Why agency employees leave and how to understand why
Creatives, planners and account teams leave for reasons beyond pay. How to run an exit conversation in an agency, spot patterns by account and act on them.
7 min readRead articleA decor and equipment hire business stores, moves and sets up large items for events. Its people lift, drive, build and strike overnight, and its stock walks away if nobody counts it in and out.

Not sure what you need? Tell us about your business in six short steps and we will come to the first meeting prepared.
Share your requirementsAn event decor and equipment business designs and sets up stages, mandaps, floral work, lighting, sound, furniture, tents and props, or hires them out. Work happens in a warehouse, on trucks and at the venue. Crews load before dawn, build through the day and strike after midnight. Designers and sales people win the event; carpenters, painters, electricians, florists and helpers deliver it. Peak season means many events at once, hired helpers and borrowed vehicles. Stock such as chairs, lights, cables and drapes must come back and be counted. Falls, electric shocks, heavy loads and road travel are everyday risks. Clients judge the whole firm on the look at the start of the function. See HR for marketing and creative agencies.
These are the places the people side of this kind of business tends to give way. The rest of this page works through them.
HR here has to work for each of these groups, not only the office. The set-up below is written with all of them in mind.
GullyHR runs talent acquisition for permanent roles in event decor and equipment. For each role we agree the job description with you, find and screen candidates against it, and support the offer through to joining. Tell us the role and the number of people, and we start there.
We recruit permanent employees. We do not supply contract or temporary staff.
Every business interviews, but few have a written process that works the same way for every role and every interviewer. GullyHR designs yours, from the role brief to the offer, trains your managers to run it, and can run it for you on the roles you hand us.
We agree what the role must deliver, the must-have and nice-to-have skills, and how each will be scored.
Screening call, assessment, interview rounds and decision points, sized to the role and the number of people you hire.
Structured questions for each role family and a rating guide, so two interviewers judge the same answer the same way.
A short briefing for your managers on what to ask, what to avoid and how to give a clear yes or no.
Who approves, how the offer is made, and how candidates are kept informed from first call to joining.
Strike ends near dawn and the next load begins by noon, with little rest and unclear overtime.
Lights, chairs and props go to venues and some return damaged or never, with no sign-out record.
Working at height on stages and trusses and rigging power without proper gear is risky, and near misses go unreported.
Peak weekend labour is picked up at the gate and has never been shown how to carry, stack or fit.
A strong carpenter or florist takes freelance work from a rival at double the wage on the same date.
Vehicles loaded in the dark and driven after a night of work create accident risk.
The sales side agrees a design and timeline that the crew only learns at loading.
A host says an item was broken, the crew says it was not, and nothing was photographed.
Start with the topics that matter most here: Health, Safety and Wellbeing; HR Operations and Governance; Employee Administration. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for marketing, advertising and creative, not in general.
Induction, records, incident reporting and follow-through.
An HR function that runs the same way every month.
Records, attendance, leave and the day-to-day HR that must simply work.
How many people, in which roles, by when — and what they will cost.
Structure, reporting lines and who is allowed to decide what.
Requisition to joining, the same way every time.
A first day that is the same for the fifth joiner as the first.
Salary structure, payroll inputs and a month that closes on time.
Goals, reviews and ratings that hold up in a conversation.
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
Named backups for the roles that cannot be vacant.
Communication, recognition and the conditions people actually work in.
Two routes — one for complaints, one for conduct — kept separate.
Policies a manager can apply, and obligations with owners and dates.
Who leaves, when, why — and which of them mattered.
Resignation to relieving letter, in a defined order.
Records that survive people, and approvals that do not queue.
A short monthly pack management actually reads.
The pieces a event decor and equipment business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
A load list for each event, counted at loading and at return by two people.
A load list for each event, counted at loading and at return by two people. The HR documentation process helps set the form.
Limits on consecutive night shifts, rest before the next call and a clear overtime record.
Limits on consecutive night shifts, rest before the next call and a clear overtime record. The attendance and leave process covers it.
Practical sessions with gear, record of who has done them and no climbing without it.
Practical sessions with gear, record of who has done them and no climbing without it. The workplace health, safety and wellbeing work covers the routine.
Regular helpers booked ahead and briefed before each event.
Regular helpers booked ahead and briefed before each event. See the recruitment process.
A short meeting before each event so designers and crews agree what can be built and by when.
A short meeting before each event so designers and crews agree what can be built and by when.
Hours limits, rest and a basic vehicle check for drivers, with a record.
Hours limits, rest and a basic vehicle check for drivers, with a record.
Before changing anything, find out what is true today. These checks take an afternoon and tell you which of the topics above to start with.
Share your requirementsConfirm with a qualified professional. What applies to you depends on your business, your state and your arrangements, and it changes. This page describes practice. It does not state a legal position.
The services below fit this kind of business best. Each starts by recording where you stand, and every later report compares against that. We do not promise outcomes.
Height, electrical and lifting routines suited to stage and set builds.
Night-shift rules, rest and fair overtime records.
Stock sign-out forms, handover notes and crew rules that cut losses.
A reliable helper pool and a route to hire skilled artisans.
Start with a free conversation, or see the paid HR Diagnostic.
Understand the business, its workforce, current processes and HR challenges.
Find the missing, weak, inconsistent or person-dependent processes.
Create the structure, processes, policies, SOPs, dashboards and systems needed.
Help HR and department managers actually adopt the new system.
Digitise repetitive and approval-based workflows where it is worth doing.
Track hiring, attendance, employee cost, performance, training and attrition.
Strengthen the people-management system continuously, not once.
From the GullyHR blog: one on HR in marketing, advertising and creative, and one on each of the topics this page points to.

Creatives, planners and account teams leave for reasons beyond pay. How to run an exit conversation in an agency, spot patterns by account and act on them.
7 min readRead article
A shift, weekly and monthly safety routine for rubber plants that names who checks platen guards, mill trip bars, autoclave doors, burst-test cages and slings, and who acts on near misses.
7 min readRead article
Every growing company reaches a point where the founder approving everything stops being speed and starts being the bottleneck. Twelve signs it has happened, and what to fix first.
9 min readRead article
Payroll says one joining date, the personal file says another and the manager remembers a third. How to establish a single trustworthy employee record and keep it that way.
7 min readRead articleMore on the GullyHR blog.
Use a load list for every event, count at both ends with two people and record damage with photos. Review the biggest losses monthly.
Plan shifts so people get proper rest before the next call, record the hours and pay overtime clearly.
Safe use of ladders, trusses and tools, basic electrical safety, lifting technique and what to do after an accident.
Offer steady work, fair pay against comparable roles, recognition on credits and a route to supervisor.
Run a short handover with the crew lead before every large event and let the crew say what is realistic.
We would ask how stock is counted, how long night crews work and who trained the team at height. A good first project is a sign-out routine with a safety session. Scope is written for you to accept or change.
All 38 business types in marketing, advertising and creative · Find another business type
See all HR topics for marketing, advertising and creative, or another industry.
Tell us what is slowing your team down. We’ll help you find a practical way forward, starting with a conversation.