A NEW ERA FOR GENDER EQUALITY IN AGENCIES

I’ve been working in the industry for over 25 years, so of course I’ve seen a lot of positive change throughout this time for women.

Why is important?
Firstly, as we continue to move things forward, we need to keep reminding ourselves why getting to gender equality in agencies is important. It’s not just about being ethical, ticking a diversity quota box or enabling the next #girlpower hashtag, it’s about recognizing it as business imperative.

It’s a business imperative because women account for 51% of the global population, make up around 80% of purchasing decisions and account for 31.8 trillion dollars of global spending. It’s therefore common sense that we need to have more women at all levels of our industry, and in every department, who can create work that resonates with women and can drive them to purchase the brands we look after.

And it’s a business imperative because, many of our clients are ahead of us in creating diverse, inclusive cultures that represent the consumers of the brands they own, and they are expecting us to do the same.

Diversity in Planning departments is essential.
One of our greatest constraints, as planners operating in a Parisian ad agency, is breaking away from being too 'Parisian'. If we are the voice of the people, how can we ensure day by day that we reflect everyone, including those who are not us?

So, more women, yes – but It’s not just about being more female. In my department right now we are 90% female, but we are also French, English, Mexican, LGBTQ, Black, White, Gen Z-ers, 50+, Mums and happily childless… and it won’t stop there. I truly want a team that represents French society, but that is also multi-cultural and embraces people from the rest of the world too.

We need this diversity to truly understand all the different audiences we are trying to reach. On every brief we’re working on, beyond looking at data, I’m constantly asking myself: ‘are we sure we’re truly under the skin of the people we want to talk to? Who can we recruit and talk to, to really understand our audience better?’ For me, it’s the only way to make great work.

Of course, this type of team make-up is a leap forward, because back in the day, planning departments were typically teams of people of privilege, coming from the same schools and universities with similar values and views of the world. I’m proud of this team, and how much better we are getting as an industry at embracing people from all walks of life.

We are still struggling in creative departments.
But we don’t necessarily see this diversity everywhere. For some reason it’s been harder to get to the same level of diversity within creative departments around the globe. While women make up roughly half of the advertising industry's workforce, only about 12.6 percent(1) of Creative Director positions are held by women.

We need to get better at understanding what the barriers are for women – long working hours, maternity leave, gender bias, toxic work cultures and misogynistic leadership are, I believe some of the things that prevent women from making their way up the creative ladder or even into creative departments.

It’s time to fix tough objectives to get to 50:50 parity in every agency department, and we need to make sure that we are looking through an inclusive lens at our supplier diversity too.

Not just more women – more senior women
Companies that promote women tend to show higher returns(2) but still there is a persistent glass ceiling for women.
We need to keep making sure that women are represented right at the top of our agencies, that we are nurturing, growing, and promoting women into the most senior positions, and that we keep addressing the gender pay gap, which is still prevalent.

At Ogilvy, 50% of our global leadership team is female and our EMEA CEO is a woman too. At Ogilvy Paris, six of the board-members are women. We’re also the second-best agency in France regarding the gender pay gap index.

We can be proud of how far we’ve come at Ogilvy – it’s time to make it happen elsewhere too.

 Addressing the pregnancy penalty to get more women into top positions, we must recognize that the ‘pregnancy penalty’ is still real. There’s so much data that shows that the decision for women to have children is the point at which their career starts to take a backward slide. We need to put support into place that makes being a parent compatible with agency life.

France has the highest number of women in Europe who return to work after having a child because childcare is more accessible and costs less than in countries such as the UK and the US.

But the three-month statutory maternity leave takes a huge toll, at least from my own experience, on the mental and physical health of women returning to work. Companies that invest in extended maternity leave for their employees are far more likely to sweep up the very best female talent.  There are many positive steps happening to address this at Ogilvy, but we need to go much further.

The parental mental burn-out
We also need more mums and dads in the most senior positions not to hide their kids but to talk openly about the struggles of balancing parenting and working. Recent data in France and the UK shows that around half of mums are struggling with their mental health(3) including depression, anxiety and burn-out.

We now need to find ways to support mums when they start to feel dragged down by their daily mental load which, as research shows, is often heavier than men’s.

We are currently working on a charter to restrict the scheduling of meetings before 9.30am and after 6pm, which will, of course, help mums and dads to work around childcare, but I’d love us to extend this to make full flexible working possible too. I work a 4.5-day week (kids don’t go to school on Wednesday afternoons in France) and I hope this shows other women that is possible to try and make your job work around you.

The impact of women’s health issues
There is an increasing awareness, too, around the various physical and mental health factors that can affect women in the workplace, such as endometriosis and the menopause. WPP is not only creating awareness around these issues but is also, through the Stella programme, giving women who have a doctor’s note 5 extra days per month of remote working when they don’t feel physically up to working or getting into the office.

There are more nuanced barriers to address.
Beyond being female, being a mum and the health issues, we also need to address the additional barriers some women face.

I come from a ‘working-class’ background, so I do feel aware of the additional challenges that exist in even getting into the industry, let alone thriving in it. When I started out in the UK, if you didn’t have the right accent, you probably wouldn’t get a job in the industry. Thankfully, things have changed since then.

At Ogilvy Paris we have put into place two programmes – ‘Bet on Us’, which aims to recruit young people from lower socio-economic and under-privileged social and cultural backgrounds, and ‘Hors circuit’, which helps artists and creatives who are ‘off the circuit’ become visible and develop their network.  Both are brilliant ways of getting people into the industry who would otherwise be stuck outside the system.

There are other sub-groups of women to think about too.
Research shows, too(4), that 53% of lesbian women declared to have been the victim of a harassment or discrimination at work in France, 43% of transgender and non-binary individuals report being victims of sexual harassment, and 47% experience rejection from their colleagues.

We need to get better at making sure that we are addressing the issues faced by all individuals who are part of the LGBTQ+ community, regardless of their gender expression or sexual orientation.

Age is the biggest form of discrimination in the workplace(5), and we need to be mindful that we work in an industry where, even though both Boomers and Generation X outspend Millennials, we celebrate youth, position older people as being ‘out of touch’ and actively shift them out of the industry.

So many of our client briefs ask us to recruit new younger consumers without alienating an old consumer base’. It’s just common sense, therefore, that we need age diversity across all departments to ensure we create work that’s relevant to the demographic of the people we’re talking to, young and old.

Awareness of the gender bias, especially around leadership style
Once we do get women into leadership positions, we need to make sure they are fully supported as they are often considered less legitimate in their roles. There’s a lot of research around the unseen barriers that affect women(6) .

From our leadership style to how we dress, everything about us is more likely to be judged and criticized by those around us. These unseen barriers are very real and create additional pressures on women who are striving to break the glass ceiling.

Getting men on board
We need to maintain a dialogue and make sure we don’t demonize men or make them feel terrified of saying or doing the wrong thing. Survey data from across the developing world had found that “a new global gender divide” is emerging. The analysis showed that the developed world’s young women have rapidly become more liberal. Young men, however, have either become more conservative (US) or been much slower to become more progressive (UK). Gen Z, the study concluded, is “two generations, not one.”

According to a recent report in France(7), 56% of men believe that there are no limits to women's progress. Only 17% are actively involved in gender-equality activities, and most are unable to spot the warning signs.

And yet, recent studies(8) show that having a male ally reduces the fear of isolation and hostility in the workplace, while encouraging the anticipation of support. Mixed coalitions are also more effective than all-male or all-female coalitions in promoting gender equality.

If we truly want diversity across the industry, we need to break down the gender divide and get men to help. This can no longer be a female-only fight – men are still in most of the top positions, and we need allyship with them to amplify and support the issues.

Promoting ‘Soft Power’ as the future of leadership
Research proves that companies are more successful when women are in leadership positions and that more ‘feminine’ leadership styles can have a hugely positive impact on organisations.(9)

Yet it strikes me that it’s mostly the ‘power woman’ archetype more closely linked to a more masculine leadership style who is most likely to succeed, fitting with our expectations of how a leader should behave.

Many women (including me) just can’t relate to this personality archetype, so I’d like us to think about celebrating more diverse female leadership archetypes.  We need everyone learning to exert ‘soft power’– a more ‘feminine’ leadership style that embodies empathy, authenticity, collaboration, nurturing and growing people. 

This style isn’t exclusive to women (thankfully I have worked with many men who lead in this way too) but it’s proven to create a more positive impact on people and business. It’s time for everyone to embrace it.

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[1]  CreativeEquals : "The 30 women trailblazing in creative right now"
[2] Blackrock study : " Lifting financial performance by investing in women" November 2023
[3] Baromètre de santé au travail Malakoff Humanis 2023
[4] Radiofrance : ""Être femme et lesbienne au travail, c'est la double peine" : une enquête dévoile l'ampleur de la lesbophobie" 05/2022
[5]  Radiofrance : ""Être femme et lesbienne au travail, c'est la double peine" : une enquête dévoile l'ampleur de la lesbophobie" 05/2022
[6] Harvard Business review – Women Rising: The Unseen Barriers 09/2013
[7] Study career trajectories for women 2022
[8] Harvard Business Review: "Des femmes leaders? Nos cerveaux sont conçus pour dire non" 27/06/2023
[9] Forbes: " New Research: Women More Effective Than Men In All Leadership Measures" 03/2023