​Let’s be honest, agencies mandate office returns to maximize productivity, not creativity

Let me take you on my journey so you can follow why I’m where I’m at. The first reminder about our industry’s hypocrisy was this text from a strategist friend. Bianca moved to the coast because she felt stifled by London and was more creative and inspired when by the sea. Good for her, no? She was chasing her most creative self, which should be applauded by our industry.

Sadly, Bianca feels the opposite: “I’m just chatting to a recruiter about a job at BBH. Four days in the office. WTF. I am so desperate for cash, though.”

Two minutes later: “I just worked out that I wouldn’t see Anya for four days because of the trains.”

Anya is Bianca’s one-year-old child.

The second reminder was a LinkedIn post from a producer pal. After 10 months of job hunting, she realized the agency norm of being in the office was going to impact her wonderful side hustle of being a badass illustrator who runs evening sketch classes for the people of Cheltenham. So, in a fabulous F-you to the industry that made her believe that side hustles would be good for her career, she’s quitting advertising to be a full-time artist and educator. (She runs her sketch clubs at Deya Brewery, FYI).

Then came the third kick to the womb. While browsing The Drum, I stumbled upon this: “It’s time for staff to get back into the office, says Iris chair Ian Millner”.

I felt compelled to give a nuanced reply to the article, as I’m sure many people (working parents like myself included) saw the headline and felt immediately deflated and scared for their future in the industry they love.

So let’s break down some of Ian’s points: “Remote work is holding back the creative, marketing and advertising sectors and it’s time agencies and their staff faced the truth.”

Interestingly at Sid Lee, we’ve just won the most exciting pitch of my career by our London and Montreal team working together, completely remotely, in other corners of the world and in two different time zones. The client’s feedback was that ours was “unanimously the greatest partner presentation they have seen in their collective careers”.

So were we creatively held back?

Not in my opinion.

So, what’s holding back the creative sectors isn’t people like me working from our home offices so we can pick our kids up from school, avoid extortionate rail fares, or, God forbid, live outside of London due to eye-watering interest rates/rents. It’s leaders enforcing rules that exclude demographics of people with backgrounds, situations, postcodes and personalities that are different to their own.

“Clients like to see an office full of people doing exciting things. It’s a branded experience in itself. It gives them confidence in our capabilities.”

I agree.

Clients do love that. Clients also love seeing a diverse workforce.

It’s also a branding experience to see more than one type of face staring back at you. It gives them confidence that your team has mixed experiences and can provide new and real insight. A more practical and fruitful solution would be to ask staff to be present on client days rather than force staff to be present on all days. A rule that will undeniably evict people like myself, Bianca, Jo and many other people with circumstances that don’t align with tradition out of the industry.

“Ian Millner believes that remote work is now suffocating creativity”.

I struggle with this one a lot. I’ve never heard anyone say: “The office makes me feel so creative”.

If I’m lacking creativity, I’d actively leave the office for inspiration. Think of Bianca; she feels most creative by the sea, which is an unfortunate trait when the people in charge of her next career think she needs to reach her peak creativity in the stifling smog of central London.

The thing with creativity is, it’s not one-size-fits-all. Like the article itself says about Ian: “…for him, the office/studio environment is vital for fostering this kind of irreplaceable creativity.” But that might not apply for everyone. Forcing creatives into an archetypal way of working that existed in a time before the internet, before social media, before a ‘cozzy livs’ and before we’d experienced the money and time-saving freedom of WFH (granted to us by Covid) is a madness lacking in any form of originality. And yet it’s originality that Ian says will ultimately save the creative industry.

I guess the point I’m making (and have been passionately advocating for for years now) is that WFH works just as much as being in the office. One doesn’t trump the other when you look at it through a human lens. We don’t need more articles advocating for the importance of being in an office because they’re arguing for a point that exists in a vacuum that excludes the realities of life in 2024. Such as raising kids during a time of 5% interest rates or being a grad who’s trying to afford £70 return train tickets on a barely there salary.

We also don’t need those in charge to start forcing their way of working–the traditional way–on people who have seen the light and moved on from an outdated and transparent business model. We all know that the reason agencies are reverting back to four or five days in the office isn’t to maximize creativity; it’s to maximize profitability and productivity. But at what cost? Your increase in productivity equates to a decrease in our personal life’s productivity as we’re spending hours of it commuting. Your increase in profitability results in a decrease in our bank balance as we’re now spending thousands on train fares.

I proudly work at an agency that has let me take on a highly responsible role while keeping the flexibility I need to parent two young boys. Do I want to be in the office more? Of course, I do. But right now, it’s a logistical impossibility. Their respect and understanding of my situation and needs will never go unnoticed or under-appreciated, and I will pay it back with the loyalty that such empathy from an employer deserves. How will your employees pay you back if you force them into a lifestyle that means they don’t see their one-year-old for four days of the week? Or that forces them to quit the side-hustle they’ve worked so hard to build?

I’ll finish with another quote from Ian: “The industry is under pressure to ‘grow up,’ but what it really needs is the freedom and empowerment that entrepreneurial spirit brings.”

To me, that sounds an awful lot like giving people the freedom to challenge the status quo.

Read more opinion on The Drum. And more from Laura.

• I shouldn’t need a nanny just to work in an ad agency

• If we run agencies like bean factories, creativity will remain at an all-time low