Digiday Research report: Agency culture and employment in 2019

While most agencies attempt to cultivate reputations as fun, dynamic and innovative places to work, beneath the surface many are grappling with various cultural and personnel issues including employee burnout, overworked staffers, high turnover, harassment and more.

As agencies are placed under growing pressure by squeezed margins, the in-house movement, increased competition from consultancies and increasingly demanding clients, agency staffers are bearing the brunt. Employees often find themselves subjugated to long hours and swelling demands for constant availability that threaten a healthy work-life balance. Rolex Repliche Meanwhile, the #MeToo movement has helped unmask sexual harassment within advertising and sparked important conversations surrounding toxic workplace cultures.

This report examines three key themes affecting agency culture and employment in 2019; employee happiness and burnout, workplace harassment and discrimination, and what influences employment decisions.

More in Marketing

Marketers shift growing shares of search spending to GEO

Generative AI is pushing brands to shift SEO budgets toward visibility in AI-generated answers over clicks.

Philadelphia Cream Cheese pulls dollars from search – people aren’t Googling ‘cream cheese’

Philadelphia Cream Cheese has stopped paying for search ads, at least to prospective shoppers on Google. Over the past year, the Kraft Heinz-owned CPG brand has phased out its traditional search ad spend, opting to put those dollars instead into retail media and broader channels, according to Maddy Zingle, vp of marketing for Philadelphia Cream […]

TikTok courts CMOs with first-ever Collective, as it targets bigger budgets

In its first CMO-focused event in the U.K. TikTok showcased how easy it is for brands to create content. The event is only part of the platform’s sharper 2026 commercial strategy: targeting larger, long-term ad budgets, courting independent agencies, and positioning itself as a serious competitor to Meta in 2026.