How we at Hybrid address the tight labor market: we train our t-shaped marketers ourselves

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How we at Hybrid address the tight labor market: we train our t-shaped marketers ourselves

Internal
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The digital experts at the Antwerp-based Hybrid Agency have only one goal: to generate as much value as possible for their clients. They call this approach Talent as a Service, or TaaS for short. This talent is trained and groomed to become experienced team leads of self-managing teams. To achieve this, they set up their own Academy, an intensive and fast-track acceleration program for passionate aspiring online marketers, where the team leads themselves determine the pace.

We hear from Diego Llera, Head of Performance, who designed the entire program. “Our ambition is to help achieve our clients’ goals in a high-quality manner every month,” Diego Llera begins. “In practical terms, this means generating as many leads, purchases, transactions, etc., as possible at the lowest cost. Our biggest challenge is finding the right talent and shaping them within our Academy. After all, we need the best people to oversee the quality of our projects.”

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“When I started here as an intern three years ago, I was immediately given a lot of exciting challenges,” says Alexander Lazarev, who was the first to complete the entire program. “Thanks to the great guidance from the Academy, I was able to deliver results quickly. And when you deliver results, you gradually take on more responsibilities. After three intense years, I will officially step into the role of team lead this quarter,” he says with pride. “Today, Diego occasionally looks over my shoulder and oversees the results of my clients. From now on, I will take full responsibility for several accounts and lead my team, encouraging them to be even more creative and achieve better final results.”

Controlled Growth

Diego Llera explains the principle of team leads: “A team lead is a key figure within Hybrid. They act as a mentor and coach for the self-managing squads of 4 to 5 people. This role comes with a challenging task list: overseeing the results of the entire client portfolio, one-on-one meetings, constant feedback on the work floor, and more—ensuring that everyone performs at their best and gives their all for our A-level clients.”

“We work for strong brands like Ava, Maxi Zoo, Baloise, and Gamma. These clients deserve only the best, which is why we work hard on building partnerships within our agency. This way, no one feels like they are just working on projects, and we can fully share our digital expertise.”

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“We carefully monitor the number of projects we take on,” emphasizes Diego Llera. “When we’re not sure whether we can truly handle a project and guarantee quality, we implement a client stop. At this moment, we can still start new projects, but unfortunately, our capacity is smaller than the demand. That’s why we are currently looking for motivated mediors. This way, we can immediately expand our bandwidth and serve more clients, while they specifically grow into team leads in our Academy,” says Llera.

No Traditional Onboarding

These motivated mediors naturally want to know what the Academy is all about and what the acceleration program actually entails. Experienced Alexander Lazarev can shed some light on this. “From the start of the program, you are involved in client cases, without having to handle them on your own. You receive the necessary theory to earn certifications, but in the end, it mainly comes down to learning on the job, gaining the right insights, and discovering the Hybrid approaches. The duration of the medior-to-teamlead program ranges from 6 to 15 months, depending on your own ambition and capabilities.”

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“The Academy is a robust growth program, with a ‘development sprint’ every six to eight weeks where work points are discussed and addressed during one-on-one meetings. This is much more immediate than the annual performance reviews that most companies have, and completely different from traditional onboarding programs. Most companies follow a 6-month plan to make employees billable as quickly as possible, after which all training on the job stops. Our Academy focuses on long-term results. It’s a non-stop development program lasting 3 to 5 years. This benefits our clients, our colleagues, and Hybrid itself. In this way, I find the Academy very personal, and I can see how quickly I grow because of it.”

Personal Development Plans

“As a medior, you’re always free to come in for a day and assess for yourself where you currently stand,” adds Diego Llera. “Based on the conclusion, we create a personal growth plan to ensure that the individual can complete the journey as efficiently and pleasantly as possible. The end goal is always the same – delivering a senior team lead – but we want the path to get there to be as personalized as possible for the medior.

“Think of it this way: our Academy is like a Bachelor’s after a Bachelor’s, where you as a medior can start directly in the second year because your experience already grants you several exemptions. The difference is that not every student follows the same curriculum, as we work with PDPs (personal development plans), tailored to the medior’s pace and needs, with a focus on both soft and hard skills. Where are the talents, and which skills are still needed to become a team lead?”

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“You’re almost literally handed a map that shows you the direction you can go, and it evolves as you grow,” says Diego Llera. “As a co-architect of the Academy, it’s great to see how this allows people to grow rapidly in a short amount of time, which then motivates us to further refine the programs and make them even more millennial-proof.” He continues, “Also because the program is continuous: you keep learning, especially because you’re surrounded by peers to whom you can ask any questions. Every evening, you go home with something new you’ve learned.”

“We also maintain a culture of lifelong learning here by emphasizing non-stop constructive feedback among those peers. This keeps you in learning mode within the Academy. And once you start as a T-shaped team lead, you’ll continue to learn a lot about coaching leadership. That’s even the most challenging part: leading, coaching, and motivating your own team until it becomes self-managing. After that, you’re set for years to come. In other words, when Alexander moves on, it doesn’t end for him. On the contrary, that’s when it truly begins.”

Would you like to learn more about the Hybrid Agency Academy or accelerate your career?