The link between employee well-being and agency success is undeniable. Agency owners like you are facing a stark reality: your team is the health of your business. In the wake of the pandemic, those who had nurtured their team's well-being saw resilience and growth, while others faced high turnover and productivity losses.

It brings an uncomfortable truth into sharp focus: a toxic workplace culture is often at the heart of productivity loss and high staff turnover. In fact, an MIT Sloan Management Review study revealed that toxic culture is a leading factor driving the Great Resignation.

Investing in your team's well-being creates a supportive environment that leads to a dedicated staff, high-quality work, and satisfied clients. It also fortifies your agency against the industry's high-stress demands.

In this article, I'll guide you through practical, data-driven strategies to enhance your team's satisfaction and well-being, essential for your agency's sustained growth and longevity.

Well-being encompasses how you feel, cope with daily life, and what you believe is achievable at any moment. It has evolved beyond mental health and includes how you thrive in personal and professional spaces.

Agency owners need to recognize that well-being extends beyond the workplace. Good well-being practices enhance work performance, while poor well-being harms your employee’s personal life.

At Digitaloft, we’ve implemented the following initiatives that address well-being:

Stress reduction: Flexible work schedules, support networks, clear communication

Creative growth: Training programs, book access

Nature connection: Walking meetings

Social engagement: Regular meetups, community groups

Physical health: Gym memberships

Better sleep: Stress-reducing initiatives, burnout prevention

Rather than looking at the benefits of investing in your employees’ well-being, let’s flip this on its head and take a quick look at the impact of not investing in your employee well-being:

High employee turnover

Employees today seek more than just a paycheck; they yearn for a sense of belonging, recognition, and a workplace that cares for their overall happiness and health. There is a high employee turnover when you fail to meet these needs.

But you need to consider the ripple effect of resignations, too. When one employee leaves for a better work environment and shares their positive experience, it can inspire others to do the same, giving rise to an unhealthy cycle of hiring and training new staff.

Employees leaving leads to inconsistent services and, in turn, unhappy clients. It doesn’t take a genius to know this isn’t good for business.

Jon Martin from Hallam Digital shares more tips to help you retain employees.

Employee burnout

As an agency owner, prioritizing a healthy work-life balance is essential for preventing employee burnout. Ignoring burnout in your teams could lead to long-term sickness, severe stress, and, ultimately, the loss of these individuals from your agency.

Remember, burnout should never be normalized, and employees are increasingly aware that they don't have to tolerate it.

As with employee turnover, burnout impacts more than just the isolated individual. Overworked and overstressed employees pass responsibilities to their colleagues, who, in turn, become burnt out. Such a cycle can escalate quickly, destabilizing your team and negatively affecting the overall health of your SEO agency.

A drop in productivity & quality of work

A decline in work quality leads to client dissatisfaction, potentially resulting in client losses and missed opportunities for brand advocacy.

But internally, it runs far deeper. Unproductive team members are a catalyst for standards being lowered throughout the agency. Increased stress, unstable team structures, and a general atmosphere of disinterest lead your business into a vicious cycle of underperforming and disappointment.

A bad reputation that’s hard to shake off

Unlike Taylor Swift, you can’t just take a bad reputation and shake it off. Glassdoor reviews and industry rumors can quickly tarnish an agency's reputation. Once labeled as a poor workplace, it's tough to erase that image. This notoriety makes hiring challenging, as top talent steers clear of agencies known for not valuing their staff.

Avoid becoming an agency with a reputation for being a nightmare to work for. Such a label affects your current team and hampers your long-term hiring prospects.

I’ve spent the last nine years growing Digitaloft into an agency rated as a Great Place to Work®, achieving a Company Culture score of 89% based on our team's feedback (compared to the low UK average score of 54%).

Was it easy? No.

Was it worth it? Absolutely.

While there are no shortcuts to cultivating supportive and resilient company cultures, specific strategies and tactics helped us along the way.

Here’s my 10-step process for creating your own Great Place to Work:

1. Understand motivations, appreciate feelings, and act accordingly

Making meaningful changes within a fast-moving business starts with understanding what motivates people and empathizing with their feelings.

To do this, collect honest and actionable feedback from as many people as possible. If you can’t act on a request or concern for any reason, respond with an explanation.

We do this by running quarterly team-wide anonymous engagement surveys through Bob, our HR platform, but you could use Google Forms, SurveyMonkey, or something similar.

Structure surveys with open-ended questions to invite thoughtful responses. Some topics include:

• Relationships with colleagues and managers

• Levels of trust in leadership

• Thoughts on workloads and the variety of assignments

• Reflections on social events, with suggestions for alternatives

• Whether people can see themselves working at the agency a year from now

Transparency is the key here. Don’t hide things from people to preserve your image. Instead, share the good and the bad from the quarter and what you plan to do to ensure continuous improvement.

2. Resolve any internal identity crises

Have you ever looked in the mirror and struggled to recognize yourself? Well, that happened with me and Digitaloft at the start of 2023.

We’ve had an incredible three years — winning dream clients, growing from 12 to 72 team members, and producing ever-better work. But this change left us feeling a little lost. The solution was redefining our mission, vision, and core values, and I’d encourage any SEO agency owners feeling lost to do the same.

With end goals, roadmaps, and short-term tactics in place, you can set solid foundations for how teams operate agency-wide. You’ll also establish a benchmark for managers to use when developing their direct reports, helping them act with autonomy, integrity, and confidence.

If you’re unsure where to start, I recommend picking up a copy of Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon or Start With Why by Simon Sinek.

3. Provide centralized resources

As agency directors and senior leaders, you may struggle to remember what starting a new job feels like — the overwhelming amount of information, new faces to remember, and unfamiliar processes to learn.

Let me show you how we remedied this at Digitaloft.

Introducing The Loftbook — a static, centralized source of truth for employees (new and existing) on everything agency-related.

This is a digitized version of your traditional corporate handbook. It’s a resource that grows and evolves alongside our teams, remaining hyper-relevant to current issues and focuses.

The Loftbook sits on a simple (but practical) WordPress-based website password-protected to only those with an agency email address. Sure, it took a bit of work to get off the ground, but internal efficiency has multiple benefits:

• We don’t need to update and recirculate PDFs whenever policies change.

• Team members don’t have to worry about losing their copies of certain documents.

• There’s no confusion about whether something is the updated version.

• Information is just a few clicks away when someone needs it.

• Everything a team member needs to know about working at the Loft is in one place.

Alongside welcome messages and introductions, the Loftbook signposts individuals to essential resources that they can use to improve their well-being, both in and out of work. As a snapshot, this includes:

• Guidance on what our private medical insurance package covers.

• How to access free therapy sessions and professional coaching.

• Our flexible* hours and work-from-anywhere policies.

• Promotion criteria.

• Transparent salary band information (published in full and for all).

*By flexible, I mean genuine flexibility that listens to and respects individual preferences. Everyone works best in different ways, and giving people the space to make their jobs fit into their personal lives maximizes productivity.

4. Maintain transparency around financials & performance

While you want your employees to feel a sense of purpose within their respective roles, don’t forget they have bills to pay, personal commitments to uphold, and mouths to feed.

Employees are naturally worried about their job security, which becomes more acute during economic uncertainty and cost of living crises, where everyone feels the pinch more than ever.

However, simply telling your employees things are going well isn’t enough; you must show it.

To alleviate some of the stress of recessions and market downturns, share your financial performance data quarterly with your team, not just senior management.

Similarly, I’d encourage all agency owners to explore setting up a profit share scheme. If you’re going to foster a climate of community and collaboration, any triumphs need to be collective.

Whether this scheme pays out once, twice, or four times a year, rewarding commitment to your company’s goals helps employees realize that their efforts have value and that they play a part in determining their fortunes.

5. Proactively monitor working hours.

Burnout is a real issue for agencies, especially with the rise in remote work during and after the pandemic.

You’ll fail if you deal with the problem reactively (when someone has already burnt out). Instead, tackle burnout before it happens by anticipating when individuals might be at risk of overworking and opening up conversations proactively. Rather than asking, “Why has this happened?” ask, “How do I stop this from happening?”.

To this end, ensure your line managers receive focused training on monitoring their team members' working hours. More importantly, teach them how to address the root cause of the issue and ensure no one feels they need to work overtime.

6. Map out clear progression plans for every team member

Whether someone joins as a junior and works their way up the ranks or comes straight into a management role, if they don’t believe they have the space to grow and develop while working at your agency, they’ll go elsewhere in search of more senior positions.

To combat this (and to ensure you aren’t simply training talent on behalf of your competitors), provide everyone with progression pathways tailored to their career goals. These pathways should have clear timescales and realistic milestones that you review periodically to keep communication open.

At Digitaloft, we offer everyone a £1,000 training allowance each year, which they can use for courses, industry events, and conferences or gain additional qualifications and certifications that they feel will benefit them.

The results? We see individuals at all levels taking their success into their own hands, working to better themselves, reap the rewards, and, in turn, generate growth for the agency. Ultimately, this near-80k investment pays for itself without breaking a sweat.

7. Take a zero-tolerance approach to disrespectful clients

While there is a space for disagreement, healthy debate, diplomacy, and professional expressions of grievance, there is never any need for downright rudeness.

Suppose you’re an SEO agency owner with 10, 15, or even 20 years of industry experience. In that case, you’ve probably built up a fairly thick skin to things like this, but this won’t be the case for everyone in your team, especially junior members.

Dealing with disrespect, insults, or discrimination can have a massive impact on your employee’s mental health, so it’s your duty as a leader to step in and protect your people.

Treat your team members with the same respect you’d hope to receive, even if it means burning bridges with a paying customer.

Though it might sound counterintuitive from a commercial standpoint, it’s quite the opposite. Happy workers are more productive, helping you win more clients than you lose.

8. Recalibrate assumptions about mental health

As the conversation around mental health opens up, people are dropping stigmas, and access to support is improving.

To attract and retain the best talent, do not cut corners; instead, prioritize mental health and communicate how your company supports its employees' needs.

As standard, you should offer:

• Health cash plans (cash back on prescriptions, rapid access to GPs, counseling sessions, reimbursements for physical therapies).

• Mental health first aider training for internal team members.

• Resilience and emotional intelligence training for managers.

• Taking paid mental health days (the same as you would for physical illnesses).

• Internal well-being champions.

• Support before, during, and after someone experiences difficulties.

• Zero-judgement spaces where people feel comfortable asking for help.

• Above-average maternity, paternity, and parental leave allowances.

Ultimately, if you aren’t offering these benefits, one of your competitors will.

9. Communicate like your life depends on it

Okay, your life might not depend on it, but your agency sure does.

From experience, there are four ways to keep communication open as teams grow, each serving a different purpose:

1. Weekly snapshot updates: Each week, share a summary of the highlights, challenges, and upcoming plans with your entire team. You can share however you communicate internally. Everyone feels included, and no one hears things on the grapevine.

2. Monthly newsletters: Once a month, share a detailed view of the successes, challenges, strategies, and personal wins. Invite each team to contribute, sharing what they’ve been working on in recent weeks and whether they could use the support of other departments.

3. Quarterly team meet-ups: Regarding opening doors to new talent and accommodating individual working preferences, having remote or hybrid teams can be a game-changer. But nothing compares to in-person meet-ups when it comes to solidifying friendships and sparking creativity. Once a quarter, give each team a budget to organize a meetup involving strategy sessions, team-building activities, and some social activities.

4. Annual all-agency meet-up: At a prominent point throughout each year (maybe around Christmas or at the end of the financial year), get your whole agency together in person to reflect, celebrate, and explore what’s ahead. These meet-ups are a chance to share progress against yearly targets, celebrate milestones, raise awareness about current projects, and allow everyone to share their learnings. This face-to-face interaction is crucial for remote teams, as it breaks down communication barriers.

10. Build diverse communities in-house

People are simultaneously more connected and disconnected than ever before. In fact, according to new Meta-Gallup research, nearly 1 in 4 adults globally now struggle with feelings of loneliness.

But as employers, you are responsible for combatting this loneliness epidemic by implementing measures to help your teams foster a true sense of community spirit. If you don’t, you risk ending up with a disengaged workforce and agency-wide mental health issues that impact performance.

At Digitaloft, we asked our teams to suggest the in-house community groups they’d like to participate in. Two examples that have taken off are CraftLoft and BookLoft – no prizes for guessing what the focuses of these are.

These groups hold a virtual and physical presence within the agency, having dedicated Slack channels for members to connect when they want, alongside regular in-person meet-ups.

I also recommend hosting volunteer-led forums focused on championing neurodiversity, individual well-being, and charity efforts. They contribute to the broader atmosphere of belonging and inclusivity.

I get it; as agency owners, you’re trying to minimize overheads. And sitting in today’s uncertain economic climate, the voices shouting against investing in well-being initiatives are growing louder.

But from my experience, these arguments lack evidence and are mainly based on myth. They’re an easy scapegoat to absolve responsibility and justify cutbacks that could be the nail in your agency’s coffin.

So, let’s bust some myths.

Myth 1: It’s expensive to invest in well-being

Fact: Some initiatives are costly, but many require little or no investment (we’ll look at these later on). Still, even when capital investment is needed to safeguard well-being, the cost implications of not investing are greater.

Myth 2: Employees only care about salary

Fact: Chima Mmeje from Moz asked 168 SEOs why they left their roles; better pay was not the only reason. People want to be seen as people, not employees. As stated in Gartner’s research, this translates into soul-searching about whether they feel valued, their work has meaning, and they believe they’re a part of something bigger than themselves.

Myth 3: It’s not the company’s responsibility to support people outside of work

Fact: You don’t cease to exist when you clock off for the day, nor do your employees. This isn’t an episode of Severance, where our in-work and out-of-work selves exist in separate dimensions.

A person’s well-being and overall sense of contentment outside of their professional life have a knock-on effect on their ability to perform at work. By default, their best interests are your agency’s best interests.

Myth 4: We should be doing what’s best for the company, not the individual

Fact: The wider company will suffer if you don’t look after the individuals. To achieve genuine success, you must return to the grass-roots level. Reaping a plentiful harvest depends on nurturing crops from seedlings daily, not carelessly sowing them and waiting for things to grow.

Look after your people, and they’ll do what’s best for your company.

Myth 5: It’s impossible to track the ROI of investing in well-being

Fact: It’s very possible. So much so that I’ll show you precisely how below. Spoiler alert: it all starts with recruitment being one of a business’s biggest overheads

Here’s a formula to calculate the ROI of your employee well-being initiative

Essentially, you’re looking at what it costs to invest in well-being against what it would cost to:

• Manage the operational impacts of an unproductive or inefficient team member (including lost revenue from clients canceling contracts due to poor service).

• Recruit new team members after resignations or dismissals.

• Training new hires so they can add value to your existing team.

Of course, this is all an approximation, but it provides a quick insight into the value that investment in well-being can deliver.

For a more detailed look at this issue, you can check out Claro’s method for calculating well-being ROI.

Your people are your greatest asset – without them, your agency doesn’t exist. Prioritizing the well-being of your teams becomes mission-critical to achieve growth targets year on year.

It’s not the quickest task, as rolling out successive well-being initiatives demands consistency from all involved parties, but the rewards speak volumes.

And as a closing note, think about this for a moment:

If you do not invest in your staff, make them feel valued, and support them as people, there’s always another agency that will.