On its 2022 edition, Annecy Festival organized on Thursday, June 16 a series of panels around the theme “Unleashing Talents and Creation : A Key Issue for the Animation Industry”. Indeed, in a highly competitive industry, producers, platforms and studios are vying to attract and retain the best talent. Julien Meesters, SVP, Head of Creative at Mikros Animation participated in the conference entitled “Recruitment, management, diversity, and integration: animation addressing the talent challenge”.
With Yann Marchet, Louis-Philippe Vermette from The Happy Producers, Tiffany Feeney from Talent Outpost and Camille Eden from Nickelodeon Animation Studio, he discussed about the increasing importance of talent retention. Securing the services of top talents and keeping them in the long-term has therefore become a critical concern for studios, while operations have been and are still impacted by the global health situation.
Despite the resilience of the animation industry, the pandemic had a huge impact on companies’ culture, which had to take into consideration the balance between artistic project and personal development. Julien Meesters notably mentioned that success does not lie anymore only in the greatness of the final shots but also in the journey to the result. Hence the necessity for studios to take care even more of the working experience and well-being of their staff, so that the creative process continues developing.
Panelists shared new initiatives that have been launched to unite teams and make integration easier for unique profiles, all in the service of a common goal. Fostering internal communication, but also leaving room for people to speak, investing in mental health, training people to develop their well-being are a few of the examples given, requiring a shift in managerial behavior and company culture.
At Mikros Animation, we believe our strength and success are a result of our people. This is why we have developed initiatives such as our #OpenMik, #MeetTheMakers and series of podcasts which allow our artists to share their experience. Get to know more by visiting our Talent Spotlights section.
