double its workforce in the next three to five years.
The last major restructuring occurred in November 2017, when co-CEO Chip Register announced his retirement and SapientRazorfish global CEO Alan Wexler became chief executive of the Publicis.Sapient organization. The company’s stated goal at the time was simplification.
Onetime Sapient CEO and chairman Alan Herrick, the first chief executive of Publicis.Sapient who was once seen as a potential successor to former Publicis Groupe CEO Maurice Levy, also left the organization several months ago.
According to multiple sources, the transition from SapientRazorfish to Publicis.Sapient began earlier this year and already applies to all the agency’s internal operations. Publicis is expected to make further announcements in the coming months.
Advertising Age reported on another Mad Man Behaving Badly—newly terminated SapientRazorfish Head of North America Business Development Adam Grohs, who allegedly “created a hostile work environment and discriminated against women” who didn’t “suck up to him.” Remember when former Publicis Groupe Chairman and CEO Maurice Lévy opined that Gustavo Martinez presented an isolated incident versus representing the industry in general? And how he gushed about combining SapientNitro and Razorfish, declaring the “market leaders” would revolutionize the planet? And when he green-lighted more management layers at Razorfish to enhance the “world-class talent” running the mediocre mess? And the ways he continued to destroy the digital field via asinine acquisitions and piss-poor planning? The truth is, Lévy is a classic failure, executing common mistakes related to mergers and acquisitions. Building successful enterprises demands defining visions, fostering mutual respect, agreeing on goals, establishing processes for prosperity and empowering leaders with integrity—as opposed to clumsily purchasing companies, dumping bodies into shared office space and expecting unity to magically happen on its own. In the end, Grohs didn’t create a hostile work environment. Lévy did. If anything, Grohs is a symptom—or collateral damage—of a bigger ailment. What’s more, Lévy’s blundering does not represent an isolated incident.
SAPIENTRAZORFISH’S ADAM GROHS OUT AFTER REPORTS OF ‘CREATING HOSTILE WORK ENVIRONMENT’
By Lindsay Stein
Adam Grohs, elevated earlier this year at SapientRazorfish to business development lead for North America, is no longer with the company, following reports that he created a hostile work environment and discriminated against women.
Ad Age spoke to five different women regarding Grohs’ behavior. One female SapientRazorfish executive said she made a formal complaint to human resources in the last few months. But Ad Age has learned of at least one other formal complaint made by a woman executive to the company’s HR department about Grohs, along with other informal complaints alleging he created a hostile work environment. Grohs did not respond to inquiry for comment.
A now-former employee says she made the initial formal complaint to HR in spring of 2016 that she says led to an internal investigation. The woman who filed this complaint alleges that Grohs discriminated against women and created an antagonistic work culture.
“He’s a bully,” the woman who filed the complaint told Ad Age. “I’d walk into rooms and he’d tell me to shush. He’d scream and yell. I literally couldn’t do my job. He was very disrespectful.”
A different female senior leader within SapientRazorfish who has first-hand knowledge of this specific HR complaint and investigation says, “I’ve experienced his hostility toward women. He was a very reluctant to work with any smart woman. He did not like a woman with an opinion.”
This woman told Ad Age Grohs had been “very rude and dismissive” of her as well as other women. “He loved junior women who would suck up to him,” she says.
SapientRazorfish confirmed that Grohs is no longer with the company. Monday was his last day.
“We take all issues presented to HR very seriously and thoughtfully,” a SapientRazorfish representative said in a statement. “The company encourages and promotes a comfortable and conducive work environment for all of our employees. We do not tolerate behavior that in any way disrupts this environment. While we do not discuss internal issues, we can acknowledge that there were concerns raised regarding Adam, and we’ve dealt with those issues.”
Earlier this year, Grohs was promoted from regional business lead to his most recent role of North American business development leader for SapientRazorfish.
During the company’s internal investigation of Grohs’ behavior in 2016, a third person with knowledge of the matter said that both men and women reported having similar issues with Grohs. These people, however, did not lodge formal HR complaints.
“He’s a bully and he can be demeaning toward other people in the workplace,” this person told Ad Age under the promise of anonymity.
According to another former Sapient executive who wishes to remain anonymous, “It’s the inherent bias that he’s shown in the workplace toward females: removing female high performers from projects without justification, yelling and belittling high performers in large meetings in front of male peers.”
Campaign reported a French magazine claimed Publicis Groupe “incorrectly accounted for a settlement agreed with one of its software and IT services suppliers.” Um, does anyone doubt Publicis Groupe might fuck up the finances regarding any deal connected to a digital enterprise? Hell, whatever happened with the $500 million termination fee stemming from the failed merger with Omnicom? The White holding company’s accountants must be cooking the books with all the skills of world-class French pastry chefs.
Publicis Groupe refutes accounting allegation
By Maisie McCabe
The agency has strongly refuted claims made in a French magazine that it has incorrectly accounted for a settlement agreed with one of its software and IT services suppliers.
Yesterday the weekly news magazine L’Orbs reported on claims made by Fabrice Rémon, founder of the shareholder activist organization Gouvernance en Action, that the way Publicis Groupe had accounted for the settlement inflated its results.
In a statement, Publicis Groupe said the dispute was “arbitrated and resulted in a settled resolution, covered by a confidentiality agreement, whereby Publicis Groupe would be compensated for the costs of the delays and difficulties it sustained.”
The compensation was accounted for through a reduction of the book value of the balance sheet assets relating to the project, in part through the neutralization in the 2014 accounts of the extra costs the delays had caused and in part to cover extra costs in subsequent years as a result of the delays, Publicis Groupe said.
Publicis Groupe did not mention this accounting treatment in the notes to the financial statements for the 2014 or in that year’s annual report as its auditors — who had validated the treatment — deemed it was not necessary to do so.
In its statement, Publicis Groupe said it communicated this information to Rémon and to L’Obs ahead of publication. It said it reserves “all our rights for any damages that such publications may have on our stock price, the company or our shareholders.”
AgencySpy posted on a memo from SapientRazorfish CEO Alan Wexler explaining the latest C-Suite evictions and structural erections.
Here’s an excerpt:
Effective immediately, we are simplifying the structure of our organization by combining our Practice teams with SapientRazorfish’s Transformation Acceleration Team, which was recently created to identify transformation opportunities and shape digital enterprise capabilities needed to successfully execute against our strategy. This combination will create a tighter connection between our ability to shape the front-end of our business and deliver on the transformational outcomes for our clients at the speed they require by allowing greater access to our offering and digital business transformation experts. Adrian Slobin will lead the Transformation Acceleration Team and Practices that align to it.Based on this new structure, we have come to a mutual agreement with Shannon Denton and he will be leaving the organization. He has led Razorfish through extraordinary change over the last eighteen years, with his passion for innovation always ensuring his team and organization stayed far in front of the competition. We wish him great success in his next venture.
Well, it’s a safe bet that Denton’s next venture won’t be as fucked-up as the psycho ward he’s leaving. At least he’ll be relieved of all the garbled gobbledygook and looney levels at SapientRazorfish. Let the transformation—and death spiral—acceleration begin!
Adweek reported Publicis Groupe announced SapientRazorfish—the mutant merging of SapientNitro and Razorfish—is designed to help “clients transform their businesses in a connected world.” SapientRazorfish CEO Alan Wexler explained, “Transformation today requires a new type of partner able to combine enterprise-wide connected digital excellence with customer journeys and experiences that drive future business strategies, culture and operating models.” Having a dictionary to interpret corporate jargon and bullshit is useful too. Publicis Groupe Chairman and CEO Maurice Lévy added, “Today’s business leaders are realizing that a bifurcated approach of leaning on agencies to transform experiences and on consulting partners to transform business processes no longer works—it’s too slow, too fractured, organizationally unsustainable and most importantly, the focus on the customer gets lost in the complexity.” Lévy’s gobbledygook undoubtedly sounds more impressive when delivered with a French accent. However, today’s business leaders should think twice before partnering with SapientRazorfish, as the enterprise has not yet solved its own slow, fractured and organizationally unsustainable issues.
Publicis Groupe Reveals What Its Newly Formed Agency SapientRazorfish Will Do
6 key offerings to transform businesses
By Katie Richards
Late last year, Publicis Groupe merged two of its digital agencies, SapientNitro and Razorfish, into one. Today, the network announced some of the core offerings that the newly-formed agency, called SapientRazorfish, will have for clients. The goal, according to the agency, is for SapientRazorfish to help “clients transform their businesses in a connected world.”
“Transformation today requires a new type of partner able to combine enterprise-wide connected digital excellence with customer journeys and experiences that drive future business strategies, culture and operating models,” Alan Wexler, SapientRazorfish CEO, said.
In order to make that transformation tangible for clients, the agency announced six key offerings including digital business strategy and innovation, customer experience, data and artificial intelligence, marketing modernization, IT modernization and commerce.
Publicis Groupe chairman and CEO Maurice Lévy said in a statement that the market is in need of a “partner that drives real and sustainable business transformation for the connected age through an obsessive focus on the customer.”
SapientRazorfish is part of the network’s digital offerings, Publicis.Sapient. Moving forward the agency will work closely with other brands under the Publicis.Sapient name, including DigitasLBi and Sapient Consulting to fully deliver clients the promised “customer-centric digital transformation.”
Added Lévy: “Today’s business leaders are realizing that a bifurcated approach of leaning on agencies to transform experiences and on consulting partners to transform business processes no longer works—it’s too slow, too fractured, organizationally unsustainable and most importantly, the focus on the customer gets lost in the complexity.”
Adweek reported Publicis Groupe merged Sapient and Razorfish into a single digital dung heap. It wasn’t too long ago that Razorfish was blended with Rosetta to create a multi-layered mess. The agency site map keeps expanding, but the content isn’t really progressing. Iconic adman Jay Chiat asked, “How big can we get before we get bad?” Um, the digital shops here have been bad for many years. At this point, Publicis Groupe is pushing the bigness of bad.
Publicis Groupe Merges Global Digital Networks Sapient and Razorfish
SapientRazorfish combines assets
By Patrick Coffee
Publicis Groupe confirmed weeks of rumors today, announcing the merger of its SapientNitro and Razorfish networks to create a new global operation it’s calling SapientRazorfish. The goal is to better meet clients’ digital marketing needs within a single organization.
According to a statement from Publicis, the move, which had been in the works for months but still came as news to most of the two units’ 10,000-plus employees around the world, creates a network “designed to better fuse the significant experience and technology capability across the two businesses in response to client needs for digital expertise at scale.”
SapientRazorfish will be part of the Publicis.Sapient “solution hub,” which also includes Sapient Consulting and all DigitasLBi operations. Publicis brand experience network Rosetta will continue to operate as a unit dedicated to the Samsung business.
“By creating SapientRazorfish and by implementing a more integrated management structure, we are combining the very best digital and technology assets in one combined unit,” said newly promoted group chairman Alan Herrick. “SapientNitro and Razorfish have been clear market leaders since the invention of digital. To now bring them together builds on the great success we have seen in many recent collaborations with clients.”
The announcement is also in keeping with the larger Publicis Groupe’s “Power of One” approach, which focuses on consolidation as a selling point for clients eager to cut marketing expenses and streamline related partnerships.
In the abstract, Publicis hopes SapientRazorfish will leave the holding company better prepared to address the complementary challenges of change and speed in order to serve clients’ increasingly digital needs.
There is also a series of leadership changes. Herrick, who had been president and CEO of the larger Publicis.Sapient umbrella group that formed earlier this year, will now be chairman of the new unit. Former Razorfish global CEO Shannon Denton was named global chief strategy officer of SapientRazorfish in addition to global practice lead at Publicis.Sapient.
Alan Wexler and Chip Register, who had been CEO of SapientNitro and Sapient Consulting, respectively, will now serve as co-CEOs of SapientRazorfish. The two will also assume regional leadership of Publicis.Sapient in North America, while global chief strategy officer Nigel Vaz leads the European and Asian operations from his home base in London.
Publicis Groupe framed the announcement as a way to further what it believes to be an advantage over its rival holding companies in the digital sector. It also hopes to retain business by offering clients a more fully integrated resource for digital services.
“For the past 10 years, Publicis Groupe has been leading the way in reshaping our company to be more digital,” said chairman and CEO Maurice Levy in a statement. “SapientRazorfish is a powerful new entity in the marketplace uniquely combining customer experience strategy, omnichannel commerce and technology deployment to create a new breed of digital transformation partner pointed at today’s most critical client need—reshaping their businesses for the future. I am confident that Alan and Chip, together with the new Publicis.Sapient structure and management in place, will continue to drive digital revenue to our goal of 60 percent by 2018.”
In a joint statement, Wexler and Register said, “We are excited to assume responsibility for leading Publicis.Sapient. Now we start this new chapter to further integrate in response to the increasing digital demands of our clients.”
AgencySpy reported Layoffs Hit Rosetta North America, probably a result of the newfangled management layers created in the unholy marriage of Rosetta and Razorfish. Hey, Publicis Groupe Chairman-CEO Maurice Lévy never promised no layoffs coming from this drunken digital debacle.
Advertising Age reported how Publicis Groupe CEO Maurice Lévy is indeed destroying digital, as a new layer of management is being created to run Razorfish Global, the mess spawned by blending Razorfish and Rosetta. First of all, the Razorfish-Rosetta duet is the Milli Vanilli of digital—a talentless combination of mediocrity and meh. Has an additional layer of management ever improved any organization? Oh, and the fresh layer will ultimately fold under the upcoming Publicis.Sapient Digital Death Star. Lévy gushed, “Razorfish Global brings together world-class talent…” World-ass talent is a more accurate descriptor. Sure, Lévy has expressed a dream to “develop something new, strong, different.” Is different good if it’s essentially a disaster?
Adamski Doesn’t Play Favorites Building Razorfish Leadership Team
Publicis Creates Another Layer of Management
By Alexandra Bruell
Publicis Groupe’s new Razorfish Global network announced a new leadership team consisting of a mix of top talent from both Rosetta and Razorfish.
The news follows an announcement in September that the CEO of smaller digital shop Rosetta, Tom Adamski, would take over as global CEO of a newly created Razorfish Global network combining the two digital shops. Soon after, Ad Age reported that Razorfish’s global CEO Pete Stein would step down at the end of the year.
The new leadership team reporting into Mr. Adamski includes: Chief Financial Officer Ariel Marciano (Rosetta), Chief Technology Officer Alicia Shankland (Razorfish), Chief Strategy Officer Scott Sorokin (Rosetta), Chief Marketing Officer William Lidstone (Razorfish), Chief Technology Officer Ray Velez (Razorfish), Chief Creative Officer Daniel Bonner (Razorfish).
“We are in the midst of a massive evolution in the way brands interact with their customers,” said Publicis Groupe CEO Maurice Levy in a statement. “Razorfish Global brings together world-class talent in business process consulting, change management, intelligent design, commerce and data, all underpinned with a significantly increased technology capability.”
The move to promote senior execs from Razofish and Rosetta creates a new layer of leadership, rather than consolidating the leaders of both shops. For senior talent not mentioned in this latest announcement, not much will change as they continue to serve their individual agencies, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Among those execs are Rosetta’s Chief Creative Officer Lars Bastholm and Razorfish’s Chief Strategy Officer Tim Perlstein.
Mr. Adamski creates this new layer of top talent as parent company Publicis Groupe also adds a new network and leadership layer above the Razorfish Global network. The holding company this week announced its plan to acquire Sapient for $3.7 billion in an all-cash deal that would create a new network called Publicis.Sapient. Razorfish Global and DigitasLBi would become part of that network, and the agencies’ CEOs, including Mr. Adamski would report into Sapient CEO Alan Herrick, said Publicis Groupe CEO Maurice Levy this week.
Missed the news reported by Advertising Age that changes at Razorfish include the end-of-year departure of CEO Pete Stein. Bwahahahaha! Please tell us more about the imperative for recruiting and retaining talent, Mr. Stein. This, incidentally, is why digital agencies are suffering, despite any hype being generated by internal PR departments. The revolving doors-musical chairs at the senior levels are ridiculous. Stein’s two decades at Razorfish are an anomaly. He’s probably a really great guy and leader getting caught up in Publicis’ politics and pathetic reengineering.
Digiday published a fluff piece titled, “How Razorfish tackles the agency talent crisis”—featuring Razorfish Global CEO Pete Stein presenting the standard recruitment-retention gobbledygook. First of all, the main talent crisis at Razorfish involves a global deficit of talent. Additionally, the place has been executing “workforce reductions” pretty consistently in recent months. Stein’s breakthrough strategies include hiring interns and make zero mentions of cultural diversity—plus, he admits competitors pay more money. Oh, and today’s careers section at the Razorfish website spotlights three freelance roles. Yeah, post your résumé with Razorfish pronto.
How Razorfish tackles the agency talent crisis
By Brian Morrissey
Attracting and retaining talent is the No. 1 issue facing agencies, at least judging by the concerns shared by attendees at the Digiday Agency Summit in Austin, Texas, this week.
When asked to write down the biggest challenge they face, talent-related issues appeared the most times. For a big agency like Razorfish, which has 1,500 employees worldwide, a typical year sees one in four employees leave the agency. In China, that figure is 50 percent. Pete Stein, global CEO of Razorfish, said employee churn is simply the cost of doing business.
“Recruiting has to be a core competency,” Stein said. “You have to have a very clear recruiting strategy. We have a very robust intern program. Every year you have 80 or 100 interns who come through in the U.S. alone. We hire about 60 percent of those. You need to also focus on retention. If you can keep it down to 20 percent versus 25 percent, that’s a lot of people you don’t need to re-recruit and retrain.”
What’s more, agencies like Razorfish now face more competition than ever for digital specialists, not just from other agencies but also from the likes of Google, Facebook and startups that seemingly pop up left and right.
“You’re competing with agencies, publishers, clients, ad tech, startups,” he said. “Everybody needs the talent in this room. There is a talent crunch.”
Watch a [three-minute video clip] in which Stein discusses the talent challenge and how Razorfish builds a culture that attracts and retains the best talent.
