Stories of Culture in Practice is a series where we explore how organisations build culture where the work actually happens, in meetings, feedback conversations, hiring decisions, and the moments that don’t make it into slide decks.
Most agencies promote their best performers into management. It feels logical, and it rewards ambition. But it also creates one of the most common cultural problems in the industry: people managing others not because they want to, or are good at it, but because it was the only way up.
Zoë Ogden, Executive Director of People at Impression, a B Corp performance marketing agency working with the likes of Cancer Research UK, Clarins and Specsavers, spotted this pattern, and the team decided to do something about it. Rather than retrofitting reluctant managers, Impression rebuilt the model entirely. They created two distinct tracks: Pastoral Line Managers for those who thrive on coaching and developing people, and Rotational Mentors for those who are better placed to share technical expertise.
The result is a structure where nobody is managing people out of obligation, and nobody is being managed by someone who’d rather be doing something else.
We’ve been working with Impression’s managers on building a proper feedback culture, and what Zoë shared about how they think about people development stopped us in our tracks. So we asked her to walk us through it.
Before the change
At Impression, the signs were familiar. Nearly 50% of the team had management responsibilities, many of them managing just one other person. Some were brilliant at it. Others were doing it purely as a route to progression, and the difference showed.
“People were having different experiences depending on who their line manager was, which didn’t feel great.”
The inconsistency wasn’t a people problem. It was a structural one. The assumption that progression meant management had created a situation where everyone ended up in the same lane, regardless of where they were best placed.
The insight
There wasn’t a single moment. It was months of observation, feedback conversations, and research across their agency network.
“We definitely fell into the trap of linking progression opportunities with team management, and it’s very common across all industries.”
What Zoë and the team started to question was fairly simple: how can everyone add value in a way that isn’t just people management? And what would it look like if people got to choose?
Two tracks
Impression created two distinct roles, each with its own clearly defined scope.
The Pastoral Line Manager owns the bigger picture: career path conversations, overall development, wellbeing and ‘life’ (mental health, sickness, significant life events), logistics and leave, coaching on account challenges and conduct, team engagement and 121s, and company processes like onboarding, progression submissions and review meetings.
The Rotational Mentor owns the technical side: deep-diving into the specific skills the mentee needs for their role, setting SMART objectives around skills gaps, acting as a sounding board for client challenges through coaching rather than just giving answers, running Skills Sync sessions, documenting progress, and signposting to courses, shadowing opportunities or external training.
The roles were defined with their own behavioural competencies. When it came to deciding who belonged where, Impression treated it like an application process. People submitted evidence against the behavioural criteria for the track they were interested in. Some applied for both.
“We were using the same criteria for everyone, but it also fed into our skills framework that we’d developed alongside this change.”
To keep the two roles working in sync, Impression built a RACI that maps every key activity, from onboarding to objective setting to development check-ins, to who is Responsible, Accountable, Consulted or Informed. Some activities, like mid-point reviews and objective setting, involve all three: line manager, mentor and the individual themselves. The RACI makes the overlap deliberate rather than accidental.
How it’s going…
The response surprised no one who’s ever suspected their managers might quietly be relieved to be let off the hook.
“There was more relief than anything.”
For people who’d been managing out of obligation, it freed them up to focus on the client work and new business they’d wanted to prioritise all along. For those who genuinely loved developing others, the mentorship track gave them something more considered than they’d had before.
“It opened up more career choices for our people that isn’t down one linear pathway.”
For those being mentored, the shift was just as significant. For the first time, there was someone focused specifically on their development: their skills, their growth areas, their questions. And when one rotation ends, they get a fresh perspective from someone new.
What’s changed
More focus on skills development. People working to their strengths. A leaner structure. And a team that can see the vision and is building something alongside leadership rather than being managed through a system that wasn’t working for anyone.
Zoë’s advice for other agency leaders is straightforward.
“It’s worth giving something a go if you feel like something isn’t working, and not just sticking to a structure because it’s the traditional way. We haven’t got this completely correct, but we’ve definitely made huge improvements, and people can really see why we made the change and are on the journey with us.”
That’s the point. Not a perfect model. Something agile, to experiment, adapt, and learn from.
This is part of our Stories of Culture in Practice series, conversations with people who are actively doing the work of culture, not just talking about it. Have a culture story to share? Drop us a line at hello@happyhq.co.uk.
We work with managers and leaders at every level, from first-time managers finding their feet to senior teams who’ve stopped telling each other the truth. Every programme is built around the situations your people are facing. Find out more about our Manager and Leadership Development work at happyhq.co.uk/manager-and-leadership-development