Whether it’s grappling with a blurring of workplace boundaries and burnout, the fallout from squeezed marketing budgets or the impact of redundancies, the past few years have proved a “difficult time” for many working across advertising, media and marketing.
And according to NABS, a dedicated charity for the media and advertising industry, its most recent ‘All Ears’ research uncovered just 35% of respondents felt unable to discuss mental wellness in the workplace.
“We all know working in this business that when the economy is tough, our industry gets hit first. We’re very experienced in dealing with the fallout from a shrinking economy, shrinking market budgets and redundancy,” Kate Harris, regional director at NABS, tells Prolific North.
It’s taking a major toll on line managers too. 42% of participants in the ‘All Ears’ research reported when they experienced mental wellness issues, they head to their line manager first despite many of those managers being “squeezed in every direction” with ever increasing workloads.
“Without the right support, they end up coming to NABS for help for the wrong reason. We’re now designing a course for managers to combat this problem and it is our number one priority that came out of ‘All Ears’. So watch this space.”
Harris spent most of her career working at some of the top 10 London ad agencies. But nearly 20 years ago, she switched the frenetic pace of agency life for a role as CEO of NABS in London.
After moving up North, she then took on the role of regional director with a “mission” to better communicate the support services NABS can offer those in adland outside of London.
“Everybody’s talking about mental health and wellbeing now. We’ve been the ones who have looked after that for over 100 years, so I’m extremely proud to have been part of the organisation for the last 20 something years.”
A “huge” increase in calls to the NABS support line
Every service the charity offers, aside from its commercial training, is free.
This includes a confidential advice line, with several advisors experienced in the advertising, marketing and media sectors.
“They understand how weird or wonderful it is, and how stressful it can be,” she explains. But sadly, the advice line is “always busy”.
“People within the industry don’t always want to talk to the HR person at work, even if they get on well with them. Sometimes you want to talk to somebody who’s completely independent, so confidentiality is extremely important.”
But the support extends beyond workplace issues. From helping to re home people fleeing from abusive relationships to those struggling to deal an unexpected end to their contract in need of help, NABS advisors deal with a surprisingly wide range of issues.
“Often, we might get a call on the advice line and the person might say they’re facing redundancy, they might have already been out of work for two years, their wife has left them or they have no money to support their children. It’s a spiral.
“We try to help people get back to work as well. We offer emergency grants for people to help them pay their rent to get them back on their feet. We also do upskilling grants for those who might not be as digitally savvy to give them the best chance of getting back into employment.”
Last year, there was a “huge increase” in calls to the NABS support line with 4,500 calls – that’s a 53% increase on 2022. Emotional support was the top reason for callers while mental health advice represented one in five calls.
To tackle this, the charity partners with specialist organisations to offer anything from cognitive behavioural therapy, bereavement counselling to, increasingly, preventative initiatives such as career coaching to career advice.
“You name it, we do it. If there’s a problem, just come to us and we’ll solve it for you,” she says. “We try to respond to what we’re hearing on the advice line, whether it’s what people are facing at work or at home.”
“One of the things that NABS needs to be doing to remain current and relevant is to be as supportive as we possibly can to stop people from spiraling down into a really difficult situation that then becomes an emergency, which of course we will always help with.
“There has been a 58% rise in access to our group support spaces and workshops, following the launch of our explore and connect sessions. These are coach-led sessions, which help people on a preventative level in response to what’s going on, not just in the industry, but what’s going on at a macro level in the economy or the terrible things that are going on globally.”
Outside of the London bubble, at a regional level she finds smaller independent companies typically don’t have a HR function and it might be palmed off onto the finance director due to budget constraints.
In response, NABS has launched its ‘advisor for the day’ service where businesses can open up a confidential ‘safe space’ for staff to talk to one of the NABS advisors.
“No disrespect to all the finance directors out there but they’re not necessarily the people to talk to about some of the HR issues that they may have internally.”
“It’s a difficult time for everybody”
Despite all the support NABS offers the industry, it costs around £2.5m to run the charity every year.
“Unfortunately we’ve lost nearly £2m over the Covid period because people haven’t been able to give to us financially and we weren’t able to run fundraising events. It’s been a difficult time for everybody.”
As a charity, NABS only receives financial support from within the industry, through donations and event fundraising.
“We need financial support, we receive no support from anybody outside our industry and it’s our charity. I think it’s fantastic that we’re an industry that cares enough about its people to actually have a charity, so we need to support it. So come to our fundraising events!”
On how you can support NABS aside from corporate donations and sponsorship, the charity is gearing up to host a number of fundraising events including live and online art auctions across London, Manchester and Edinburgh in October for those in advertising, media and marketing community to unleash their inner artist and donate their artwork, alongside established artists and photographers.
And there’s an upcoming NABS ‘Fashion Show’ on 25 September in Manchester.
Harris hopes NABS can continue its mission of supporting the advertising, media and marketing community through its services and advice line.
“It’s not always an emergency, it could be something really small, but we always try to make a difference. And that’s what NABS is all about.”
