Moving Forward Together

To Global IPG Employees, August 19, 2021

Like most organizations, as we begin to turn our attention to the latter part of this year, we are planning for a return to office in many areas where we operate, including the U.S.

As you would expect, our approach will be dictated by local market conditions, and the different business models at each of our companies. Of course, developments related to the Delta variant of coronavirus have added uncertainty to this situation, and we will stay tuned to see how that impacts our thinking. But across the board, we are preparing to implement flexible work arrangements – in which we look to get the best from a combination of, on the one hand, in-person interactions among colleagues and clients, and on the other, retaining the benefits of remote work.

Getting that balance right won't be easy, since the optimal mix for each of us will depend on the kind of work we do and the teams we are a part of, as well as the cadence of projects we are involved in. The solutions we create for our clients can be impacted by factors such as seasonality, or the competitive dynamics of specific industry sectors.

At the macro level, we've always been clear that the safety of our people will be paramount in our thinking, and that return to office will be an iterative process that involves trial, error and continual refinement, so as to ultimately find the best model for each of us. That model will include proof of vaccination or regular testing, as well as continued enhanced safety protocols as we return to working together in the coming months.

More specifically, I do want to share with you key updates on our thinking, and what you can expect going forward. These reflect input and learnings from expert advisors, and, as important, from internal surveys and conversations with many of you.

Staying Safe

First and foremost, it's important to acknowledge that we are living and working in a very unusual time and that we face a period of continued uncertainty. The course of the pandemic is still unfolding, and conditions are different on a country-by-country basis. Our collective response can lead to periods in which we are more optimistic that we're making progress in putting the public health crisis behind us, and times when it feels as if we're losing ground. So, if you're feeling anxious, stressed, or overwhelmed on a personal level, that’s okay. Those are all understandable emotions, and in that regard, you have plenty of company from among your peers across Interpublic.

When you do return, you'll therefore find that we've done everything possible to keep the health and safety of our colleagues top-of-mind.

As I indicated, the specifics of how and when we'll be returning to the office are being driven by your senior management teams, in keeping with your agency's culture and business/client needs. But, regardless of local regulations, we will continue to require masks in public spaces within our offices until there is more clarity on the state of the health situation. We've worked with our landlords to upgrade ventilation, secured additional cleaning services for our spaces, reorganized seating to create less density, and are putting in place digital booking tools to ensure that we can gather teams together to do the best possible work, while respecting the need for social distancing. We've also enhanced our mental health resources, reflecting the need to support one another given the pressures we've all been facing as a result of the past 18 months.

Proof of Vaccination & Testing

Most important, in order to join your team in returning to the office, in the U.S. and in other markets where vaccines and testing are readily available we will be requiring employees to provide proof of vaccination, or a negative result from a test taken within 72 hours of instances in which you will be in the office (which could require weekly or twice-weekly testing for unvaccinated employees). These policies, which will be instituted in the coming weeks, seek to ensure our collective good health and peace of mind.

We're encouraged that, in countries where vaccines are readily available, very high percentages of our population (generally in excess of 85%) have already received their shots. Because, ultimately, vaccination is the best option to ensure your physical well-being, as well as that of your fellow employees and your broader community. When we get vaccinated, we're not only doing so for ourselves, but for the greater good.

The Benefits of Returning to the Office

I am often asked if we have a philosophy regarding being back in the office. In a nutshell, it's fair to say that we believe there are significant benefits to being together, working alongside of our colleagues, and interacting on a live basis with our clients and partners in a shared work setting.

Culture

A key reason IPG moved to remote working so effectively is because our company, and as important, each of our agencies, have strong and established cultures. These cultures are based on interpersonal relationships, a love for what we do, a commitment to our clients, and a set of human values that embody how we do business and the high standard of behaviors and ethics we demand from one another.

During the past 18 months, these shared values allowed us to stay connected, even when we weren't together physically. Our culture also continued to provide a clear compass when it came to our expectations in terms of how we all behave, even in virtual work settings. But, in the end, culture grows out of what a social group stands for and believes in, and what a society chooses to accomplish collectively. So, the longer we remain separated from our colleagues, the greater the risk that our culture – the sense that we are working together, as part of a community with a set of common goals –begins to dissipate.

This culture drift is especially true for our new employees – the thousands among?us who have been hired over the last year and a half, most of whom have never met their colleagues in person, or seen their shared workspaces. In order to maintain a sense of alignment and community, I believe it's essential that we be together physically, at least some of the time.

Learning

Like any other business where our people are our most important asset, and we deliver ideas and specialized craft skills to our clients, our industry is one where the opportunity to learn and grow is especially important. Institutional knowledge, mentorship, and other forms of shared learning are extremely difficult to achieve in a remote environment. Over time, this becomes a meaningful drain on a company's ability to do its best work. It also creates an environment in which there is less opportunity for younger people within our organization to learn and grow their careers.

Collaboration and Creativity

Information sharing and ideation can't only happen on the type of regimented formats required by virtual work. They also require spontaneity, a broader range of informal interactions, in the spark of dialogues that take place face-to-face. Running into a colleague in a hallway, dropping into someone’s workspace to get their reaction to a new concept, or sitting with a group to work through or whiteboard a problem, with real-time conversations – those are all valuable ways in which we exchange ideas that have been largely unavailable since the beginning of the pandemic.

For those among us who have been able to safely spend time together in recent months, working in a live format, it's been clear that there is a dimension missing to the kind of work we are able to do in virtual-only settings. And it's been energizing to interact directly with a range of smart, engaged people, since that has always been a big part of what makes our work so rewarding.

Creativity and collaboration are absolutely vital to the success of an idea-based, professional services business such as ours. As more companies return to work in hybrid office/virtual models, there is a very real chance that those that do not will be at a meaningful competitive disadvantage. And as you know we've consistently outperformed our peers in recent years, and those strong results have created opportunity for people across our agencies – which is why we don’t want to lose ground competitively.

Flexibility

For IPG as an organization, our people’s ingenuity, creativity, judgment and expertise are core to our success, and are maximized when we can safely be together physically at least some of the time. This is especially the case when we are working as part of multi-disciplinary teams. Or when we’re able to lean on colleagues in collaborative settings to refine our skills, or learn entirely new ones.?

For many of us, the personal networks we build and the time spent with colleagues and friends at work actually increase our sense of belonging, and along with it, our job satisfaction and mental health.

Of course, our new work models will involve much greater flexibility than what we knew was possible before the pandemic. We will look to innovate and find ways of working in which offices are tools for collaboration and co-creation. This will also allow for benefits such as regular time at home for work that requires deeper focus, as well as schedules that are more responsive to the needs imposed by our personal lives and commitments.

Local Plans

Each office location, in all the markets where we operate, will have its own unique plan for how to return safely and effectively, and at what pace to do so.

Our managers and HR teams will be there to assess when our teams need to be together in-person, what job responsibilities require time in-office to interact with colleagues and clients, and how to create the best mix of in-office and remote work for each of us. Look for updates from your agencies as their RTO plans come into greater focus in the weeks ahead. And know that we’ll stay tuned in for developments related to public health, no matter where in the world you each work, to ensure that our plans are taking local circumstances into account.

Coming Together

A common factor that unites us all, no matter where we work: we are all indebted to the remarkable people who have been coming into our offices on a regular basis for more than a year now – our colleagues who have literally kept the lights on for our company. These include people from IT, office services, cleaning staff, maintenance, security workers and so many others. Please join me in thanking each of them for their strength and for their service.

As I said on our call with investors a few weeks ago, I’m looking forward to working live with colleagues and clients. Which means that, hopefully, we’ll be able to see one another, touch base, and work together again in the coming months.

Until then, stay well. And thanks, as always, for your hard work and dedication to each other,

Philippe