Creative agency The Royals has taken the top spot on the AFR BOSS Best Places to Work list among media and marketing agencies.
The annual list, judged by behaviour change consultancy Inventium, ranked the best workplaces in Australia and New Zealand across nine different industries.
Andrew Siwka, one of The Royals’ founders, explained to the publication that one of the agency’s “problems” is becoming what clients want them to be rather than what the agency wants them to be.
“And it’s a delicate balance. Creatives were saying, ‘Well, I don’t have time to work on that.’ So where are the proactive ideas coming from?”
The Royals became known for its Unnatural Fridays initiative, a single creative pitch meeting for the entire team, which won the team the AFR BOSS Best Places to Work title in the media and marketing category in 2024.
Siwka said the meeting “was about us dedicating a day and defending that day [from disruption]. We managed to defend close to 80% of Fridays in a given year.”
In second place is Equality Media, led by managing director Marilla Akkermans. The Melbourne-based agency, which topped the list last year, boasts a four-day working week that was established in 2022.
Last year, Akkermans told AFR: “A 40-hour work week was so inventive when people could work up to 120 hours a week. But looking into how we can work in this knowledge era, often people are only working four hours a day. Why are we making everybody sit at a desk for five days a week?”
Digital marketing agency King Kong, lead by Sabri Suby follows in third spot, followed by Tracksuit Limited in fourth place, while independent digital advertising agency PMG rounds out the top five.
North Sydney-based In Marketing We Trust claimed sixth spot on the list, and Hatched took seventh place.
The Melbourne-based media agency, lead by CEO Stephen Fisher, created a parental policy that helps its existing staff return to work after taking time off.
Hatched’s policy includes 12 weeks of paid leave for parents in addition to the government’s 18 weeks. It also includes six coaching lessons on navigating the guilt and stress of leaving young children to go to work, and three paid “keeping in touch” days to come back to the office, the AFR reported.
Half Dome boasts its fourth consecutive recognition on the list, this year taking eighth place. Tom Frazer, the independent agency’s managing director, said it was an honour to be on the list for a fourth year as the industry continues to face skills shortages and difficulty securing talent.
“Since the agency’s inception, we’ve been committed to focusing on our most important product – our people.
“We’re proud of the legacy we’re creating at Half Dome and the feedback from our team speaks for itself. Our 2023 workplace survey found 95% of the team were proud to tell others they work at Half Dome, while 98% said Half Dome was a great place to work. An incredible 100% of staff strongly agreed they were treated fairly, regardless of sexual orientation, gender, race, or age.”
Taking ninth place is independent creative communications agency, Cassette, lead by managing director Charlie Goldsmith.
Rounding out the top 10 is dentsu’s iProspect due to its employee value proposition (EVP): “Where the ambitious accelerate the possible.”
At the centre of its EVP is a suite of value-led initiatives co-designed by the team.
Marcelle Gomez, managing director of iProspect said: “iProspect is an agency that is built around accelerating growth, not just the growth of our clients’ businesses, but also that of our people and our culture. Our commitment to creating the very best environment for our people to be their best selves and realise their ambitions, allows us to create innovative solutions for our clients’ business problems.
“I am so proud of what we have achieved as a team, but I am most proud of the culture we have created and how happy our people are coming to work, sharing their knowledge and doing their best every day to live up to the iProspect ethos of where the ambitious accelerate the possible.”
See also: AFR and BOSS Magazine reveal the Best Places to Work in media and marketing