Top 3 Trends Businesses Need to Know About in 2022

Industry trends come and go, but in the last few years, staying ahead of the curve has become more than just good practice for businesses; it’s vital to survival. After all, how can you be competitive in 2022 without knowing what’s happening in the market?

If you’re new here in the world of next level Recruitment, you’ll quickly find out that we’re not your traditional recruiters. We’re industry experts that have worked in the marketing, creative, digital and PR spaces for years and are on a life-long mission to level them up, encouraging the companies we work with to push boundaries, challenge the status quo and evolve.

We encourage our clients to be future-facing and stay up to date with new developments to stay competitive, become leaders in their field and of course, attract and retain top talent. That’s why we’ve collated the top trends impacting the marketing, creative, digital and PR spaces in 2022 and wrapped them all up into one handy PDF report that you can download for free from our website here.

In our Top Trends for 2022 report, we discuss the major trends we expect to see affecting each area of the industry this year and our expert next level team give their thoughts and tips on how businesses and candidates can use this to their advantage.

We talk recruitment trends - which, despite our vested interest will in fact be one of the key challenges overall for the business world this year- and how we will be championing these in our industry this year. We’ve even included our newly-updated 2022 Salary Survey, because we believe all our candidates need to know their worth, and clients do too.

Sound like an invaluable downloadable piece of content you really cannot afford to pass up? We think so too; get your copy from the banner at the top of our website now!

But if you’re short on time, we’ve got your back. Yes, you need to download our full PDF for the whole story, but as we are so kind, we’ve picked three trends you need to know about right now to delve into in this blog, you’re welcome!

Let’s get into it.

• War For Talent

By the last half of 2021, much of the anxiety felt by professionals about the prospects of post-pandemic recovery were greatly eased, comforted by the fresh, new green shoots that began to sprout up all over the marketing, creative, digital and PR industry.

Businesses resumed investing and professionals began making career moves again, leaping forward with renewed confidence in the market. With this a new challenge was born, referred to many as ‘The Great Resignation’.

Also known as the “Big Quit”, this term describes the mass exodus of people from companies, quitting jobs for reasons associated with the Covid-19 pandemic. For example, employees have more options now that they have experienced remote working and are more open to fully remote roles and opportunities.

In 2022 this trend is set to continue, with January already seeing some of the highest ‘quit rates’ in the UK since the 70s.

From an industry point of view, we are already seeing that Social and PR is going to be a particularly candidate scarce market, with greater investment in these in the corporate world, for reasons you’ll find in trend #3.

Businesses will be struggling to retain their PR professionals, with recruiters headhunting more than ever so there’s only one way that companies can win the war on talent; find ways to retain their staff!

• Freelancers as a solution

Freelancing has always been seen as a touchy and somewhat taboo subject in the corporate world. While this has been less of a concern in the marketing and creative industries, which always was receptive to contractors and freelancers, the pandemic saw more people turn freelance out of necessity through redundancies, but also more people choosing a freelance lifestyle.

As a result, more businesses have begun to realise the multitude of benefits that come with having a reliable source of freelancer. This gives employers a real boost and confidence to invest while the market is still stabilising, or indeed, evolving.

When businesses work with freelancers, they can scale up or down their requirements and get support on a project-by-project basis, rather than commit to long-term partnerships, so which gives added peace of mind that they are not overspending and will not need to make any further redundancies should any more surprises happen this year.

At next level, we predict to see many areas that have steered clear from hiring freelancers recognise their value, particularly relevant in client-facing roles such as account handling and PR, which will snowball into a greater acceptance of freelancers as an efficient solution.

• Not all PR is good PR

It’s not an exaggeration to say that during the pandemic, a collective social awakening occurred. Ignited by the Black Lives Matter movement in February 2020, society had no choice but to pay attention to long-ignored issues, such as racial and gender inequalities.

This, quite rightly, spilled over into the corporate world and topics such as diversity and inclusion were catapulted to the top of the exec board agenda as businesses realised, they needed to do more lest risk their reputation and credibility.

While much of the groundwork was completed in 2021, with companies recognising their role in contributing to the problem, in 2022 businesses will need to step it up and communicate their brand conscience through great PR, to show and not tell they are actually contributing to the solution.

We expect to see many more businesses begin to shout about their environmental policies and how they’re championing equality in the workplace and indeed, beyond. Mental health and general wellbeing will continue to be a priority, and as the world works towards a “new normal”, employers must walk the walk, having spent the past few years talking the talk.

This is of course, great news for our fantastic PR candidates and professionals, who are already in hot demand; this will continue for the foreseeable. This will be a vital trend that businesses will have to roll with if they want any hopes of addressing the skills shortage, and appearing as an attractive employer in a candidate scarce market.

So, there you have it; three key trends that will impact the whole working world this year, but will absolutely reshape the world of marketing, creative, PR and digital.

Remember, you can still download our FREE 2022 trend report from our website, and find out even more about how companies and candidates can be competitive and level up this year.

In 2022 our industry is only going to grow even more and new roles will be created through innovation and progression; our hope is that our clients are at the forefront of this and will be leaders in these areas for years to come.

Want some specialist support with your recruitment and talent management? We can help with that; brief us today and we can help you take your business to the next level