Why we need to be looking after our promotional staff

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Carolyn Mason, Managing Director of experiencestaff, shares how brands should communicate more with their staffing agencies to ensure effective brand activation.

With the boom in experiential marketing – promotional staffing is a growing employment industry. Facebook job groups have opened up a previously relatively small pool of working actors, models and dancers to a huge database of students and casual workers. Working in promotional events is a fantastic and attractive start for creatives and casting performers. It’s a flexible, fun, ever changing and sociable industry which has so much to give.

The growth of the staffing industry has had its benefits for brands –agencies have access to have a diverse and talented workforce. However as supply has outweighed demand – staff welfare and employment law needs to be considered. It would be a real shame for the industry to miss out on the talent of creatives, actors and models who would be great at representing their brands.

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Starting a promotional staffing agency in the UK is also un-regulated. The only real hold back is if the agency follows the HMRC guidance and legislation for paying promotion staff as PAYE employees which was introduced on the 7 March 2016. The legislation aimed to move the industry from freelancers, removing false self-employment and offered agency workers / casual worker employment protection. However without a trade union and very little awareness about the lack of regulation of promotional staffing – there are agencies who are active in the industry who are not working at best practice.

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Brands need to be communicating with their staffing agencies not only to be checking that they are staffing legally but to consider allocating budget to pay promotional staff a competitive wage. To attract talent we need to consider add-ons like travel and lunch allowance and consider staff welfare. Staffing is undeniably one of the key components to a promotional activity, brand ambassadors are the face of the brand. Promotional staff are amazing and love this industry, and work hard to make activations happen – we just need to be looking after and protecting them.

If you would like to find out more about experiencestaff, get in touch with Carolyn Mason at hello@experiencestaff.com