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 printer rental business places machines in offices, schools and shops and earns monthly from contracts and copy counts. Technicians visiting sites, accurate meter readings and fast breakdown response decide whether contracts are renewed.

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 requirementsA printer rental business leases photocopiers and multifunction printers to offices, schools, colleges and print shops, and charges a monthly rent plus a rate per copy beyond a limit. A sales team signs contracts, technicians install and repair machines, a store holds toner, drums and spares, and collections staff chase payment. Revenue depends on meter readings that are honest and on machines that run, because a printer down in a school during exam week brings an angry call. Technicians visit many customers a day, carry parts in bags and bikes and learn each machine model. Contracts run for years, so renewals matter more than new sales. The wider HR for marketing and creative agencies page covers print and communication businesses.
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 printer rental businesses. 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.
Readings entered late or guessed lead to wrong invoices, disputes and lost goodwill, and nobody can show who read which machine.
Calls peak when customers most need prints, and technicians are sent in a rush with no clear priority.
A technician who leaves takes know-how of each machine, each customer's quirks and sometimes the customer.
Items are issued to technicians and delivery staff without a match to calls, so cost per contract is blurred.
Collection executives chase late rent in awkward ways, and customers hold payment back until a complaint is fixed.
New machines arrive from brands, but only a few technicians learn them, so fixes take longer.
Low rates and quick response promised at signing meet a thin service team, and the renewal suffers.
Long travel, heat and traffic cause fatigue and accidents, with no record of near misses.
Start with the topics that matter most here: Employee Administration; Learning and Development; Retention and Attrition Management. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for marketing, advertising and creative, not in general.
Records, attendance, leave and the day-to-day HR that must simply work.
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
Who leaves, when, why — and which of them mattered.
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.
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.
Induction, records, incident reporting and follow-through.
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.
An HR function that runs the same way every month.
The pieces a printer rental businesses business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
Each reading is entered by the technician or customer with an image, the date and the name, giving billing a record.
Each reading is entered by the technician or customer with an image, the date and the name, giving billing a record. The HR documentation process keeps the format steady.
A written order for school exam weeks, audit months and shop-hour peaks, so dispatch is not by who shouts loudest.
A written order for school exam weeks, audit months and shop-hour peaks, so dispatch is not by who shouts loudest.
Each machine family has two trained technicians, with sign-offs in the learning and development process.
Each machine family has two trained technicians, with sign-offs in the learning and development process.
A call number is needed for every issue, and unused items are returned at day end.
A call number is needed for every issue, and unused items are returned at day end.
Sales sees the service plan before quoting response times, and incentives include renewals.
Sales sees the service plan before quoting response times, and incentives include renewals.
Calls are grouped by area, travel time is counted in the day and rest is built in.
Calls are grouped by area, travel time is counted in the day and rest is built in. The attendance and shift process covers this.
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.
Meter reading and call records that make billing and disputes simpler.
Technician sign-offs by machine family so repairs do not wait on one person.
Goals that link sales, service and renewals so promises match delivery.
Ways to hold technicians through recognition, a visible ladder and fair incentives.
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
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 article
A founder's guide to hiring freshers and running a first-year programme: campus or open drives, a screening round, a training plan by quarter, mentors and checkpoints.
6 min readRead article
What really keeps mobile app and web developers in a small firm: stay conversations, growth paths, fair release rules and a risk sheet an owner can use this month.
6 min readRead articleMore on the GullyHR blog.
Use a photo for every reading, record who took it and send the customer a summary. Check outliers before invoicing.
At least two per family. Rotate calls so both stay practised and name a backup for newer machines.
Entry rules, how to explain faults, cleaning up, safe handling of customer data on machine drives and who to call for problems.
Issue against a call number, return unused items at day end and reconcile weekly. Patterns show who uses more than average.
Offer a visible ladder from technician to senior to area lead, fair incentives and regular training on new models.
We would ask how meter readings are captured, how technicians are trained on new models and what happens in exam week. A good opening project is a reading record plus a call priority rule. 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.