J Walter Thompson, now Wunderman Thompson, victimised, harassed and unfairly dismissed two white male creative directors in the name of correcting the gender pay gap, according to a court ruling in London.
The two were among five “older straight white men” made redundant. The company maintained this demographic was “a coincidence” and not motivated by prejudice.
However, the court found that this was a case of the agency seeing too many old creative directors and not having enough women, staff from minority groups or gay creative directors.
Details released during the court case and the subsequent judgement -- including internal emails and interview transcripts -- provide a window into part of the workings of the agency.
What happened has come to light because two creative directors complained about what they saw as the company’s goal of “obliterating” old white “blokes”.
This, the court said, brought fury down on their heads. They were then described as “traditional” creative directors whose work was mainly television. The two took this to mean they were being accused of being “old, outdated, out of touch”.
The WPP advertising agency apparently was determined to change the Mad Men image of middle aged white men being in charge.
A Gender Pay Gap Report published in April 2018 showed the median gender pay gap at 44.7% at JWT.
The report described this as “very disappointing and we are determined to improve them in the coming years. … There is an acute problem of female representation in creative – a majority of senior jobs in that department are held by men …"
Later, at an internal meeting soon after that report was made, James Whitehead, then CEO of JWT UK, is reported to have said there would be change and it would improve “within a quarter”.
Problems started when Lucas Peon, executive creative director (now at independent The Gate London), and Jo Wallace, a female creative director (and now global creative director), gave a presentation at an internal event in 2018. The presentation was called, Crisis: The Mother of All Change, the event, Creative Equals Conference.
The presentation, designed to be a strong response to the gender pay gap figures, went well until the commentary turned to what was said to be the agency’s reputation of “white, British, privileged, straight men” and that this needed to be ”obliterated”.
This, the London Central Employment Tribunal was told, caused concern for 50-something-year-old creative directors Chas Bayfield and Dave Jenner.
Bayfield, copying Jenner, sent an email to Kate Bruges, director of learning and development (and now at the DelAgua Group): “I found out recently JWT did a talk off site where it vowed to obliterate white middle class straight people from its creative department. There are a lot of very worried people down here.”
Bruges responded that JWT was committed to being a company where everyone is “welcomed, valued, respected and heard”.
She stated that the quote was “obliterating our reputation, not obliterating white males. This is a strong word to use but I believe it was used to try and communicate the dramatic shift in reputation needed… and it is true we do have work to do to have a more diverse workforce but that does not mean we do not value the wonderful talent.”
Bruges forwarded this email to James Whitehead, then CEO of JWT UK (now global lead - digital transformation), saying “… we do need to be careful about the language used at these events".
Jenner, the other creative director, wrote an email to executive creative director Peon saying: “I just wanted to make you aware of the reaction within the creative department … everyone is talking about this particular part: JWT wants to obliterate an agency full of white, privileged British straight men… I’m sure you can imagine the way this has been perceived and I think this is something that needs clarification".
Peon and Emma Hoyle, the company's HR director, then called the two creative directors to a meeting: “This is a massive misunderstanding of what was said last week. Let’s catch up. Are you both free now?”
What happened next is disputed but certainly the meeting was notable for its angry tones.
Bayfield took notes, in which he recorded that the HR director: “... accused us of not seeing the bigger picture… We then had to defend our stance on diversity and inclusion… we have always believed that women and minorities should be given a fair chance.”
The HR director, giving evidence at the tribunal, said “tensions were running high. There was a shift in tone, this escalated”.
Bayfield, Jenner, and three other male creative directors, were sacked.
Part of the process to decide on redundancies was a look at performance. Each creative director was scored but, the tribunal found, the results for the two creative directors didn’t make a difference.
The judge, Mark Emery, says “the decision had already been made” before the scoring exercise.
Earlier in the year, before they had raised the message about getting rid of white male creatives, they had been praised in internal performance reviews and received accolades from clients -- including HSBC and Ribena -- about their work.
That all changed when they made a complaint. The judge found the men were subject to harassment and victimisation, and were dismissed because they were men.
“The tribunal concluded that the decision to dismiss was related to the fact the claimants are men, that this was a conscious motivation in the decision to dismiss, for reasons including the desire to improve the gender balance in its senior creative team.”
The company viewed the senior creative team as male-dominated, and a significant reason for the gender pay gap figures being so poor.
On June 26, 2018, the creative directors submitted a joint grievance complaining of “discrimination on the basis of our gender, race, nationality, sexuality and age; Victimisation for having expressed concerns about discrimination”.
The tribunal found that “a significant factor” for the company was the gender pay gap issue, and that dismissing the two creative directors would have an impact, both in terms of the figures, and by the prospect of having senior positions opening which could be filled by women.
A subsequent investigation interviewed James Whitehead, the CEO, who reportedly said the business had “declined catastrophically” with revenue falling £49 million to £30 million over the past two years.
This was the third round of redundancies in three years and this round the emphasis needed to be on the creative department, he said.
He stated that given the lack of diversity amongst creatives “… there was a high likelihood they would be white, and… they were probably not going to be young either”.
An email was sent to all staff on the gender pay issue said “we’ve made some good progress in a short time and are looking forward to sharing this with you”.
The two creative directors were given letters of termination on August 24, 2018, with three months’ notice.
In the legal action, the two argued the redundancy as a sham, more an exercise in getting rid people the company don’t like, and immediately start to improve diversity.
The judge noted many documents were said by JWT to be missing (archived and destroyed) and on the “rare occasions” documents were produced they usually contradict the two dismissed creative directors.
“If it was a sham you would keep documents in writing to a minimum,” wrote the judge. “And then there was the advice not to use names in emails. And then line up some people to score them and tell them who to select, which happened.”
The two creative directors won their case for sex discrimination, victimisation, harassment and unfair dismissal. But didn’t didn’t get their claims for discrimination by age, race or sexual orientation.
Wunderman Thompson is reportedly appealing.
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