Sunny Advertising launches staff-led wellness program to combat industry burnout

Indie agency Sunny Advertising has taken several proactive steps to address results from a 2024 Mental Health Survey, which revealed that 70 percent of professionals in media, marketing and creative sectors have experienced burnout over the past 12 months.

CEO Sarah Davis said stress and mental wellbeing is a major issue across national and global advertising agencies regardless of size or location and the business has committed to a staff-led program which aims to improve mental and physical wellness across all team members.

Says Davis: “We know there is a strong connection between physical and mental health and our Wellness Program is all about keeping things fun, balanced and good for the soul. Every month, two of our team members take the role as Wellness Champions where they create a theme and roll it out, it could be anything from a walking challenge, to stretching, breathing and other mental and physical activities.

“We’ve created a Wellness Calendar and a chat hub which includes our monthly wellness challenges as well as sharing tips like healthy food options, podcasts, articles and anything else which contributes to positive personal and team wellness.

“While we do employ staff across a diverse age group, we do have a large percentage of team members who are under 35 years of age so we are really aware of the need to balance their work and professional lives while managing external issues which impact upon them such as the current cost of living, housing affordability and social media.”

Davis added that the wellbeing approach circles back to what is known as The Sunny Standard which is a reflection of the agency’s values and the behaviours used to uphold them: “Adopting our own Wellness Program not only benefits our team but it also plays an important role in retaining and attracting high quality staff. At the end of the day it’s a key driver in how we strategically position ourselves as an agile and results driven agency.”

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