Appraise Creative and Servicing Work on Substance, Not on Who Shouts Loudest
Agency appraisals often reward visibility: the person closest to the client, or the one who spoke last in the review meeting. We help you define what good looks like for craft roles and servicing roles separately, set a review rhythm that fits campaign cycles, and agree how ratings are calibrated across teams so that they can be explained to the person receiving them. We then help you set the formats and records up in your own system or on the GullyHR platform.
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Share your requirementsThe starting point
Can You Explain a Rating to the Person Who Received It?
In an agency, good work is hard to see from outside the team that produced it. Without agreed measures, appraisals drift towards recent events, loud advocates and billable hours, and the quiet craftsperson or the account manager who prevented a crisis is passed over.
We help you build a review process that sees the work as well as the hours.
You may be experiencing:
- Appraisals held once a year, remembered mostly for the last campaign.
- Creatives and servicing staff judged on the same form, though the work is entirely different.
- Ratings that vary sharply between account teams with no way to compare them.
- Client satisfaction known only when a client complains or leaves.
- Utilisation treated as the main measure of performance, so busy people look better than effective ones.
- Feedback on a piece of work given in the heat of a deadline, then forgotten at review time.
- People who are rated down because of a client's behaviour, with nobody separating the two.
What we can help with
Our Performance Management Services for Agencies
Craft Measures by Discipline
Define what quality means for copy, design, video, performance marketing and production: quality of output, originality, revisions needed, turnaround, brand consistency and skill growth. Write each in terms a reviewer can observe.
Servicing and Account Measures
Set expectations for account roles: client satisfaction, brief quality, timeline and scope control, renewals and revenue handled, so that servicing is not judged on craft or the other way round.
Goal-setting Aligned to Accounts
Help managers set a small number of goals per person that connect to the accounts they work on and to the agency's priorities, and record them where both can see them.
Review Cadence Around Campaigns
Plan reviews at project close, after pitches and at set points in the year, so feedback is given close to the work and collected into the formal review.
Client and Peer Input
Decide how client feedback and input from colleagues across disciplines is gathered, what weight it carries and how it is shared without turning the process into a popularity contest.
Ratings and Calibration
Define rating levels and run calibration sessions across accounts and teams, with leaders comparing evidence and not impressions, so that equal work receives equal ratings.
Separating Client Behaviour from Performance
Add a step where reviewers consider whether a difficult client, unrealistic brief or sudden scope change affected the result, and record the context beside the rating.
Improvement Plans and Recommendations
Prepare improvement plan formats, and a route from review outcomes to promotion, increment and development recommendations, with the reasons attached.
The deliverables
What You Receive
Depending on the agreed scope, your engagement can include:
- Measures for craft and servicing roles, by level.
- Goal-setting and review formats.
- A review calendar tied to campaigns, pitches and the business year.
- A client and peer input method.
- A rating scale and calibration method.
- A way to record client and brief context beside each rating.
- An improvement plan template.
- Configuration of goals, reviews and ratings on your system or on GullyHR.
Step by step
How We Work
Review Recent Appraisals
We read a sample of recent reviews and speak with leads in each discipline about how they currently judge work, and where they disagree.
Agree What Good Looks Like
We draft measures with the creative and account leads, test them on a few real cases and trim them to what can be observed.
Design the Rhythm and Formats
We set the cadence, forms and calibration meeting so that the process fits in the gaps between deadlines.
Trial with One Team
We run a short cycle with one team in each line, collect what the managers and employees found useful or awkward, and adjust.
Roll Out and Review
Before work starts we record how the current process is perceived and how consistent ratings are. After the first full cycle, we review against that.
The difference
Make Ratings Explainable and Consistent
A defined review process helps your agency to:
We do not promise outcomes. We record a baseline before work starts, covering how many reviews are completed on time, how ratings are spread across teams and how staff describe the fairness of the process, and report against it, so you can see what changed and what did not.
- Judge craft and servicing on measures that fit each.
- Give feedback near to the work instead of months later.
- Compare ratings across accounts and teams.
- Take account of client context without excusing weak work.
- Link reviews to promotion and development with reasons recorded.
- Spot improvement needs early enough to do something about them.
Find your fit
Who This Service Is For
Agencies with Annual Appraisals Only
Add feedback closer to the work without turning reviews into paperwork.
Agencies with Distinct Craft and Servicing Teams
Give each line measures that fit its work.
Creative Directors Reviewing Many People
Make reviews quicker and more consistent for those who carry large teams.
Agencies Preparing Promotion Decisions
Create the evidence base that a promotion discussion needs.
How it usually shows up in marketing, advertising and creative
Appraisals in agencies tend to follow whoever is most visible. Account people are judged on client happiness and revenue, which depends partly on the client's own behaviour. Creatives are judged on work that is subjective, and the creative director's taste is the main yardstick. Timesheets give hours but not quality. Revision counts, turnaround, award entries and client feedback exist in different places and are rarely brought together. Reviews fall at the year end, often delayed by a pitch season, and people learn about their standing only when a decision is made about pay. Junior staff who work quietly behind a loud lead go unnoticed. Credit for a successful campaign flows to whoever presented it. Calibration across teams is uncommon, so ratings are not comparable.
Common challenges
Where it goes wrong in marketing, advertising and creative
Visibility is rewarded
The person who presents or shouts is noticed, while the one who produced the work is not.
Craft is judged on taste alone
Without written criteria, ratings reflect which creative director reviewed the work.
Revisions and feedback are not collected
Client comments and revision counts exist but do not reach the review.
Ratings are not comparable
Different teams use the scale differently, so promotion cases are hard to defend.
A better process
What a working version looks like
- 01
Write criteria by track
For craft: quality, originality, turnaround, revisions, skill growth. For servicing: client satisfaction, renewals, brief quality, scope control. The performance review format carries them.
- 02
Collect evidence through the year
Client feedback, revision counts and delivery dates noted per person at project close.
- 03
Review on a cycle that survives pitches
A mid-year and a year-end review with dates fixed in advance, and protected time.
- 04
Separate team credit from individual contribution
Ask each person to describe their own part, and ask the team about it too.
- 05
Calibrate across teams
One meeting where leads compare ratings with evidence before they are final.
What to check this week
- Read one creative's last review and find the evidence behind the rating.
- Ask which client feedback reached an appraisal this year.
- Compare rating spread across two teams.
- Check when the last review was due and when it happened.
- Ask a junior how their contribution to a campaign was recognised.
Confirm with a qualified professional. What applies depends on your establishment, your state and your sector, and it changes. This page describes a practice; it does not state a legal position.
What this looks like in marketing, advertising and creative
The parts of performance management that are specific to this sector, rather than general.
Performance and Appraisal
Measured on craft and on client, not on visibility.
What this coversHide
Performance and Appraisal
Measured on craft and on client, not on visibility.
What this coversHideCraft
- Quality of output
- Originality
- Turnaround
- Revisions required
- Brand consistency
- Skill growth
Servicing and account
- Client satisfaction
- Retention and renewals
- Brief quality
- Timeline management
- Scope control
- Revenue per account
Questions on this, in marketing, advertising and creative
Creative judgement will always involve opinion, but it can be structured. We agree criteria such as quality of output, revisions needed, turnaround and growth, and ask reviewers to give evidence for each. Calibration then tests the opinions against each other.
It can be one input, if the expectation was stated clearly and allows for the person's level and circumstances. We suggest it sits beside craft and client measures, so that hours alone never decide the rating.
A common pattern is brief feedback at project close, a light check-in at set points and a formal review once or twice a year. We design the rhythm around your campaign calendar so that reviews are not squeezed out by launches.
We add a context step to the review, where the manager notes client behaviour, brief changes or scope disputes alongside the work. It does not remove accountability, but it keeps the agency from penalising people for what they did not control.
Often yes. We design the measures, forms and calendar first, then set them up in your existing system or on the GullyHR platform, so that goals, reviews and ratings are recorded in one place.
Combine criteria such as concept, craft and turnaround with client and peer feedback and revision counts. Two reviewers scoring against written criteria is better than one person's taste.
Partly, but also on things they control: brief quality, timeline management, scope control and renewals. Client satisfaction alone punishes people for difficult clients.
At least twice a year with short monthly conversations. Project-close feedback is the most useful input, because it is fresh and specific.
Collect evidence from several sources, ask people to describe their own contribution and calibrate across teams before ratings are final.
Build Appraisals the Team Will Recognise as Fair
If ratings depend on who spoke up last, start by agreeing what good work looks like in each line. Tell us how you review today.
Prefer to talk first? Call +91 80958 58589 or write to hello@gullyhr.com.
Book a Performance Consultation
Tell us about your agency, your teams and how appraisals work now.
The general method — what performance management covers, the questions it answers and what an engagement produces — is the same whatever the sector, and is set out on the performance management process page. What is above is the part that differs for marketing, advertising and creative.
To run this in a system rather than on paper, see performance management software.
Other HR topics for marketing, advertising and creative
Where to start
Most engagements begin with a review of how this runs in your business today, then a written process and the sequence to implement it.
See all HR topics for marketing, advertising and creative, or another industry.