Ad Agencies Explain How They Converted to a 4-Day Workweek as Its Momentum Grows

What would you do with an extra day off each week? Spend more time with the family? Do errands? Relax? All of the above? For a growing number of agencies and companies, the four-day workweek is becoming a reality, along with a point of pride and recruiting prowess. As workers everywhere experience burnout, companies around the globe are warming up to switching to a four-day week, citing revenue gains, higher retention rates and reductions in staff fatigue. A recently completed pilot program in the U.K. found 61 companies and more than 2,900 workers experimenting with the four-day workweek, and results showed benefits to worker productivity, along with improvements in mental and physical health. A majority of the companies plan to stick with the program. Unfortunately, ad agencies were mostly absent from the pilot. However, the success of the program may prompt some to now give the concept a try. While many of the bigger agencies and holding companies haven't made plans to implement a four-day work week, smaller agencies, from 12-person shops to 200-person agencies, are starting to experiment with their own programs. While there have been challenges along the way, all report more satisfied employees, better recruitment opportunities, greater productivity, and in most cases, revenue growth. Making it work There is not one right way to do a four-day workweek. Most places give Fridays off, but others look to a flex schedule, where, so long as the work gets done, they will allow whatever day off works best for their employees. Some work four 8-hour days while others extend the days to make up for the fifth day. All are making constant adjustments to meet employee needs. None of the agencies interviewed staggered their employees' days off to keep offices open five days a week, though it's another option for companies looking to transition. Thirty-person design and strategy agency RocketAir is permanently adopting the practice in the U.S. CEO Taylor Rosenbauer founded the company as a fully remote agency before the pandemic in 2018, so the young company has been experimenting with other ways to improve employee satisfaction. We realized productivity didn't suffer as a result of decreasing that day.Hannah Lee, CEO and co-founder of Second Mile Marketing RocketAir's leadership came together in 2022 to lay out a plan for a four-day week, running a pilot program that was ultimately adopted. With many RocketAir staff being former Apple employees, they recognized the need to give A-level talent the flexibility to do their best work. In the new workweek, Fridays are treated like a weekend day, meaning no meetings nor Slack messaging, which allows the team to fully unplug. Like many companies looking to adopt the four-day workweek, RocketAir reviewed data and studies from other companies—including a guide by the Harvard Business Review—to be as informed as possible going into the change. Second Mile Marketing, an eight-person shop in Knoxville, Tenn., evolved its offering from half-day Fridays in the summer to full-day Fridays before realizing that the agency was just as productive and everyone was happier. It did a test run for a year before committing fully. “We realized productivity didn't suffer as a result of decreasing that day,” said Hannah Lee, CEO and co-founder of Second Mile. "We use the analogy, if you have two weeks to pack for a trip, you're going to take that full two weeks. If you have two days, you'd be amazed by how much you can get done in those two days. If you have 20 minutes, you can still pack for the same trip in 20 minutes … when we're at work, we are so focused.” Second Mile and other agencies concluded they wasted needless time in meetings, and that was the first thing to go when planning out a shortened week. “Daily stand-ups were becoming weeklies, weekly meetings were becoming monthlies … now we’re barely meeting at all. We're just sort of working in Slack or ClickUp or different tools asynchronously,” said Lee Waltham, managing partner at Canadian 35-person agency Brandish. The workflows that emerge are just much healthier, because the clients get a four-day workweek out of it too.Andy Pray, founder of Praytell One larger agency, WPP’s Grey New York, experimented with a reduced workweek program in 2018 where staffers who chose to opt in could work four-day weeks in exchange for a 15% pay cut. That was discontinued due to lack of employee interest, but the agency stated that it is continuing to experiment with frameworks and thinking around work-life balance. “Our current approach is focused on flexibility,” said Jason Kahner, global chief client officer, Grey Group, adding there are now “Meeting-Free Fridays” in New York where employees are encouraged to block calendars from noon until the end of the day, which has been well received by employees. Client buy-in One hump to get over is clients buy-in for the agency’s shortened week. When creative communications agency Praytell, which has roughly 200 employees, interviewed its client base about moving to a four-day week, they were understandably skeptical but ultimately supported the agency. “The workflows that emerge are just much healthier, because the clients get a four-day workweek out of it too, meaning they don't have to deal with a ton of agency calls on Friday,” said Andy Pray, founder of Praytell. Content agency Campfire Labs, a 12-person team, has made it clear to its clients that it is offline on Fridays. “We've never had a client ask us to do anything on a Friday, but it does create some situations where we'll get feedback on a piece on Thursday and then we can't actually get back to revising it until Monday because everybody's off,” said Hal Walling, general manager at Campfire Labs. Lee said all of their clients find the four-day week aspirational, though the agency initially had some pushback from the clients with more traditional work models. “We're really clear and communicative about that upfront in the business development process so that people know exactly what they're getting themselves into,” said Lee. As World’s Biggest Trial of a 4-Day Week Begins, Ad Agencies Are Notably Absent A change in billable hours As businesses increasingly consider a four-day workweek, many agencies lag behind, largely due to billable hours. RocketAir solved for that by doing away with billable hours entirely. The agency created its own compensation model based on clients buying intervals of work with specific deliverables produced at the end. It claims that model is more transparent and value-based, making it a win-win for clients and employees alike. Brandish doesn’t do billable hours either, calling itself “outcomes-focused.” That model falls in line with the changing face of agency compensation, which is more value-based, with 46% of companies surveyed recently by the ANA saying they want to try a new payment option with creative agencies. “It’s four normal days, Monday to Thursday. Our team works really intensely during those four days,” said Waltham. Recruiting better people Employees are looking for ways to be happier with their work situations, and companies that offer a four-day week are appealing to those seeking a better work-life balance. When it comes to talent acquisition and retention, smaller agencies are realizing that, in going against the Googles and Apples of the world, an extra day off can mean a lot to potential employees. “This is really about creating that attractive value proposition for some of the best creative folks in the industry,” said Rosenbauer. Smaller agencies may not be able to offer the competitive salaries that Big Tech or other sectors can offer, so a shorter workweek is a recruiting advantage. “We have had some really great candidates come applying because they see our benefits, the four-day workweek in particular, and they see a workplace that respects employees, so it has helped us with recruiting,” said Walling. Resources for the four-day curious The results of the U.K. study are available online, and additional resources are available for both employers and employees who want to learn about the benefits of switching to a four-day workweek and which companies are hiring in that space. Phil McParlane, founder of 4dayweek.io, launched a website that connects employees with companies that are doing a four-day week after he worked at a place that he said on Fridays “was just ping-pong for five hours; it was just a joke.” Three-hundred people signed up in the first day the site was up, so McParlane realized there was a definite market for those seeing a better work-life balance. McParlane sees plenty of companies coming to his job board, including more marketing agencies as of late. In fact, agencies are his site’s biggest category right now. While McParlane’s site lists some of the benefits of the four-day workweek, like a reduction in emissions from less commuting and better gender equality, he refers people to another site—4dayweek.com, a not-for-profit community promoting four-day benefits—as a source for companies thinking of moving to a four-day week. As employees seek more balance and employers try to find the best way to retain talent, the four-day workweek will continue to gain a foothold as a new way to work. “I'm sincerely hoping that other people could take a chance and make it a pilot—let's do it together, let's learn together. We were handed an industry that expects wild ideas on work-life balance, and this is one way we can fight back and make it our own,” said Pray. As Burnout Grips Agency Parents, They’re Desperate for Help From Their Leaders