Find Out Who Is Leaving, From Which Accounts, and Whether You Could Have Kept Them
Agency attrition is rarely random. It clusters around particular accounts, managers, levels and pitch seasons, and is shaped by a market in which a good designer or account lead receives an offer every few weeks. We help you measure attrition in a way you can repeat, separate the exits that mattered from those that did not, run exit and stay conversations and decide in advance how you will respond to a counter-offer situation.
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Share your requirementsThe starting point
Do You Know Where the Churn Concentrates?
Agencies tend to hear about resignations one at a time and explain each as a personal decision: a better offer, a move abroad, a change of career. Taken together, the exits often tell a different story, but nobody has put them in one place.
We help you see the pattern and act before the next resignation letter.
You may be experiencing:
- An overall attrition number that nobody can reproduce, because the definition changes each time.
- Resignations clustering on one account, one team or under one manager.
- Exit reasons recorded as a better offer, with nothing about what was lacking.
- Counter-offers made on the day of resignation, then disliked by the team and sometimes followed by a second resignation.
- Junior staff leaving after a year or two with a broken sense of progression.
- Departures of people who held a client relationship or a unique skill, noticed only after they left.
- No sense of which of the people who left the agency would have been worth keeping.
What we can help with
Our Retention and Attrition Management Services for Agencies
Attrition Definitions and Measurement
Agree what counts as an exit, how the rate is calculated and over what period, so that the figure means the same thing each time it is reported.
Analysis by Craft, Level and Tenure
Break exits down by discipline, level and length of stay to find where the agency loses people and at what point in their time with you.
Account and Manager View
Link exits to the accounts people worked on and the managers they reported to, and mark where turnover is concentrated, so that the discussion starts with evidence.
Regretted and Non-regretted Split
Define how you will distinguish exits you wanted to prevent from those you accepted, using criteria that leaders agree before the next resignation.
Exit Interviews
Design exit conversations, held by someone other than the line manager, that record reasons, destination and what would have kept the person, in a format you can compare across leavers.
Stay Interviews and Early Signals
Run short conversations with people you would not want to lose, to learn what keeps them, what might move them and what small changes would help.
Counter-offer and Retention Response
Set out what the agency will do when a valued person resigns: who decides, what can be offered, what cannot and how fairness to colleagues is weighed.
Critical-person Register and Retention Plan
Identify the people whose loss would hurt most, for their skill or their client relationships, and agree the actions to keep them and the cover if they leave.
The deliverables
What You Receive
Depending on the agreed scope, deliverables can include:
- Agreed definitions and a repeatable way to measure attrition.
- An analysis of past exits by craft, level, tenure, account and manager.
- A regretted and non-regretted classification method.
- Exit and stay interview formats.
- A counter-offer decision guide.
- A critical-person register.
- A retention plan with owners and dates.
- A quarterly review of exits against the plan.
Step by step
How We Work
Rebuild the Exit History
We gather resignation records for the past couple of years and rebuild them into one list, with discipline, level, account, manager and the reason as it was recorded.
Find the Concentrations
We look for the places where exits cluster, and talk with leaders about whether the picture matches what they believed.
Agree the Definitions
We settle how attrition and regretted exits will be counted from now on, so that future figures can be compared with this one.
Introduce the Conversations
We prepare exit and stay interviews and the counter-offer guide, and brief the people who will hold the conversations.
Review Against the Baseline
The rebuilt history becomes your baseline. We review new exits against it each quarter and adjust the retention plan.
The difference
Act on Churn Before It Compounds
A defined retention approach helps your agency to:
We do not promise outcomes. We record a baseline before work starts, covering exits by discipline, level and account, the regretted share and how long leavers stayed, and report against it, so you can see what changed and what did not.
- Report attrition the same way every time.
- See which accounts, teams and managers lose people.
- Separate the exits that mattered from those that did not.
- Respond to resignations with a position decided in advance.
- Learn from leavers in a format you can compare.
- Protect the roles that carry client relationships.
Find your fit
Who This Service Is For
Agencies with High Churn in Creative or Servicing
Find where the loss is greatest and what is driving it.
Agencies Targeted by Competitors
Decide how to respond when valued people are approached.
Agencies Where a Few People Hold Key Clients
Protect the relationships and skills that would be hardest to replace.
Agencies After a Run of Resignations
Step back and look at the pattern instead of treating each exit alone.
How it usually shows up in marketing, advertising and creative
Attrition in agencies is high and usually treated as part of the business. The overall figure hides where it concentrates: in a particular craft, at a particular level, under a particular lead or on a particular account. The number is computed differently by different people, with freelancers sometimes included and sometimes not. Exit reasons are given politely and recorded as better opportunity or personal. Counter-offers are made late and a raised salary often only delays the exit. Leaders learn who is unhappy when a resignation arrives. Stay conversations, which would reveal workload, credit and progression concerns, are rare. A few people hold the relationship with a client or a skill the agency cannot replace, and no list of them exists. Boomerang hires happen by chance.
Common challenges
Where it goes wrong in marketing, advertising and creative
Whole account teams can leave together
An agency-wide rate does not show that designers, strategists or one lead's whole team are going, often soon after a pitch or a client exit.
Notice letters say 'better opportunity'
The phrase can cover late nights before a pitch, credit going to the lead or pay that lags a freelance day rate, so nothing is learned.
Counter-offers come too late
A raise at resignation delays the exit and upsets those who stayed.
Critical people are not listed
Nobody has named the people whose departure would hurt a client or a service.
A better process
What a working version looks like
- 01
Define attrition once
How it is counted, including or excluding freelancers, probation and fixed-term hires, and used the same each month.
- 02
Cut it by craft, level, manager and account
Look for clusters and compare them with workload and tenure.
- 03
Split regretted from other
Mark which exits mattered and why, so effort goes to the right ones. The attrition management approach sets the review.
- 04
Hold stay and exit conversations
Ask strong people what would keep them, and ask leavers for plain reasons, using someone outside the line.
- 05
Keep a critical-person register
Names, the risk, a backup and an action. Review it every quarter.
What to check this week
- Ask two people how attrition is calculated.
- List leavers over the year by craft, level and lead.
- Read the last five exit notes and see if any mention workload or credit.
- Check how the last counter-offer was decided.
- Write the names of people whose exit would cost a client.
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 retention and attrition management that are specific to this sector, rather than general.
Burnout and Workload
The retention issue agencies name last.
What this coversHide
Burnout and Workload
The retention issue agencies name last.
What this coversHide- Workload visibility
- Late-night and weekend pattern tracking
- Pitch-load distribution
- Leave actually taken
- Compensatory time off
- Manager check-ins
- Workload escalation route
- Wellbeing initiatives
Attrition and Retention
Churn concentrated where it hurts most.
What this coversHide
Attrition and Retention
Churn concentrated where it hurts most.
What this coversHide- Attrition by craft and level
- Attrition on specific accounts
- Manager-wise turnover
- Exit reasons
- Counter-offer pattern
- Stay interviews
- Progression conversations
- Critical-person backup
- Alumni and boomerang hiring
Questions on this, in marketing, advertising and creative
Choose a definition and stay with it: the number of leavers in a period divided by average headcount, counted separately for voluntary and other exits. We help you settle the rules, including how to treat freelancers and short contracts.
Leaders agree criteria in advance, such as performance, scarcity of skill, client relationship or potential. Deciding after the person has left tends to bend the answer, so we help you write the test while nothing is at stake.
That is for you to decide. We lay out the effects on peers, cost and the later behaviour of the person, and help you set a position, such as when you will counter, within what limits and who approves, before the situation arises.
They can if they are held by someone outside the reporting line and the purpose is clear. People often speak more openly after leaving. We design questions that draw out reasons and what would have changed the decision.
Yes. Agencies often rehire good people who left on fair terms. We help you decide how to keep in touch with leavers, what it means to be eligible for rehire and how a returning person is brought back in.
Poaching, workload on key accounts, one route up, and credit disputes. Because the market is small and mobile, small weaknesses show up quickly.
Choose a definition, apply it each month and split by craft, level, lead and account. Separate regretted exits from the rest.
Decide a policy in advance. Counter-offers often fail because the cause of leaving is not pay. Address workload, progression and credit before a resignation arrives.
Short conversations with strong people about what keeps them and what might make them leave. They find problems before the resignation letter.
Learn From Every Exit and Keep the People Who Matter
If resignations arrive one at a time and each seems to have its own explanation, put them together and look at what they say.
Prefer to talk first? Call +91 80958 58589 or write to hello@gullyhr.com.
Book a Retention Consultation
Tell us about your agency and the exits you are seeing.
The general method — what retention and attrition management covers, the questions it answers and what an engagement produces — is the same whatever the sector, and is set out on the employee retention and attrition management page. What is above is the part that differs for marketing, advertising and creative.
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.