BOOK OF THE NIGHT
BEST WORKPLACE MENTAL HEALTH AWARENESS INITIATIVE (AGENCY) CODERUS
Caring For Our Team Through Covid SUMMARY
FINALISTS
Founded in 1998, Coderus is a leading software and app development agency based in Suffolk, providing solutions to start-ups, medium businesses and large blue-chip enterprises globally, across a wide range of industries.
Alfred Alfred+
We are a full-service development agency, able to offer our services at any stage of the development process including consultancy, strategy, design, development, QA and testing as well as support and maintenance. With over 20 years of industry experience and a dedicated in-house team of 37 employees, we have the knowledge, enterprise and certifications to strategically guide our clients through their projects with confidence. Winning this award would be a huge achievement for both Coderus and its employees and help us attract unique dynamic talent. The business has always strived to create an inclusive company culture where all our people are recognised as unique and talented individuals who all make a valuable contribution to the success of the business.
Hive Digital Mental Wellness for Team Members Stickyeyes How we Stick Together to promote better mental health Sunny Side Up & Winter lunchtimes
We know that by investing and supporting people with good health and well being initiatives means that our people are happy, motivated and productive and believe in our business goals and celebrate our success with us.
JUDGES’ COMMENTS We were really impressed by this winning entry, there was lots of ‘good’ taking place and there was a really strong focus on diversity and inclusion. We loved how they understood and recognised segments within the workforce which helped shape initiatives. Also, using volunteering to improve wellbeing shows a great understanding of supporting people and staying connected to their communities. An outstanding submission, deserving of this win.
BEST WORKPLACE MENTAL HEALTH AWARENESS INITIATIVE (IN-HOUSE) PLUS X
Putting positive mental health and wellbeing at the heart of our business culture SUMMARY Plus X is a new innovation hub network providing inspiring work space, expert growth & innovation support to business members of all sizes. The impact of winning this award will be a huge and meaningful accolade for the entire Plus X team. All employees were (and continue to be) instrumental and inspirational in creating and leading our business culture that drives awareness for and supports positive mental health and wellbeing. Their ideas and initiatives will ensure we are constantly evolving and improving our support for wellbeing and positive mental health.
JUDGES’ COMMENTS With clear objectives, varied strategy and metrics that meant it was easy to see improvement, we really liked this entry! Clear commitment to mental health with objectives set out and external expertise brought in to make sure they got it right from the start. It is clear a huge a effort has gone into building a culture where the staff are involved which is key to its success. They have a great mix of staff engagement along with practical support. The initiatives are clearly working with great absence and departure data. A great entry and a huge well done!
BEST WORKPLACE HEALTH & WELLBEING AWARENESS INITIATIVE (AGENCY) ABSOLUTE DIGITAL MEDIA SUMMARY
FINALISTS
We’re Absolute - known internally and to our clients as the A-team! A-Team by name, A-Team by nature. As a full-service digital marketing agency, we think of ourselves as our client’s partner, not just their agency. We aim to be seen as an extension of their internal teams, reducing dayto-day pressures to enable them to confidentially focus on other areas of their business.
Born Social Workplace Health & Wellbeing Awareness Initiative
As a creative, forward-thinking agency, we have zero boundaries and have learnt to put our egos aside. From the moment we step into the work environment, we become industry-leading creators, which has enabled us to attract worldwide leading brands including Ladbrokes and Cloud Reach. We also work with large charity organisations such as the National Autistic Society and National Childbirth Trust. As part of this movement, we’re continuously looking for new ways to boost the health and wellbeing of our employees on an ongoing basis. Simply put, we strive to create the best possible agency culture even when working from home. We’ve achieved this by implementing several new incentives to give our teams a bigger boost than ever before. Simply put, we’re passionate about providing them the support they need across all aspects of their day-to-day lives.
Gravytrain Employee Wellbeing During COVID-19 Viva Wellbeing at Work, Keeping It Real
Winning Best Workplace Health & Wellbeing Awareness Initiative (Agency) would enable us to publicly showcase our commitment to not only the wellbeing and health of our teams, but each individual employee and their needs. It’s something we are keen to shout about and are hopeful that it will inspire other agencies and businesses to do the same. It’s what
JUDGES’ COMMENTS With this entry, it was really good to see a varied package of initiatives brought together to support staff well being, development and progress. We were really impressed to see their ‘space’ budget with a move to being a fully remote agency was repurposed for people and helping connect the team, great way to reinvest from bricks to people and a really smart move that we appreciated. We also liked the recognition in diversity and life stages. The submission detailed strong results and impact which was great to see and made it a clear winner for us.
BEST WORKPLACE HEALTH & WELLBEING AWARENESS INITIATIVE (IN-HOUSE) NORTHUMBRIAN WATER GROUP
Living Well SUMMARY
SILVER AWARD
We are one of 10 regulated water and sewerage companies (WASCs) in England and Wales. In the North East we trade as Northumbrian Water and provide water and sewerage services to 2.7 million customers. In the South East we trade as Essex and Suffolk Water and provide water services to 1.8 million customers.
Awin Protecting community through culture in a remote world
Every day we supply 1.1 billion litres of water and we employ just over 3,000 staff across all of our sites and regions – we help keep Britain flowing and that work never stops.
FINALISTS
Our people make a difference every day. The Pandemic has required our people to work in tough situations and get really innovative in how we successfully deliver our services. We simply can’t do what we do without the contribution of our passionate colleagues so investing further in their health and wellness over the last 12 months was essential to help mitigate the impact. Winning this award would acknowledge our energy and commitment to our colleagues, even in the face of extreme challenge and recognise our total belief in our “One Team” value.
JUDGES’ COMMENTS This was a very strong entry that demonstrated real innovation to help support what could easily be classed as a hard to reach audience. Us judges thought it was a very holistic and inclusive approach to addressing mental health issues and really loved the additional support offered to parents and how they recognised the need for greater support around male mental health. It was great to see that the strategy was successful through the positive results outlined.
APC Cardiovascular Ltd Wellbeing Week 2020 Brightec HappyTrack Orbit Group ‘This is Me’ Plus X ‘Putting positive mental health and wellbeing at the heart of our business culture’ Techbuyer Global Goal – Good Health and Wellbeing of colleagues
BEST CHARITABLE/CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY INITIATIVE SOPRO
Level Up Laptops www.leveluplaptops.co.uk SUMMARY
FINALISTS
Level Up Laptops is a charity initiative created by Brighton based social prospecting company SoPro. It’s asking Sussex based businesses to donate laptops and other computer equipment that can be given to local schoolchildren struggling to access online learning resources. SoPro has teamed up with registered charity Tarner Community Project and TechTakeback, to form partnerships between Sussex businesses, aiming to recycle old devices no longer in use or raise money for new devices, and distribute them to children in need.
Clicky Media & The Brain Tumour Charity Charity Partnership
We want to ensure children from all backgrounds have the same access to learning and educational resources during and after these challenging times. SoPro, helps B2B businesses sell more with 1-to-1 personalised, conversational email introductions are designed to flow naturally into the sales pipeline. Co-founders Rob Harlow and Ryan Welmans both became concerned about the digital divide affecting schoolchildren during the pandemic and created Level Up Laptops. They also used SoPro’s social prospecting technology to identify and connect with Sussex based businesses – asking them to get involved. And over 30 have done, raising over £10,000 helping to deliver over 100 devices to local schoolchildren.
Coderus Supporting Local Initiatives Evolved Search It’s Good to Give Back LinkGraph LinkGraph Cares Techbuyer Global Goal – Support of Local Community and Charities.
JUDGES’ COMMENTS This entry demonstrated a really well executed plan at the time it was needed the most and is super relevant to the current time. It was something the world needed! It was great to see how they brought various stakeholders together to partner and deliver this great initiative. It’s evident that it has made a hugely positive impact but will also continue to do so. The entry was a joy to read and such an important and much-needed initiative. In today’s world, where the pandemic has meant for a large percentage of the globe are online 24/7, getting online access to children who wouldn’t otherwise be able to is so important.
NEXT GENERATION INITIATIVE JARGON PR SUMMARY
FINALISTS
Founded in 2009, Jargon PR delivers global campaigns across various sectors within the B2B technology industry. Based in Hampshire, our team achieves impressive business outcomes for clients and as a result, we have had another successful 12 months of growth and client wins.
Digital NRG
Underpinning our recent achievements are our core values. This includes the launch of our four-point Environmental Sustainability plan, becoming a nationally recognised ‘Disability Confident Employer’, and implementing the MIND wellness action plan to protect and care for our team members. Winning this award would be a huge achievement for Jargon PR and its team. The agency has had a successful 12 months and as a result, has been able to grow and recruit new employees. Jargon PR’s Next Generation Initiative will ensure it can provide these new employees with the skills to start them off in their PR career.
JUDGES’ COMMENTS As judges we agreed that there is much to love in this submission - a simple desire to find and keep young talent in the business and develop their skills to enable them to be their best. A really well put together application that highlighted the quality of work being done on a muchneeded initiative. This agency has introduced some great practices and it’s great to see an investment in training and development sessions. It’s also really nice to see the career trajectory some people had that joined the scheme. A great entry that has had a real positive impact.
BEST FLEXIBLE WORKING POLICY CHAIN REACTION SUMMARY
FINALISTS
In Chain Reaction we believe that flexibility is a key for our people and business to keep momentum with the ever changing world we all live and operate in.
GCI Health
Throughout the years, we were able to adopt flexible working corporate culture through offering a wide variety of solutions including but not limited to, working hours and leaves, working dynamics, talent mobility, which led to a win-win situation for Chain Reaction and its people. We were thrilled to touch the impact on our peoples’ happiness and engagement.
Gravytrain Flexible Working During COVID-19 JH Magento eCommerce Agency – Flexible Working as a Culture N21 Ltd Work Any Time, Anywhere
JUDGES’ COMMENTS For this entry we loved the approach the winner took to engage with and listen to their people before creating the policy, ensuring it really incorporated elements that mattered most to them. All stakeholders involved were considered allowing for a balanced strategy. We particularly liked that it was taken into account when employees may need greater flexibility in their lives such as weddings and also an appreciation of unexpected issues that may arise that are unforeseeable and need attention. It was very evident that the winner had put a lot of thought into their flexible working policies and practices and was great to see that it has had a positive impact.
Realm Recruit Work Where You Want, When You Want & Flexi Friday
BEST EMPLOYEE REWARD SCHEME – SMALL AGENCY ABSOLUTE DIGITAL MEDIA SUMMARY We’re Absolute - known internally and to our clients as the A-team! A-Team by name, A-Team by nature. As a full-service digital marketing agency, we think of ourselves as our client’s partner, not just their agency. We aim to be seen as an extension of their internal teams, reducing day-to-day pressures to enable them to confidentially focus on other areas of their business. As a creative, forward-thinking agency, we have zero boundaries and have learnt to put our egos aside. From the moment we step into the work environment, we become industry-leading creators, which has enabled us to attract worldwide leading brands including Ladbrokes and Cloud Reach. We also work with large charity organisations such as the National Autistic Society and National Childbirth Trust. As part of this movement, we’re continuously looking for new ways to provide our employees with the rewards and recognition they deserve on an ongoing basis. Simply put, we strive to create the best possible agency culture even when working from home. We’ve achieved this by implementing several new incentives to give our teams a bigger boost than ever before. Simply put, we’re passionate about providing them the support they need across all aspects of their dayto-day lives. Winning Best Employee Reward Scheme – Small Agency would enable us to publicly showcase our commitment to not only the wellbeing and health of our teams, but each individual employee and their needs. It’s something we are keen to shout about and are hopeful that it will inspire other agencies and businesses to do the same. It’s what makes us the A-Team!
JUDGES’ COMMENTS This entry was a great example of how an organisation has considered all aspects of growth to ensure wellbeing, progress and development of employees. A very holistic approach which understands employees are different. The winner of this category is clearly passionate about helping people be at their best, as well as having a clear idea on ROI and what results are generated. As judges, we especially liked how the agency took the brave step to close their office and decided early on that this money could be better spent on their people. The testimonials and data provided clearly show that the initiatives put in place has had an impact. A very well done!
BEST CULTURE TRANSFORMATION INITIATIVE SUPERSONIC PLAYGROUND SUMMARY
SILVER AWARD
Supersonic Playground is a website design and development agency based in Maidstone, Kent. We specialise in the WordPress platform, leveraging it to deliver completely bespoke solutions for small business owners, marketers and charities across the UK. Web design is more than just creating a high performing, pretty site; our approach considers the wider business strategy, the psychology of design, colour and typography to build a marketing tool that sells.
Autocab Values Launch
Cultivating an exceptional customer experience is a vital part of our offering and that involves every single member of our team. Customer experience and company culture go hand-in-hand, and that’s why we’ve spent the last 12 months working to transform our culture into one that nurtures innovation and learning while creating an environment where the team feels secure enough to share their ideas, get involved and pull together to deliver exceptional experiences for our clients. Winning this award would give us the ability to truly shout about something we care about, our team. Culture is an integral part of delivering exceptional customer experience and websites that work; our team has to be able to work together and trust each other to deliver best-in-class designs and builds.
FINALISTS HRLocker Building an open transparent culture based on shared developed Principles Opt.d.com Change Roadmap Stickyeyes How we Stick Together to create a better agency
JUDGES’ COMMENTS This entry was clear, direct and well written! The winner showed a real sense of clarity around how to improve culture and on a small budget which us judges loved even more. This entry shows that you don’t need to have a big investment and that small changes can make a big difference. It was clear in this entry that the winner really recognises how people feel. Along with clear and measurable objectives, this entry was a clear winner for us.
BEST CREATIVE BRANDING FOR A BUSINESS CULTURE INITIATIVE UPSTREAM
Getting Together Again SUMMARY
FINALISTS
During a year of crisis for most, Upstream embraced transformation. Our free mobile internet access and mobile security services became more important than ever — and so did the connection and efficacy of our team.
Northumbrian Water Group Living Well
By prioritizing an impactful remote working initiative early in the lockdown process, we achieved growth, expanded our offerings and acquired partners outside our traditional client portfolio. Through initiatives such as “Getting Together Again”, we strengthened our company culture, provided companionship and a sense of belonging, and helped our employees to manage stress. We fully adapted hiring and onboarding processes to accommodate working from home and welcomed 77 new employees during the pandemic. While almost 100% working from home in 2020, we offered uninterrupted connectivity to over 300 million people in emerging markets such as Brazil, Indonesia and South Africa. In 2021, we expect to reach over 400 million mobile users. Our mobile security services prevented almost 1.3bn dollars in fraudulent charges for mobile users worldwide in 2020. Recognition of our team’s tight-knit connectivity and culture would aid in our efforts to keep our people engaged, informed, and in high spirits.
JUDGES’ COMMENTS This was an amazing submission with strong brand identity and some really high quality content. Us judges really enjoyed reading all about it and a couple even said they would love to work for this company. It was really pleasing to see how the company were multifaceted in terms of impact on wellbeing societal, physical, mental, social and learning. There was a comprehensive range of innovative initiatives to promote company spirit and team wellbeing which resulted in a really impressive level of engagement with employees throughout the year. The winners values are evident in the artefacts they have used both online and in the office. It clear initiatives are aimed to bring people together despite being apart and the emphasis on your staff’s wellbeing is admirable. We also loved how the branding so was visually effective. A great entry, well done!
BEST EMPLOYEE DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME (AGENCY) BLUE ARRAY & TEAM DEVELOPMENT
Trained in the “Blue Array Way” SUMMARY
FINALISTS
At Blue Array we strive to create a progressive working environment where there are clear development opportunities for all of our team and where anyone can thrive and meet their career goals.
Babel Babel Career Development Programme
Our successful internal academy and new starter goals were initially borne out of feedback from new starters who had completed their induction programme with us and cited inefficiencies in our on-boarding process. Ever since we have invested resources into a development programme for all of our team which incorporates an internal learning academy, provides clear career progression pathways, champions personal development plans (PDPs), and empowers team members to set both team and personal OKRs.
Jargon PR
We are very proud of the framework in place, where all team members understand our company ethos the “Blue Array Way” and we can evidence the progression of team members into new roles with the philosophy on promotion from within. We believe in people before profits. Last year we sacrificed profit for people by retaining 100% of our staff during the peak of the pandemic, and topped up any furloughed team members to 100% of their salary. Winning this award would be fitting for the immense pride we have in our team.
JUDGES’ COMMENTS This is an excellent example of how a small business introduced employee development in the initiation stages. There has been investment in activities but also clarity in expectation! The model has been adopted by other businesses indicating its effectiveness. It was very clear to see the amount of hard work and investment that has gone into the programme. The clarity and direction that their frameworks and approach have provided are invaluable and have no doubt influenced the progression of their people. A really strong entry which highlights an impressive L&D programme and it was also great to see that they took ownership and admitted when something was not working and they went and changed it.
BEST APPRENTICESHIP PROGRAMME (AGENCY) LIBERTY COMMUNICATIONS SUMMARY
FINALISTS
We established the Liberty Academy programme in 2013 to help students learn more about the PR industry and what an entry level role working in PR is like.
Coderus Helping Apprentices Exceed Their Expectations
At the start of 2020, we decided to refresh and expand the initiative to engage directly with universities and develop long term partnerships. A particular focus was on engaging with young people from BAME backgrounds and students who did not necessarily have a family history of higher education. We felt this was an important part of our duty as an agency to try and ensure the PR industry is open to all. After successfully forming partnerships with some of London’s leading universities, we encountered a major challenge in the COVID-19 pandemic. However, working closely with our university partners we were actually able to pivot towards online delivery and provide even more opportunities for engagement than we’d originally planned, during a time when many other PR agencies halted recruitment and paused internships. We are extremely proud of the feedback we’ve received from students who we’ve connected with through the Liberty Academy programme, and to be recognised for an industry award for the initiative would be similarly rewarding.
JUDGES’ COMMENTS We really liked this entry as the winner has a fantastic outreach programme engaging with a broad range of students. Recognising the challenges COVID posed to an apprenticeship programme and how they responded and maintained the programme made for great reading and impressed us judged. It’s clear they have had a very good action plan which has been implemented successfully and made a positive impact on people’s lives. A great entry and very deserving winner. Well done!
REMOTE TEAM OF YEAR ALFRED SUMMARY
SILVER AWARD
From our inception we have placed great emphasis on creating a strong culture at Alfred. It has never been a secondary tick box exercise but a key business activity, one that is core to driving growth of our people and business.
Upstream
We’ve worked at agencies that churn through staff and put profit over people. We’ve created a different way, our view is that people create profit. While year on year, we optimise what we do and ensure that the business grows efficiently, we’ve continued to up our focus on the culture we create. Without this, we can’t do great work, keep great people and create the movements we have promised to deliver. Our Movements not Movements proposition inspires people to get up in the morning and feel like we’re making a positive difference to the world. We’ve focused resource and dedicated capital to building our culture. We run ongoing audits, creating a set of initiatives that are designed to inspire us all. We have created a culture of support and development. An environment where everyone can leave their mark and this is supported. We truly want to make a movement and we are.
JUDGES’ COMMENTS This winner had a very impressive approach to ensuring their colleagues felt looked after and were supported throughout the last year, introducing initiatives to help people find passions and interests promoting wellbeing. It was evident from their entry that they have a strong culture and are committed to people in every way. It was really great to see a 100% team retention rate plus new hires and promotions. A shining example of how to create a thriving environment for your people! We loved the use of surveys to track and monitor progress with enviable happiness scores!
FINALISTS APC Cardiovascular Ltd “Radiation Protection in the Clinical Environment” Webinar
REMOTE WORKING INITIATIVE OF THE YEAR PERSONIO
#winningfromhome with Personio’s Home Office Taskforce SUMMARY
SILVER AWARD
Personio is the most valuable HR tech technology in Europe, having raised $125 million in ‘Series D’ funding in January 2021. We are one of the fastestgrowing B2B SaaS companies in Europe - we have a great product and a fantastic team that will double in size in 2021, from 500 employees to 1,000. We already have more than 3,000 customers with a market that is only waiting to be developed further and we are continuing to aim high - our ultimate goal is to build the leading HR platform in Europe.
Absolute Digital Media
At Personio we are one big team. #Teamspirit is one of our core values and even when working remotely, we succeed in keeping up productivity, health and team spirit, with the firm belief that #WeAreAllInThisTogether. Winning a Company Culture Award would allow us to show recognition to our employees and thank them for all their efforts and achievements over a difficult period of time. It would additionally give us the opportunity to generate awareness for our remote working initiatives, be a leader in the field, and inspire other companies to adopt similar measures to ours to keep their employees motivated and engaged.
JUDGES’ COMMENTS A very well put together entry and a great example of a holistic and employee centric approach to supporting employees with clear business benefits. We particularly liked how they immediately set up a crossdepartmental task force to deliver on their initiatives, this is so important to get a differing view of people. There is obvious positive intent in how they have designed and initiated their remote working initiative. They have invested considerable time and resources in achieving a positive outcome and seeking to understand best practices for leadership and teamwork. They were clear in what they needed to achieve and set to work to deliver it! The Health & Wellbeing and Childcare initiatives are to be congratulated! It seems they know what is important for employees in times of need and offered them. It is great to see evaluation combining both performance with staff satisfaction.
FINALISTS Broadplace Remote Working Initiative ‘The Broadplace Way’ Etch Group People-first, remote-second Northumbrian Water Group Living Well Personio #winningfromhome with Personio’s Home Office Taskforce Upstream By the Watercooler Velo Miles of Smiles 2020
BEST WORKING ENVIRONMENT – REMOTE MIGHTY SOCIAL
Making remote working MIGHTY! SUMMARY We are a young, vibrant, social media agency, thriving on face-to-face interactions in a collaborative and social atmosphere. When the pandemic hit, we were devastated to lose a valuable part of our company culture and interaction. But Mighty Social brought the team together and reinstalled a sense of community… virtually. We’ve implemented everything from virtual Friday night drinks, to a baby shower for a colleague in Romania. Charity initiatives, weekly challenges and virtual escape rooms have helped bring us together. Our waistlines may never recover though given that so many of the challenges have been food based! The continued mentoring from everyone is incredible. No one is left to worry or feel alone, regardless of being physically apart. Advice on keeping body and mind well is in abundance, prioritising our staff’s mental health and ensuring people feel well supported. Productivity has increased 24%, and pitch win rates are even higher since March 2020. Senior management has worked hard to keep a young team motivated, involved and happy. But most importantly, they have kept things fun, interactive, and collaborative during turbulent times and their hard work should not go unrecognised.
JUDGES’ COMMENTS From the motivation behind the submission to the business benefits delivered, this was a great entry for us judges to read. We really enjoyed the content and the tone. It was great to see how they used the time apart to bring people together. There were lots of initiatives that were set up by the company, including care packages for new starters who have never met in person and allow them to feel a real sense of community. We also loved the idea that normal usual office celebrations such as baby showers still went ahead virtually, as these can be really important for team spirit. Something that stood out on this entry was the focus on taking the best from the old style working environment and converting into the new remote existence, this is a sensible and extremely effective way of aiming to maintain the best of what you do. The fact that fundamentally productivity has increased says a lot and great to see it has worked well for the company.
LEADERSHIP AWARD HEATHER TYRIE
Chief Talent Officer, Fullscript SUMMARY
SILVER AWARD
Fullscript is a comprehensive platform for integrative health practitioners, allowing them to dispense supplements virtually, manage and grow their practice, and amplify their impact with patient engagement and adherence tools.
Katie Mallinson Founder, Scriba PR
Our mission is to help people get better, and this mission has taken on even greater importance during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our platform supports over 80,000 healthcare practitioners and over 600,000 patients across North America in making wellness an indispensable part of their lives.
FINALISTS
We are nominating Fullscript’s Chief Talent Officer, Heather Tyrie, for the 2021 Leadership Award. As Fullscript’s Chief Talent Officer, Heather is ultimately responsible for leading all Talent and Culture initiatives within the organization, including recruitment, retention, learning and development, culture, compensation, and more. Heather’s contributions have been critical to Fullscript’s record growth and strong performance during the COVID-19 pandemic. The recognition of winning the Company Culture Leader Award would help Fullscript continue to gain traction in our recruitment efforts to find the best talent in support of our mission to help people get better.
JUDGES’ COMMENTS This was a very impressive story of leadership. The initiatives that the winner introduced are fantastic and it was great to see the impact they had on engagement and turnover rates! And doing all that in the middle of a pandemic is truly remarkable. We loved the hit the ground running sense of achieving so much so quickly and being super influential. A worthy winner that us judges really enjoyed reading about.
Haneen Al Hassan Communication Strategy Director, Chain Reaction Keith Nealon CEO, Bazaarvoice Ryan Welmans Co-founder & CEO, SoPro
BUSINESS CULTURE AMBASSADOR OF THE YEAR KIM WALKER
Managing Director, GCI Health SUMMARY
FINALISTS
Winning a Company Culture Award will be external validation of what we know to be true – that our people and our culture is everything. GCI Health is a specialist communications agency Inspired by People and the ever-changing face of healthcare. We have a Global vision: to be the best health communications agency in the world.
Aron Silan Chief Operating Officer, Intersoft
For GCI Health, being the best is about: • Providing an environment that encourages people to think differently, and an award-winning culture, to enable our diverse team of smart, creative and passionate specialist communicators to create bold and powerful campaigns. • Being a dedicated, agile, outcomes-focused agency that challenges in all the right ways and delivers high impact and refreshingly different results every time. • Building and nurturing impactful partnerships to help leave the world a little healthier and wiser We believe that people will be most successful professionally when they feel fulfilled personally, and we aim to support our team in all aspects of life. Over its seven-year lifespan, GCI has built a reputation for being an indispensable partner to our clients, helping to drive their business success and for keeping our people at the centre, prioritising the well-being and aspirations of our team
JUDGES’ COMMENTS In times of crisis and challenge, you need people to step up who can lead and guide with care and compassion, the winner of this award has clearly done just that. This person has done a great job done of trying to motivate employees during a very difficult period whilst introducing interesting strategies to improve the organisational culture. It is great to see a senior leader taking such an interest in the individuals of an organisation. The winner is a very people-oriented individual who has been able to build relationships at all levels which is a superpower few possess and it’s great to see, a really worthy winner for this category.
BEST TEAM CULTURE BIND SUMMARY
FINALISTS
Bind is a media agency that describes itself as a culture agency. This won’t mean a lot if you are reading this cold. But hopefully by the end of the entry it will make sense, as the agency exists to help people fulfil their potential. That’s it.
Alfred
Winning would mean the world. It would validate that we’re onto something. And it would make our mothers proud.
Fountain
JUDGES’ COMMENTS
Logical Position
This is clearly a company with culture at its core! The initiatives appear both strong and flexible to meet the different needs of the team and the references to feedback from staff were really nice to read.Reading their entry you can understand straight away their USP. They trust their staff and allow them to decide when they work and for how long. Trust is so important and they truly care for their staff and the results and retention rates show this. Building a culture based on common consistent behaviours is a key foundation for successful, high performing organisations. Great to see that this agency are living those behaviours whilst also supporting the challenges of individual team members. A fantastic approach by a small up and coming agency. Your team culture comes over extremely strongly! A great entry to read and a clear winner with so much great stuff on offer.
Evolved Search
Incubeta
META NOVOS Recycleye TIPi Group
BEST AGENCY TO WORK FOR (SMALL – UNDER 50 EMPLOYEES) REDDICO DIGITAL SUMMARY
SILVER AWARD
Reddico is a digital marketing agency, specialising in SEO. Founded in 2012, we made the ambitious decision to completely revolutionise the framework of the business – focussing on the principles of trust, freedom and responsibility.
NOVOS
Our radical approach puts people first, where we believe the team should be trusted to do the right thing. It’s led to a managerless environment where people set their own targets, dictate their work pattern, and budgets are obsolete. We’ve continued to push the boundaries of workplace culture and aren’t satisfied with just standing still – leading to fantastic results from both a people and business perspective. It’s been an incredibly tough year for everyone, but our culture has been the glue keeping everyone together, as people have supported and inspired each other throughout the pandemic. Winning this award would really be the icing on the cake, and an opportunity to celebrate with the whole team – without whom, this wouldn’t be possible.
JUDGES’ COMMENTS
FINALISTS Absolute Digital Media Alfred Bind Evolved Search META Milk & Honey PR Revere Riot Communications
This winning agency has a refreshing contemporary and mature approach to teams and culture with a self managed approach. It was great to see that they didn’t rely on the normal feel good incentives and underwent a full cultural transformation. They really stripped back their business model and re-designed it with their employee happiness in mind.Trust, freedom and responsibility as values are spot on. This agency provides an impressive range of initiatives aimed at strengthening their corporate culture and the wellbeing of staff plus engaging in CSR activities that help others. It is clear that this approach has had a really positive impact with some incredible results. An entry we thoroughly enjoyed reading, and left us in no doubt it’s a wonderful place to work. Outstanding example of workplace culture with a radical approach to achieving a high performing, engaged and successful organisation.
BEST AGENCY TO WORK FOR (LARGE – OVER 51 EMPLOYEES) BATTENHALL SUMMARY
SILVER AWARD
Battenhall is the communications agency for the social media age, pioneering innovative technologies, new ways of working, and providing highly specialised and integrated brand communications. The past 12 months has been a record period in terms of business growth, investment in people and diversity, and technology innovation.
Future Platforms
During the pandemic, social media use increased dramatically, and Battenhall has been at the forefront of helping brands use social media more effectively. It has seen Battenhall grow by more than £1m in revenue, win a record number of new clients, and increase the team by 26% – also a record amount.
Chain Reaction
Winning an award would be validation of our forward-thinking approach over the past 12 months. Instead of furloughing staff or slashing office space, we expanded into the US and pivoted 100% to a total flexible working policy. We continued to elevate our services to existing clients with new offerings like our critical response team ‘REACT’, and actively went after new business that would stretch our capabilities and enable us to continue with our growth plans.
FINALISTS
DRPG Logical Position Stickyeyes
JUDGES’ COMMENTS We thought this winner had a great story and it was a really well articulated submission which answered on all areas of the brief. We liked the strong and clear focus on personal development, wellbeing and social responsibility. The agency demonstrates diversity in their approach including thinking about employees life stages rather than a standard demographic approach. All of this is reflected in great KPIs. We also really liked reading how existing initiatives were adapted or expanded for Covid. A solid entry!
BEST COMPANY TO WORK FOR (IN-HOUSE) INTERSOFT SUMMARY
FINALISTS
Intersoft was founded in 1993 by Mark Wynman and has since led the market in providing quality delivery management software to the ecommerce sector. It’s smart and simple multicarrier solutions exceed customer demands, and the brand’s ever-evolving technology and experienced team make it a trusted partner for retailers, eCommerce providers and warehouse management businesses. Intersoft’s expertise in developing industry-leading delivery management software was recognised by Royal Mail in 2016 when it became a subsidiary of theUK’s postal service. Mark continues to operate as Chief Operating Officer, supported by Managing Director, James Thomas.
APC Cardiovascular Ltd Fullscript LogicMonitor Techbuyer
The key to Intersoft’s success is the team behind the software. While many SaaS businesses choose to outsource key functions, Intersoft has made a conscious decision to keep all Development, Sales and Project Management roles inhouse. Winning this award would be a testament to the hard work of Intersoft’s talented team and its commitment to ensuring the wellbeing of the people who work so diligently to make the brand a success. Intersoft may be a relatively small SaaS business but the team has big aspirations, which are shown through the business’ continued growth.
JUDGES’ COMMENTS The winner for this category had a really impressive entry, this company recognises the value of its people as its biggest asset and provides a great working environment and package of support which has resulted in impressive retention and staff turnover figures. We really liked to see that they led with training, development and coaching as key initiatives. Putting skills development first is refreshingly progressive. Further to this, it’s also great to see that the company then chooses to use in house talent rather than outsource to develop staff further. It’s very clear that this winner has very specific values and they come through in their people management practices which is then reflected in all aspects. Kudos to the management team and the HR manager for making this such a great workplace. Clear winner with a solid all round entry.