Agencies return to office—inside the bumpy transition

Across the ad business, colleagues are reuniting. But they are not necessarily rejoicing about it. Whether it’s people having to tell coworkers to “keep it down” on Zoom calls or employees strolling into meetings late—sometimes dressed more for Saturday chores than for the workplace— the industry is awash with tales about the slow, occasionally bumpy readjustment to office life after more than two years largely hunkered down at home. “What I’ve witnessed is a high degree of noncompliance from those who don’t want to be back in the office environment,” citing everything from employees letting their desks get too cluttered to extended lunch breaks, said Marc Bromhall, founder of email marketing firm SmartOutreach in Cape Town, South Africa. Employee behavior became so problematic that Bromhall had his HR person draft and circulate a document outlining workplace procedures. Enter the 2022 Small Agency Awards at AdAge.com/SAA2022 It is a predicament that’s bound to become more common as offices open back up. Half of company leaders either already require or are planning to demand their employees to return to full-time, in-person work, according to Microsoft’s Annual Work Trend Index Report, released in March. Many others continue to operate under hybrid arrangements. Meanwhile, more than half of workers polled by Bloomberg back in January said they’d rather quit than be forced to return to the office. Can you hear me now? One of the biggest complaints is noise. In fact, one agency, Wongdoody, gave its employees a stipend to buy earbuds to use at the office, according to Assistant VP and Senior Client Partner Kinley Lagrange. “We grossly underestimated the amount of time we’re all still spending on web conferences,” added David Witting, managing director, digital products at the global digital agency Dept, which is headquartered in Amsterdam. Witting works out of the Boston office, which reopened its doors the first week of March to the cacophony of competing meetings. “People are coming into the office, but we did not purchase enough privacy booths,” he said. “We had to scratch two of our soft-seating areas to accommodate more privacy booths.” “The open-office layout design of coworking may provide many employees with higher levels of psychological safety and positivity, but it does not necessarily connect to higher levels of productivity or feeling less distracted,” as Najla Barance, head of people at Brooklyn’s Stink Studios, put it. “We have to ask ourselves what is more important here: productivity or community?” Every employee must have access to designated spaces in the office that allow for hyper-focus with no disruptions, as well as opportunities to build connections with colleagues, she stressed—concurrent goals that can be achieved by establishing best practices and guardrails. First day of school Complicating the return even further is that so many younger people hired over the course of the pandemic were new to office culture altogether. “A significant portion of our team had never stepped foot into an actual physical office space. Many were fresh out of college and went straight into isolation working from home,” said Jonathan Jordan, general manager of Edelman Southern California. “Workplace norms were lost on them. They didn’t know how to dress. They felt awkward about not knowing anyone, or even having conversation IRL. Many equated it to the first day of school.” (A just-released study from Washington State University’s Carson College of Business found that 63% of Gen Z employees are turned off by the idea of a 9-to-5 office setting.) Like that first day of school, returning employees have had to get reacquainted with one another and their work routines, said Josh Bersin, a business analyst and adviser based in Oakland, California who specializes in talent management and HR issues. “It definitely takes a little time for employees to get comfortable being back at the office again,” he said. Employers can help their people along by making sure policies are clearly defined and providing resources like scheduling tools so they can book private workspaces. Companies that have established flex work arrangements seem to be enjoying the most seamless transition. More than two-thirds of Bersin’s clients have a “flexible, as-needed, in-person” policy, he reported. “Generally speaking, what most companies tell me is that working together comes easily and people really enjoy being back together, as long as they don’t feel forced to show up when there’s no real reason to be present,” he said. “Flexibility is here to stay and giving employees the continued freedom to do some hybrid working at home is a necessity, even as the pandemic shifts dynamics,” said Ellen Ernst Kossek, a professor at Purdue University’s Krannert School of Management. “Similarly, time at the office needs to be experienced as meaningful and purposeful, to foster activities that may have been more difficult virtually to achieve, such as meeting for creativity, innovation and resolving problems.” At Mother, there's always been a blurring of home and office, which complicates things. "At Mother we’ve created a workplace meant to look, feel and operate like your home," said Charlie McKittrick, chief strategy officer and partner. "Only it isn’t your home, it’s everyone's home, so there is some sort of process of collective ‘how we do this at home together’ norm establishing," he said. Naturally, the shop took a cue from its name. "We deploy the same techniques mothers have been deploying for ages—basically the digital equivalent of yelling up the back staircase from the kitchen 'Hey who left their socks on the living room couch?'" McKittrick said. The agency has been offering free lunches every day to support local businesses, and a tradition has been established at the L.A. office in which the meal is announced with a photo and a "Vanna White-like pose by someone in the office." Ad Age A-List 2022 Best agencies of the year, ranked Top production companies to know about Definitive rankings of advertisers and agencies Take it slow Danielle Sherman, director of people and culture at New York-based agency Organic, urged agencies to go slowly and prioritize flexibility and “purposeful connections.” She added: “Go in once a week when your boss is there so you two can have some one-on-one time. Don’t go in when you do not have a purpose or it will become a burden versus a moment that adds value. Organizations that foster good culture will see employees return to the office because they want to, not because they have to.” Kirk Guthrie, senior VP and executive director of HR at Innocean USA in Huntington Beach, California, said his agency currently operates at about 25% capacity, which has made for a smooth re-entry so far. “Our people are excited about the opportunity to be in-person and collaborate when needed, while also maintaining the flexibility to avoid the commute when not needed— returning in small waves, limiting capacity, and being very flexible with how many days people are in.” Facilities and IT teams have been essential to keeping the speedbumps to a minimum at Digitas, said Caroline Winterton, president of the New York region for the agency. Her company has also been working under a flex model, she added, “letting people organically come in how they’ve wanted to and when they’ve chosen to” and “formally coming together to focus on purpose-driven reasons to connect,” such as new business brainstorms and conversations about talent. Fist bumps to hugs Durham, North Carolina-based McKinney formally returned to its offices in February, but for just two days a week, according to Joe Maglio, the agency’s CEO. (Wednesday is in-office, with the additional day of in-person work at each employee’s discretion.) “We’ve learned from the past two years and are clear on when we’re better together—a new business pitch, for example, and when remote work is more productive, such as drafting briefs,” he said. “Because we have considerable flexibility, we’ve been able to allow people to ease back in at their pace.” Enter the 2022 Small Agency Awards at AdAge.com/SAA2022 Maglio acknowledged that the return to the office is not without its hurdles. “While it’s natural for a transition period to be somewhat stressful—and it took a few days for fist bumps to turn back into hugs—our ongoing priority on mental, physical and emotional health has quickly helped our employees look forward to in-person collaboration and socialization,” he said.

Agencies return to office—inside the bumpy transition

Featured Stories