By Mithila Saraf
A couple of days ago we read that a major network has fired nearly a 100 employees for not following return to office policies. Now, the work-from-home vs work-from-office vs hybrid debate has been long ongoing in advertising. But my question is, if Publicis had announced this policy starting January 2024, why did it take till October 2024 to take any serious action about it? I have been on the side of working from the office, polarizing so, since it was allowed to do so. And at Famous, we have stuck to that stance. At the risk of looking outdated, villainous, losing good talent and inflating our costs. We always figured, the short term losses would be worth the long term gains. Why didn’t the networks think that way though?
In my view, work from home was a necessity enforced by a pandemic that required human isolation to stop the spread. It can’t be conducive to anyone’s growth in normal professional life, especially in the creative industry. Of course, everyone should be able to take a day off to look after their kids, themselves or attend to personal matters, and wfh should be an option on those days. But it cannot be the norm. Our industry thrives on conversations, culture, laughter, friendships and all kinds of connections. As freshers in the industry back in the day, we got our best opportunities by being invited into meetings unexpectedly, having corridor conversations with people who’d be too busy otherwise or being sent to shoots. It’s a business of passion, and anyone who is passionate about anything cannot do it looking at a computer screen with little boxes full of people 24×7. The solution instead is to make workplaces more inclusive and empathetic of everyone’s needs – but that’s a topic for a different day. Don’t take my word for it. There are studies from McKinsey (54% employees crave a sense of community, collaboration and co-creation account for 70% of why people stay with an organization), Institute of Internal Communication, Microsoft (84% of its full-time employees said they would be motivated to go into the office if they could socialize more with colleagues) and many others that are smarter than I am. And look at our ecosystem. Most of our clients have returned to office a long time ago, production of any kind obviously cannot be done from home, Cannes Lions and all major events are back. So why have advertising agencies been on the back foot? I blame the networks and their constant need for people-pleasing, positive PR, appearing more progressive than they really are and short-sighted cost-saving measures. WPP, in Mumbai, for example has fewer chairs than employees, making every day a roulette of who will sit where. Ironically, Mr. Piyush Pandey recently gave an interview talking about the sanctity of one’s work desk and how people have been robbed of that personal connection in this era of ‘hot desking.’ Coming back to Publicis, while announcing the 2024 RTO measures, Arthur Sadoun had talked about how working from home stunts creativity and the move was in the interest of the company’s culture. In fact, if you talk to any agency leader one-on-one they will tell you the same. But, in a world where advertising is already struggling with talent drain, agency fees have been stagnant or on the decline and talent is getting more expensive by the day, the networks chose the crutch of work-from-home to seem more employee-friendly and glamorous.
Maybe if they took this hard stance right in the beginning, they wouldn’t have to resort to layoffs today? Don’t get me wrong, I am still glad about Publicis’ move because I do believe it is the right move in the interest of the industry at large. We agree with Mr. Sadoun if thriving creativity and collaboration have to be the future, then work from home cannot be. While no one can understand the pain of the people who lost their jobs, I want to salute Arthur Sadoun for this bold stance of facing the reality. Hope I can buy him a drink at Cannes one day 😉
(The author is the chief executive officer at Famous Innovations.)
The workshop will be held at The Himalayan Writing Retreat from Nov 30th to Dec 4th.
This post was originally published on here
