This year, Adweek highlighted 34 agencies across seven categories as finalists for Agency of the Year. These shops range from very tiny—Quality Meats Creative has just eight full-time employees—to ginormous—Ogilvy clocks in at around 15,000 people across the globe.
While every agency is growing at different rates based on their size, many of the strongest global networks are doing well if their revenue growth is above 5% this year, and the smallest, hottest shops are still doubling their revenue every two to three years. Adweek’s Agency of the Year awards honor agencies for more than just business results. Adweek’s jury of writers and editors reviewed the benefits that agencies extend to their employees. They also looked at ESG factors like DEI and sustainability.
Keeping with the theme “Building a Better Agency” for Adweek’s Agency of the Year issue, Adweek has combed the entries of the 34 finalist agencies to highlight the standards the best shops have set for PTO, parental leave, DEI and more.
PTO
Twenty-six agencies provided concrete information on their PTO policies. About half provide unlimited PTO for their employees, and holding company-owned agencies were more likely to have unlimited PTO. Only a couple agencies explain that they enforce a minimum of days off to ensure that their employees actually embrace the unlimited time off. Of the other 12 agencies, four said PTO depends on tenure, with junior employees receiving 15 days on the bottom end and senior employees receiving as many as 30. For the eight remaining agencies, they ranged from 17.5 to 28.5, with the median being 25 days off. One agency starts at 23 and adds a day off for every year of service.
Additionally, a number of agencies have increased breaks throughout the year. The most popular breaks are:
- Between Christmas and New Year’s
- Thanksgiving week
- Summer break over Independence Day.
Many agencies have begun offering four-day weekends for all holidays like Memorial Day, Labor Day and Presidents Day.
Party Land also highlighted that it works a 4.5-day week year-round.
Four agencies said they offer sabbaticals:
- Brownstein offers four weeks at 10 years and six weeks at 15.
- Mother offers seven weeks at five years.
- Wieden+Kennedy provides a sabbatical every five years.
- Rethink offers five weeks at 10 years and 20 years.
Parental leave
About two-thirds of the finalists provided their exact parental leave policies. Several of the global networks were not included in this tally because their leaves vary by country. Of the 25 that provided policies, 11 offer the same amount of leave for the birthing parent and secondary caregiver. For the birthing parent, the shortest leave was just four weeks and the longest belonged to Mother at 24 weeks and BETC Paris at one year, which is government mandated. On average, the finalist agencies average more than 15 weeks of leave for the birthing parent. For the secondary caregiver, the average was 10 weeks, but when agencies that provide equal leave are removed, the remaining agencies offer just seven weeks.