Does Adland Have the ‘Right to Switch Off’?

The UK government is promising to enshrine the ‘right to switch off’ from work in law, penalising employers for contacting workers outside an agreed set of hours. Part of a new employment rights bill, the policy could see employers who repeatedly breach the agreement be forced to pay thousands in compensation at tribunals, though how this would be enforced remains unclear. 

Similar legislation is already in effect in France and Australia. In 2017, France introduced the ‘right to disconnect’ granting employees the freedom to not respond to emails and calls outside of their regular working hours; it’s also illegal for an employer to reprimand an employee for not responding out-of-hours communication. Australia passed a similar law this summer – it doesn’t ban employers from contacting employees but it does give them the right to not reply.

Adland is known for a tacit expectation and acceptance of overtime, often unpaid. Projects need to be delivered by a certain deadline, pitches all too often come in last-minute and are too good to pass up, and the global economy sees clients and colleagues collaborating across oceans and time zones. How do you switch off from that?

Research by the TUC found that UK employers claimed £26 billion of free labour last year due to workers’ unpaid overtime. And while this research isn’t specific to adland, it does expose the severity of the problem regarding out-of-hours work. Monetary compensation is only one facet of what’s at stake – we must consider the mental and physical effects too as burnout is easy to take hold and extremely difficult to overcome.

“As trade unionists who have been raising the issues of overworking and unpaid overtime in the advertising and broader creative communications industries for some time, we welcome the proposed legislation and hope that there will be robust plans for enforcement to follow,” reads an exclusive statement on the matter from the Creative Communications Workers (CCW) union. “Similarly, we hope that agency leaders are going to be undertaking all the necessary steps to comply with and actively communicate the change to their workers.

“For our part, CCW will be active in communicating this change to our members and to all workers across adland. We believe that active pressure on industry employers will be needed to ensure that they are complying and actively promoting the new policy to their workers, and we encourage all adland workers to join CCW to help us hold them to account.”.

Today LBB is asking ‘does adland have the right to switch off?’ with comments from Recipe’s co-founder and CEO, Ed Glover; Wonderhood’s MD, Sam Brown; Brave Spark’s MD, Rebecca Vickery; Blacklist’s co-founder, Dom Ho; and founder and MD of 2050, Adam Morrison. 

Sam Brown
Managing director at Wonderhood

Working in the creative industry is both a blessing and a challenge. The freedom to continually refine and push the work forward is balanced by the reality that hard deadlines and budgets ultimately dictate when we stop. We are driven by our clients’ needs, and agency workflows often follow suit. For any broad regulation to be effective in our industry, it would require full adherence from both clients and agencies. However, the sceptic in me doubts that it will happen anytime soon. 

At Wonderhood Studios, we recognise that overtime is often necessary, particularly during major campaigns or competitive pitches. However, our employees are compensated with time off in lieu and we make sure the same individuals aren’t repeatedly assigned to back-to-back high-pressure projects. Our relationship with our employees is built on mutual trust and flexibility. To support this, we offer hybrid working options and have set email hours from 8am to 7pm, so staff aren’t bombarded with work communications in the evening. This balance of give and take has proven to be the most effective way to get the best from our team. 

Dom Ho
Co-founder at Blacklist

The proposed UK policy to preserve the 'right to switch off' from work could help employees maintain a healthier work-life balance, reducing burnout and improving mental health. By formalising the expectation that workers are not obligated to respond to work communications outside agreed hours, it acknowledges the importance of personal time. Employees who are able to rest and recuperate are often more productive and satisfied with their jobs. The policy could lead to increased productivity during working hours, as employees may feel more focused and motivated when they are at work.

It would force employers to clearly define working hours and expectations, potentially leading to more efficient work processes and better time management during official hours. This could also encourage a cultural shift where the quality of work is valued over the quantity of time spent working.

In industries like advertising, where there is a longstanding culture of working long hours and being ‘always on’, there could be significant resistance to this policy. Deadlines are often tight, and client demands can change rapidly, leading to a need for flexibility that this policy might not accommodate well. Shifting this culture will require more than just legislation – it will require a change in mindset among both employers and employees.

The advertising industry may need to reconsider how work is distributed and managed. More realistic project timelines, better resource allocation, and a focus on employee well-being could help mitigate the need for excessive overtime.

While the proposed policy has the potential to significantly benefit employees by establishing clearer boundaries between work and personal time, its success will heavily depend on how it is implemented and enforced, especially in industries where overtime is deeply ingrained. For sectors like advertising, this could be an opportunity to reassess work culture and create a more sustainable environment for workers. However, the transition will likely require more than just legal changes; it will need a cultural shift and a rethinking of how work is valued and managed.

At Blacklist, we strive to maintain traditional working hours from 9 am to 6 pm, with a designated lunch break. While there may be occasional project emergencies that require working late, we strongly encourage our team to stay within these boundaries, plus take regular breaks and time away from their screens.

Adam Morrison
Founder and MD at 2050

For adland, it could be seen as the final step for an industry-wide correction where for the last decade or more, staff on the lower salaries have been doing extreme overtime. The stories of burnout, mental health issues and the 'great resignation' are known. The business has been adapting for some time to address this but we all know that in reality when last minute client amends hit, or a new brief needs actioning, clients expect agencies to go beyond. 

So I'd be interested to see how far-reaching this law could be applied, and so ruling out bespoke employer contracts that waive this right. And there will be some who will have experienced the 'work-shy Gen Zer' and this perhaps will set off an alarm bell too. However, in modern idea-led agencies, the high creative productivity comes from an energised, confident, low anxiety culture, and so working conditions that enable this could perhaps transform processes and the way teams approach work to get to better ideas. 

Parkinson's Law is the idea that work expands to fill the time allotted for its completion, so setting new deadlines and expectations for both client and agency teams might mean that in the business of creativity, we might become more precise, more focused and willing to build up great ideas faster. Rather than scrutinise, research and pull them apart by committees. You only need one idea, and so perhaps this will force us all to find it, build it up and make more of them faster, adding value to the business as whole in the long run. 

Ed Glover
Co-founder and CEO at Recipe

Like most agencies, I consider the people at Recipe to be our greatest asset. If you’re worried that your agency could be brought before a tribunal one day, it’s probably a sign that something is amiss.

I believe that enforcing the ‘right to switch off’ will be challenging and will vary significantly across different industries. In adland, the nature of the work ebbs and flows, and the process of delivering projects is rarely linear. There will always be peaks and troughs in workload, and there will inevitably be situations where work can’t simply stop outside of core hours.

In these moments, I hope that most agencies treat their staff with understanding and compassion, embodying the belief that ‘good people, making great work’ is what truly drives success. When pinch points occur, we approach them with the understanding that our people have the flexibility to manage their time accordingly afterward, ensuring that, over time, balance is restored.

That said, if any of our people have commitments to family, friends, or other obligations, that needs to be respected. They should not feel anxious about stating that they will be unreachable outside of core hours. It’s up to the rest of the team to ensure that the workflow continues smoothly, as we all need that privilege - and next time, it might be them.

Ultimately, agencies and their people need to maintain mutual respect for both the work and each other's time. If this is genuinely practised, a healthy work-life balance should naturally follow, leading to a happy and contented team. 

After all, it's the good people who create great work, and both deserve to be valued.

Rebecca Vickery
Managing director at Brave Spark

The ‘right to switch off’ initiative is commendable and it’s something we have started to implement and evolve at Brave Spark over the past few years. Particularly post covid times when many employees across the advertising industry felt an expectation to be working and available to be contacted more than ever. 

We ask all our employees that all emails and Slack messages are only sent after 8am and before 7pm, and on the whole we have found the system works. It’s not been completely seamless to implement – we’ve had to send out the odd reminder about the policy when out of hours message sneak back – because it is a mindset shift for some who have come from other working environments where it is clearly an expectation and where people fear they’ll be perceived differently if they don’t.

And of course, in an industry as fast paced and ever-changing as ours, we recognise there will always be exceptions. Communication may be needed for last minute thoughts the night before a pitch, for example. But the policy was more about it not becoming an expected behaviour or habit that everyone should feel the need to be always-on. You shouldn’t have to ‘prove yourself’ by responding to something in the evening that can legitimately be left until the next morning.

As with any cultural initiative, the key to making it work is to be respectful of and transparent with everyone as well as being open to test and learn beyond rollout. Recognising that we work in an industry that places extensive responsibilities and demands on our team, we offer unlimited holiday and Refresh Fridays (where all staff choose one Friday a month to take a half day). We also communicate our ‘out of hours’ policy early on with any clients or partners we begin working with, so they can ensure they’re respectful of it too.

Finally, because we know that to truly benefit from flexible working some people may want to work irregular hours, we ask that they then schedule any emails for when office hours return, to avoid making recipients working on a more typical schedule feel anxious to respond.