Photo by Raj Rana on Unsplash.
If there is one potential winner from the fallout of the world’s biggest advertising agency ordering staff worldwide back to the office four days a week, it may turn out to be independent agencies.
The resistance to the move – which will affect WPP Australia, including those at GroupM, Ogilvy, Mindshare and Wavemaker, and is due to come into effect from April – has been fast and furious, with staff starting a petition and writing an open letter to CEO Mark Read amid others considering seeking new roles and some high profile candidates for jobs at the holding company bailing.
Indie agencies, which have long prided themselves on their openness to change, willingness to take risks and employee-first perks and benefits, could get their pick of talent unhappy at WPP’s mandate.
And that would escalate if other holdcos follow suit with requiring more in-person days from their employees.
While the indie agencies AdNews spoke to said the news is too fresh to see its ripple effects just yet, the overall sentiment was that it won’t be long until the talent starts to move.
This Is Flow’s founder and CEO Jimmy Hyett said the impact will be felt over the coming months as the mandate kicks in and new roles open.
“This will lead to WPP talent becoming more open to looking outside their home ground,” he said.
Yango’s managing partner, Luke Povee, agreed, saying that everything his agency has been hearing within the marketplace is suggesting that interest in joining an indie agency is increasing.
“We feel that the recent news around the holdcos mandating less flexible working models will increase this even more,” he said.
Bench Media’s senior people and culture manager, Nicole Jurke, said during interviews for new hires, Bench has noticed candidates are increasingly expressing a desire for greater flexibility.
“It stands to reason that a company offering such flexibility may have an edge to attract talents,” she said.
What’s the magic number?
Ever since working from home (WFH) became the norm due to COVID, every company – whether an agency, brand or client – has been grappling with how many days to ask their employees to come into the office.
Some require two, others three; often a specific day is set aside for everyone in the team to be together in-person, generating ideas and building camaraderie. Others have opted instead to cut overheads and become fully remote, utilising a co-working space for a day if in-person collaboration is needed.
The backlash to WPP’s four-day mandate suggests that leaders requiring more than three days attendance per week in-office will soon start overhearing grumblings around the water-cooler, if not a full-on revolt.
This won’t just be driven by the younger generation, some of whom have only ever known a world where WFH was the norm, not a privilege bestowed by their employers – but also the likes of working parents, to whom more time in-office means more need for expensive, and often unavailable, childcare.
Recruitment company Aquent Australia’s practice manager for design & technology, Lee Shorter, told AdNews in October that most candidates in the advertising industry seem to be happy with two to three days per week in the office.
This sentiment was also reflected by indie agencies across the industry – Bench Media’s Jurke said flexibility is a cornerstone of the agency’s culture, which is why the agency implemented a hybrid work model requiring only two in-office days per week.
“This structure ensures that while we maintain a high degree of flexibility, we also benefit from the collaborative and cultural advantages of having the entire team together on specific days,” she said.
Yango’s Povee said his agency made a commitment many years ago to empower and trust their team with regards to flexible working - and performance across the business has never been better as a result.
“We have long held the belief that hours and entitlements should be flexible around the needs of our team, it's intrinsically part of how we operate,” he said.
“We have a fully flexible working model with no specific mandated days in the office; teams are open to use the office as they need, which usually means they are in 2 - 3 days per week.
“Our internal culture survey, which goes out to all team members twice yearly, has consistently shown flexibility as one of the top scoring perks within our agency across the last few years. This also mirrors what we have been hearing from recruitment partners and job seekers across the same timeframe.”
For This Is Flow – which has had a consistent policy since COVID of Monday and Friday being optional WFH days and bringing the whole agency together in-person on Tuesdays through Thursdays – making an early decision and staying consistent with this approach has been a driver of culture and a huge competitive advantage for the agency, Hyett told AdNews.
“This model works as there is no ambiguity, staff get flexibility in choice, but we also ensure the energy, productivity and culture is high in the office,” he said.
“We can plan events, training, meetings, the teams get full collaboration and comradery when all are in together, and for those that are neuro diverse or work best in different environments, it gives clear structure which ensures flexibility between home and office.”
This Is Flow also implemented a nine-day fortnight nearly two years ago, seeing “huge benefits” in recruitment and retention as a result.
When the agency was named Media Agency of the Year for the second year in a row at 2024’s AdNews Agency of the Year Awards, the judges said that the “the agency's exceptional growth, staff retention and commitment to people stood out”.
“Surprising to many, this initiative increased energy, which drives productivity - not reduces it,” Hyett said.
“In an industry where people are our product, our approach is to focus is being the best people business in the industry, ensuring our own business is running with flexibility, passion and culture, as this means our team have the capacity and energy to focus on the things that matter - our clients!”
Next&Co’s co-founder and head of strategy, Nick Grinberg, said his agency has a ‘work from anywhere/anytime’ policy with offices available should employees want to come in.
“We generally don’t clock watch or care where you work from – as long as you achieve the outcome of your role,” he said.
“We believe that these policies build a strong sense of trust with our team to get their work done which gives us better outcomes overall.”
The Pistol’s GM, Jules Brahe, said the agency operates on a three-day-per-week office policy, with one of those days encouraged to be spent at a client’s office.
“Our locations in Noosa, Torquay, and Cremorne all count as “in-office,” allowing employees to choose a workspace that suits them best,” said Brahe.
“Beyond that, team members can work anywhere in the world for four weeks a year, and we’re flexible beyond that if it’s working well.”
Flexibility extends to public holidays, too – Brahe said that employees can shift holidays to times that hold personal or cultural significance, often adding them to other leave.
“Start times are just as adaptable, ranging from 8 am to 10 am, a perk especially popular during summer. Need to log off for a couple of hours to pick up the kids? No problem,” she said.
Bench said their flexible policy is particularly attractive to talents with families, as by allowing team members to work from home for most of the week, the agency helps parents better manage their work-life balance, ensuring they can attend to their children's needs without compromising their professional responsibilities.
“Secondly, our flexibility also appeals to those who have moved further away from the city centre due to the ongoing cost-of-living crisis,” said Jurke.
“With rising housing costs, many of our team members have chosen to live in more affordable areas further from the city centre, and our policy ensures they can do so without the stress of long daily commutes.
“We firmly believe that if client outcomes are achieved, it doesn't matter where the work is done. This results-oriented approach empowers our employees to work in environments where they are most productive, whether that's at home, in the office, or elsewhere.”
Jurke said even on designated in-office days, the agency remains adaptable - for instance, during unforeseen events like the recent train strikes, the team is not compelled to come into the office, as Bench recognises that such circumstances can hinder productivity.
“Additionally, for roles that permit it, we offer the option to work 100% remotely,” she said.
Freedom, flexibility and fairness
All the indie agency owners and executives AdNews spoke to agreed that the drawcard they present for talent in the market looking for something new – whether they’ve jumped ship from a holdco or not – is that the smaller team size, combined with faster decision making, means that independents can offer greater flexibility and adaptability than their at-times unwieldy, holdco counterparts.
Claxon's CEO and founder, Daniel Willis, said as a publicly traded company, decisions like WPP's are inevitable: profit takes precedence over people, bureaucracy stifles agility, and rigidity crushes true innovation.
"Mandates like these aren’t about what’s best for the team, they’re about optics, control, and maintaining the status quo," he said.
"But the advertising industry has moved on. Creativity no longer thrives in boardrooms filled with red tape or in environments dictated by outdated policies. It flourishes where well-being, autonomy, and flexibility intersect - principles at the heart of independent agencies like Claxon.
"If you’re part of the WPP team feeling unheard or undervalued right now, it might be time to consider how much better it could be to work somewhere that celebrates and supports the individual as much as the work."
Next&Co’s Grinberg said simpler ownership structures allow indies to adapt to the needs of their teams as they evolve, something Yango’s Povee also agreed with, saying it's much easier to be successful with a fully flexible model when operating a smaller, more boutique agency with a long-tenured, senior team.
“I can imagine things getting very hard to manage in a multinational with hundreds of team members split across multiple offices,” he said.
“We have always seen flexibility as one of the superpowers of an indie agency and it is definitely one of the key reasons for our success.”
The Pistol said as an independent agency, it has the ability to trial new policies quickly and adapt if they don’t work.
“For us, the office isn’t just about being physically present; it’s a hub for learning, idea generation, and collaboration, the home days enable deep work,” Brahe said.
“Our younger team members have been a critical guide in shaping how we work. They’ve shown us what they value and what they need to do their best work. Cost pressures and evolving expectations mean agencies must innovate rather than default to the status quo.”
Being independent also means The Pistol has a relatively flat structure and a smaller team, enabling everyone to have real input into how, when and where they work.
“There is no approval required to roll out initiatives and the leadership team understands each individual's needs and can make allowances where required - independence enables a more personal approach to flexibility,” Brahe said.
This Is Flow’s Hyett said the biggest difference he sees between indies and holdcos is culture being created and grown versus culture adapted and adopted in a global group.
“An indie can launch and then hire key talent that aligns to the culture you’re creating, whereas in a holdco, you’re hiring into a system already set, and values that must be broad enough to appeal to all markets, resulting in them not being tight enough that make them relevant to a particular market,” he said.
“A huge fundamental challenge with global mandated flexibility, is that an indie has the leaders on the ground, with real feedback loops driving people decisions and seeing it in action live.
“The 9-day fortnight was an initiative driven by Flow staff - not by the leadership team - we were just able to consult, trial and launch it quickly."
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