How Agency of the Year Finalists Stack Up for PTO, DEI, Sustainability and More

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.

A handful of agencies, such as Mischief, Rethink, Lerma and Mother, offer flexible returns to the office for new parents.

Just over half of the finalists explained they provide reimbursement for fertility treatments. Ten of those agencies provided actual dollar amounts, ranging from $10,000 to $50,000 at Mother, with Publicis shops The Community and Leo Burnett reimbursing $25,000. Omnicom’s TBWA and GSP, as well as IPG’s FCB and Deutsch LA, all reimburse $20,000.

Agencies are also starting to add reimbursement for freezing eggs and providing services for shipping breast milk if a nursing mother is traveling for work.

Other unique benefits

Agencies have also developed a number of unique benefits based on employee feedback. For instance, Wieden+Kennedy helps pay down student loans, invests in its employees’ side hustles and reimburses new parents up to $500 for meals in the first month after their child is born.

At Colle McVoy, the agency created a summer camp to help fill childcare gaps that plague parents when school is out. BETC Paris also offers funds for at-home help that can be used for babysitting or tutoring children.

Multiple agencies, including Ogilvy and Mother London, provide employee benefits around menopause. Mother London will also pay its employees 1,000 euros to quit smoking.

Courage bans Monday presentations to give employees their weekends back. The agency carries that policy over to clients, who can expect PowerPoint-free starts to the week.

DEI

Among the 34 finalists, 23 provided data on the makeup of their agencies. Combined, those 23 agencies are made up of roughly 50% people of color, which is higher than the 36% rate reported by the 4A’s earlier this year in its Diversity in Agencies Survey Report.

Agencies also provided details on how DEI is about more than just data, but actual policies, programs and ways the agencies work. For example, Joan Creative has a DEI Review Team that scrutinizes all briefs and decks for potential problems in everything from audience descriptors to casting notes.

Lerma seeks out biases to correct in AI. The agency recently revealed how gen AI can have racial biases when generating images of Hispanic people, so it’s training its AI on real images of people who identify as Hispanic in order to have more accurate depictions.

At Gut, the network has a task-forced called Committed, which strives to create a diverse, safe and equitable environment. To do so, it brings in guest speakers, spearheads recruitment initiatives and raises awareness on the issues that impact their communities.

DEI also factors in the organizations that agencies choose to partner with or support. Notably, Translation works with more then 400 diverse or minority-owned organizations to create its work. Deutsch LA created Blackness in Full Bloom, which has supported more than 20 Black-owned local businesses with its free brand-building program.

Sustainability

Only seven of the finalists are currently working with fossil fuel companies, and the majority of the 34 have pledged to never work with fossil fuel companies in the future through either their own pledges or by signing the Clean Creatives pledge. Dept, Wieden+Kennedy and Colle McVoy are already B Corps, with others such as BETC Paris and Rethink saying they are on a path to certification.

Some agencies see sustainability as a business advantage.

Dept was climate-neutral certified for the third time earlier this year. It has measured and offset 100% of its carbon emissions since 2020 and is committed to cutting its Scope 1 and 2 emissions in half by 2030.

A few agencies are currently measuring their carbon footprint. BETC’s carbon footprint, for instance, represents 1,079 tons in total for 1,000 employees (a 45% reduction compared to 2018 and a 36% reduction compared to 2019). In 2022, Wieden+Kennedy reduced its global emissions by 16% or 2,000 tons of CO2. It also offset 1,500 tons of emissions using carbon removal methods with its partner Klimate.co. The indie agency is also working on an open-source guide to help other agencies attain B Corp status.

Colle McVoy made a number of changes to its policies and programs to become a B Corp, such as employee training that includes social and environmental issues; job descriptions for executive team members that include social and environmental performance; and tracking impact with metrics, including asking staff to complete a carbon footprint calculator each year.

Sustainability has shown up in Mother London’s work in a number of ways, but perhaps most compellingly for a Greenpeace film centered around the Fleetwood Mac song “Don’t Stop.”

Alto has joined 1% for the Planet, through which it has contributed more than $300,000 of its annual revenue to environmental causes.

This story is part of the “Building a Better Agency” special feature.