There has been a frenetic middle management layer within Brand and Creative Operations. Leaders cycle in and out, bringing continuous sweeping change—often for change’s sake—while teams are left trying to keep their heads above water under already heavy workloads.
Each new leader stepping into the managing operations role has followed a similar pattern: operating as though the team wasn’t performing well and positioning themselves as the one there to “fix” things. That tone is set from the top, and is demoralizing for teams who are already stretched thin.
These leaders rarely take the time to truly understand the work—especially the manual nature of the platforms we operate on—or what creative operations and process management actually entail. Instead, the same cycle would repeat: the team would spend significant time explaining what we do, why we do it, and how it works. We’d create detailed decks and recommendations (often building on prior years’ work), only for new leadership to present those ideas upward as their own. It’s happened repeatedly, like a broken record.
When a team is overloaded and morale is already strained, reorganizing with the same number of people and the same volume of work—while adding more process—does not improve outcomes. The fundamentals are straightforward: resource plan properly, track effort across all teams (not just select ones), and secure the necessary budget.
Another concerning issue is overtime. While full-time employees may understand that overtime is not typically compensated, contractors—who often bear the brunt of high-volume workloads—are consistently told they cannot log overtime either. This year, I saw two contract project managers take on excessive workloads right before the holidays, only to have their contracts end a few months later. Many people raised concerns about how much they were carrying. It was shocking when they were let go. It didn’t feel ethical.
Finally, leaders of larger Creative Operations organizations need direct experience managing people. When a senior leader is hired without that background, they often hire additional leaders who also lack that experience, and it quickly becomes a house of cards. When I first joined, I was surprised by the attitudes from other teams. Over time, I realized that the standoffishness was a product of constant change and a lack of consistent leadership helping stabilize and tune the environment.
