Natasha Hatherall-Shawe, Founder and CEO, TishTash GroupThere’s a line our industry repeats ad nauseum: “PR is one of the most stressful jobs in the world.” It appears in rankings, trade headlines, and conference panels with depressing regularity. CareerCast has listed public relations among the most stress filled roles in the US. PRWeek once ranked it second. Forbes has featured it on its own “Most Stressful Jobs” lists.
And every time, we nod along as though it’s weather. As though stress is simply what comes with the territory. Truthfully, I’m done with the nodding.
What if we stopped accepting that this industry has to break people to be considered “good”? What if the stress isn’t a side effect of great work – but a symptom of a model that was never designed to sustain the humans inside it?
Because that’s the truth we keep tiptoeing around. The old agency model – the Mad Men structure of long hours as loyalty, chronic overwork as commitment, and the client-is-always-right servility – it’s dying. And honestly? Let it.
Stress is structural, not personal
The PRCA/CIPR Mental Health Audit paints a picture that should alarm anyone who leads in this industry: PR professionals consistently rate their stress at the highest end of the scale, and reports of poor mental health remain stubbornly prevalent. Campaign’s own research has found that roughly half of people working across marketing, PR and comms experienced severe stress, anxiety or burnout in a single year.
These aren’t personal failings. They’re system failures. We have built business models that run on adrenaline and call it ambition. We’ve allowed “always on” to become a professional virtue, when it’s actually a slow-burning crisis.
And the legacy agency structure – the dinosaur model – sits at the centre of it. Bloated hierarchies. Retainers priced on heroics. Pitch processes that burn teams for weeks without a shred of feedback. “Urgent” requests that are only urgent because someone else failed to plan. This isn’t how modern businesses should operate. It’s how they collapse.
Retire servant mode
Let’s name the dynamic we politely dance around: too many agencies operate in “servant mode” or absorbing a client’s internal chaos, poor briefing, and last-minute decision-making so everyone else can look calm.
The industry talks endlessly about “partnership.” But real partnership demands two things we rarely insist on: mutual respect and shared accountability.
That means briefs that include actual objectives, a named decision-maker, and realistic timelines. It means a turnaround charter where “same day” triggers a different cost, not just a different cortisol level. It means procurement processes that reward quality, not punishment.
And to clients reading this: if you’re looking for senior strategic thinking, it’s worth valuing it differently to a quick, transactional decision.
Stop equating exhaustion with excellence
When retainers are built on the assumption that the team will “just make it work,” the hidden cost is your people. Scope must be real, tracked, and revisited, not politely ignored until someone breaks.
If a team is consistently late, it’s not commitment. It’s a resourcing failure. A scope failure. A leadership failure.
Many leaders say they care about wellbeing and then reward the person who replies at 11pm. Incentives shape culture more than wellness webinars ever will. We have to stop confusing long hours with high standards. It’s lazy leadership. Full stop.
This can’t be fixed alone
Here’s the uncomfortable part: even if one agency gets this right, it’s nearly impossible to sustain when the broader market rewards whoever says “yes” fastest, regardless of the human cost.
Real change requires collective action. In MENA, we’re beginning to see the shape of it – mental health charters, shared frameworks, growing conversations about what sustainable agency life actually looks like. But we need to go further. Shared standards on the right to disconnect. Pitching norms that don’t require sleep deprivation. Client education as an industry-wide project, not a single agency’s lonely fight.
The goal isn’t to make the industry soft. It’s to make it survivable. To make it stronger in a way that really matters.
Because right now, we are hemorrhaging experience. Brilliant people are leaving and not because they stopped loving comms, but because they stopped believing a life in comms was compatible with health, family, or simply lasting.
The next generation won’t accept this
The people entering our industry aren’t “lazy” for wanting boundaries. They’re simply refusing to inherit a broken norm. And if our only answer is “well, that’s the industry”, then we’ve already failed them.
Industries are not weather. They are built by humans, shaped by behaviours, sustained by what we choose to reward.
We are communicators. We shape narratives for brands, governments, and entire cultures. Isn’t it time we stopped accepting the narrative that our own industry must destroy its people to be considered world-class?
Stress is not our competitive advantage. Better work, healthier people, and honest partnership is.
Burn the old model down. Build something worth staying for.
By Natasha Hatherall-Shawe, Founder and CEO, TishTash Group
