If you can’t justify your office-return policy, maybe you’re the problem
Opinion
As an industry, we prioritise empty platitudes over tangible policy. Remote working is vital to levelling the playing field for diverse talent — why are we pretending otherwise?
Are you bored with talking about hybrid working? Bored of diversity? Bored of considering the world through a lens other than your own?
Boredom is the ultimate extravagance of complacency. You can shut down any discussion on a complex topic by simply declaring you just can’t be bothered to talk about it. It’s an approach that abdicates leaders from the burden of evidence in favour of their own assumptions.
It’s a state of play that not only means leaders are complicit in killing many people’s careers on little more than a hunch, but they don’t have to face any accountability for their decision-making.
An industry narrative that blames working from home for killing creativity makes it easy to turn a blind eye to ever-increasing pay gaps. Meanwhile, vague declarations of “leaky talent pipelines” give leaders the leeway to sidestep the fact that many people are still working in companies where they cannot get to the top.
We prioritise empty platitudes over tangible policy. Yet the truth remains that remote working is vital to levelling the playing field for diverse talent. To pretend otherwise is a fallacy.
A lack of accountability
The industry still treats inclusion as a soundbite. A side hustle. A one-off panel discussion on International Women’s Day.
This same lack of rigour is evident in the regressive industry narrative that surrounds flexible working.
Flexible working, of which hybrid working is a core component, is key to closing the gender pay gap.
The IPA Census revealed that the industry’s ethnicity pay gap has increased to 31%, up from 21.6% in 2023. There was a 19.7% gender pay gap in favour of men — up significantly on 15.2% the year before. According to the Fawcett Society, the business-wide gender pay gap in 2024 was 11.3%, up from 10.7% in 2023.
Yet the proof points of this widening gap are rarely mentioned in industry debate on remote working. The All In Census data showing that just 8% of employees want to work in an office four days a week is nowhere to be seen.
Vague statements on “client demands” do little to acknowledge that many of the most creative brands in the UK, such as Unilever and Procter & Gamble, have been front-runners in flexible and remote working.
Closing the inclusion gap
The media industry must do more to reflect the world it is seeking to connect with. Less than 1% of ads showcase disability, but 20% of the world is disabled. Yet we continue to advocate for a more impenetrable industry.
We have to understand the very real barriers people face within our organisations. Understanding the “messy middle” of career journeys is vital to making genuine progress.
Word salads won’t work forever. If jargon is a sign of insecurity, then the industry-wide default to confusing language accompanying DEI rollbacks is evidence of insincerity. That “talent pipeline” problem simply means that women still aren’t being set up to succeed. That “sunsetting” of diversity targets is, at its heart, an act of cowardice.
If you are uncomfortable explaining your policy with clarity, then perhaps your policy isn’t fit for purpose in the first place?
Listening is leading
Over 20,000 people have signed a Change.org petition demanding WPP revoke its four-day office-return mandate. You do not have to prove you are a WPP employee to sign the petition, yet many have chosen to do so publicly. Those with the least power are choosing to challenge those with the most.
Tiny acts of courage matter.
As one wrote: “As a disabled employee, I’m appalled by this decision and I’m deeply concerned about the impact it will have on colleagues who haven’t or won’t disclose their accessibility needs out of fear of repercussions.”
The specific challenges of those working on global businesses and with offshore teams are also raised. One said: “Most of my team is offshore and all of our meetings are conducted online.” Another added: “It will make it more difficult to run global client business, not easier, and it will exclude valued colleagues who have proven they can be more productive and effective when trusted to work flexibly.”
Many contributors pointed to the inequity of the policy, underlining that existing economic inequity will be exacerbated by a retraction of flexibility. As one respondent noted: “I would have to change my hours to part-time to facilitate this and my childcare responsibilities. This is a step back for gender parity in the workplace.“
This is a return to a time when media agencies congratulated themselves for paying women 20% less for working a full-time job in four days, all in the name of inclusion.
Sunsetting insincerity
To say that 2025 is shaping up to be a difficult year is an understatement. Leaders are facing up to realisation that it is a hostile market for growth in the UK.
Organisations need their staff to hustle. Yet, in a people-focused industry, leaders need to understand the economic and structural challenges their employees face. When pay has not kept up with the cost of commuting or childcare, leaders appear increasingly disconnected from the realities of life.
Humanity and humility in leadership have never been more vital. Consistency matters. If you really champion equality and inclusion, you have to do it all of the time, not just when it is fashionable to do so.
Adopting the language of inclusion alongside one-size-fits-all policies that are hostile to diverse talent is disingenuous. In an age of chaos, conflict will be heightened if leaders don’t listen. Empty statements don’t cut it.
The spirit of inclusion is not enough. Now is the time for substance, not another meaningless soundbite.
Nicola Kemp has spent over two decades writing about diversity, equality and inclusion in the media. She is now editorial director of Creativebrief. She writes for The Media Leader each month.
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