February 23, 2023
Agencies are at the center of the WFH vs. RTO tug of war: How are they handling it?
A year ago, PRWeek reported on the agencies experimenting with a four-day workweek in the U.S. They included Praytell, which has offices in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles and is owned by independent agency network Project Worldwide. “We have removed ‘pilot’ from ‘four-day workweek,’” says Andy Pray, CEO and founder of Praytell. “We have adopted it as the way we work, to the point that we alert clients to it in the first 10 slides of new-business pitches.” The agency’s staff work Monday through Thursday, though a staffer may work the occasional Friday based on client need, and in addition there is no expectation that this work take place in an office. In fact, he says such a mandate makes little sense under a four-day workweek. He points to Praytell staff in New York, some of whom have commutes of an hour to and from the agency’s office in Chelsea. “If you cut off Friday, are you really going to ask them to donate eight hours of commuting time, because the reality is there is only so much time in a week,” asks Pray.
