It’s official, we’ve been recognised as a Great Place to Work!
Our company culture is so important to us, and as an agency, we’ve been working hard over the last few years to really make an impact in the lives of our team, cementing No Brainer as a ‘Great Place To Work’.
*Responses to the statement “Taking everything into account, I would say this is a great place to work.”
We’ve picked up the certification after recording an overall employee satisfaction rating of 95%, putting it among the country’s best performing organisations for workplace culture and happiness.
We’re delighted with the impressive results from the accreditation, with areas such as Support (98%), Respect (97%), Collaboration (97%), Caring (97%), Fairness (97%) and competence (97%) all ranking highly.
Our Culture and Wellbeing Team
Since we were founded back in 2015, we’ve been on a journey to create a workplace that truly cares for its people. Our purpose isn’t just a tagline; it’s a commitment to ‘make a difference’ for our clients and team.
We’ve focused on a range of priorities in recent years, led by a dedicated Culture and Wellbeing steering group made up of people at every level of the company.
The work and commitment of the wider team, and they’re understanding of our companies shard values and beliefs, is what really helps us achieve a ‘great place to work’.
The group is split into seven core areas of focus, led by an individual within the business, and supported by the rest of the team. These include…
1. Wellbeing
As part of our ‘wellbeing’ pillar, we consider the overall wellbeing of our colleagues, both inside and outside of work, and how we can support them in the best way possible.
Some priority focus areas this year have been on:
- Monthly activities around specific Mental Health/Wellbeing awareness days
- Provide training and opportunities for the team to enhance their Mental Health awareness
- Monthly wellness socials
These communications have included emails on guidance, tips and advice, as well as sign posts to relevant support. We also have designated Mental Health First Aiders in the team who are professionally trained to support others when needed.
Wellness events are also held during work hours, which have included pottery painting, bake-offs, and wellbeing walks, contributing to positive emotional wellbeing.
2. People
People is a core pillar for us as an agency as it’s at the heart of everything we do, from colleagues to clients and everyone we interact with in between.
We’ve had multiple updates throughout 2023 to improve our colleagues’ ways of working, benefitting them both in work, as well as their home life, including a comprehensive health insurance plan, enhanced paternity pay and increased bonus contribution.
A continuous focus as part of this is:
- Policy updates
- Benefits benchmarking
- Engagement survey results and action planning
- Recruitment
- Retention
- PDP’s and progression
- Remote/ hybrid working
- People performance metrics for the business
- Bringing our purpose ‘Make a Difference’ to life
As a business, we’ve embraced putting trust in our team to make the right decisions for our clients, themselves, and the business. After all colleagues who feel they’re valued are positively motivated in their work.
3. Training
Training is standard practice at No Brainer, with allocated budgets for personal development, as well as team training sessions. We actively encourage our colleagues to take up these opportunities to grow and evolve in their specialisms.
Our colleagues hold ‘lunch and learn’ sessions in which we share our knowledge and expertise with one another, and we regularly invite external partners in to host training as requested by our team.
Our training can be split into these core points:
- Monthly training focus areas – training by in-house and external partners
- Lunch and learns
- Allocated monthly PDP hours
- Monthly 121’s with Lin manager
- Role specific progression pathways
However, our team training sessions aren’t always marketing related. In fact, we open the conversation to the wider team and ask what they’d like to see on the agenda – whether this would help them in their professional or personal life.
Recent examples of this include a financial wellbeing session, delivered by The Money Charity, and a nutrition and activity at work class, delivered by a qualified sports nutritionist.
4. Social
- Quarterly away days
- Regular social events
- WIRED nominations/Awards
- Monthly awareness events
- Engagement survey
This year we’ve had the wonderful opportunity of experiencing new activities as a team, including The Cube, Chester Zoo and Catton Hall.
5. Community
No matter what, we always try our hardest to give back to the local community when and where we can. Our team are able to recommend various charitable organisations we work with, and so far we’ve done some great work over the years.
Each year, we sponsor two organisations, and each team member receives a paid day to support a charitable cause.
We’ve worked with:
- Organising Tea party with ReEngage
- Donations for Warrington Food Bank
- St Luke’s Cheshire Hospice
- Active Cheshire
- Cheshire Dog’s Home
6. Diversity
Diversity and inclusion is a crucial part of our wellbeing and culture strategy at No Brainer. From arranging work placements for people from lots of different backgrounds, to working hard to create a fully inclusive workplace, we’re always trying to do more.
We’ve also worked closely with the Taylor Bennett Foundation, a charity that exists to encourage people from a black, Asian and minority ethnic background to pursue a career in communications.
By linking up with the charity we’ve been able to host a series of sessions designed at giving young people a flavour of what life in an agency environment would be like. We’ve covered digital PR, SEO and social media in some of our recent sessions and really enjoy working with the charity!
7. Comms
We’re here to do everything we can to make sure our team are kept well-informed on various aspects of the business, and keeping the right people in the loop at the right time is key.
If you didn’t know already, we’re a friendly bunch, and our communication with one another is what really sets us apart and make us a stronger unit.
To do this, we’ve set up a few processes:
- Weekly WhatsApp wrap-up message
- Monthly Business Breakfast
- Quarterly team away days
- Culture and Wellbeing board for suggestions
- Forums to connect different levels within the business to communicate effectively
- Six monthly employee wellbeing and engagement surveys
- Senior Leadership Team and Growth Team
- We hold monthly listening groups with our founders
Culture Awards
Not only have we been recognised this year by ‘Great Place To Work’, we were also shortlisted in the coveted UK Company Culture Awards for Best Working Environment (Location), Best Team Culture and Best Agency to Work for (Small).
We have also recently been shortlisted in the Northern Digital Awards for Best Agency Culture, with the ceremony being held in February 2024 to reveal the winners.
