Social values

Covid-19 Recovery

 

Transform is proud of our response to Covid-19 and how we’ve been able to support in managing and recovering from the pandemic for our staff, clients and local communities.

  

Since 2020 we have recruited over 300+ into our resourcing pool, with 80% of this being permeant staff.

 

We have worked with peers and customers to establish new ways of working for clients/teams enabling projects to continue effectively and efficiently. We have provided extensive Covid-19 support services to our clients, such as rapid deployment of additional resource and inclusive pastoral support, including extensive support to the Department for Education’s Covid-19 response.

  

Tackling Economic Inequality

 

We challenge our Recruitment Partners to present a diverse candidate longlist. We conduct inclusive hiring, providing without-bias training and a toolkit for hiring managers: an online language decoder for Job Specs that helps eliminate discriminatory language, structured competency based interviewing technique and templates, feedback scorecards and a minimum 2 stage interview process with representative interviewers.

Training on this process and the use of the tools and techniques described above is obligatory for all hiring managers. This has gone a long way to helping deliver a much more diverse candidate base, which is reflected in our improving metrics year on year.

 

We believe our inclusive culture and diverse teams deliver better outcomes for our customers. We have an active and wide-ranging programme of training, internal and external engagements, and events. We train staff (with a specific focus on managers) in unconscious bias, blind spots, micro-aggression, spotting privilege and understanding neurodiversity through both internal events and external training delivered by specialists in this space.

 

A specific focus for us is to tackle economic inequality and trying to break the trend where consultancies only recruit well-off graduates from top universities. To this end, we offer London Living wage paid internships and work experience and are working with Multiverse, an Apprenticeship provider that supports young people to find alternative career paths other than university. We have found that for pragmatic skills (e.g. coding and creative skills), apprenticeships can deliver better results faster. For our customers, we run free workshops on designing services for inclusivity, for example one we gave to government marketing staff through the Government Communications Service.  We are happy to provide this kind of extra support and have done so for DfE, HMCTS, Defra and in many other places.

 

Equal Opportunities 

 

Transform's award winning RD&I programme is led by our CEO, Emma Robertson.

  

Currently, our staff is 48% female and 16% from ethnic minorities. We are targeting KPI’s of 50% gender split and 20% ethnic diversity by 2023 and have a programme in place to support delivery through inclusive hiring practices supported by a culture that embraces inclusivity. In 2021, 50% of everyone employed was from an ethnic background.

  

 We have an active and wide-ranging programme of training, internal and external engagements and events, including:

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• Best practice hiring-without-bias training & reviews

• Investment in ‘Greenhouse’ Recruitment Portal to support consistent and fair recruitment processes

• Training regarding unconscious bias/blind spots/micro-aggression/privilege/covering/neurodiversity 

• Work with Brixton Finishing School to support 18-25-year olds from underrepresented groups to get into the creative industry

• A multi-year partnership with The Ideas Foundation, a charity that helps young people from underprivileged backgrounds get into the creative industry

• Multiple staff-led “i-Networks” to help support specific groups and minorities within Transform. All have the ambition to drive positive experiences, create opportunities and safe spaces at work. Such as ‘Beyond Her’ for junior women, ‘LGBTQ+’, ‘Vintage Transform’ for senior colleagues, ‘The Neuro Network’, ‘Working Parents’ and ‘The Ethnicity Network’

• Our “Code First: Girls” events, where senior technical staff work with young women to get them interested in a career in digital coding  

• We work to tackle economic inequality by offering London Living wage paid internships/work experience. We work with Multiverse, an Apprenticeship provider that supports young people to find alternative career paths other than university

• For our customers, we run free workshops on designing services for inclusivity.  We are happy to provide this kind of extra support and have done so for DfE, HMCTS, Defra and many others

 

 

Wellbeing

 

Our Mental Health programme is creating awareness of mental health in the workplace and fostering a connection across all our group activities. Each focal point is supported by on-line events (for staff, clients, customers and suppliers), content (e.g. blog-posts written by staff members who have experienced mental health challenges) and specific focus on reaching out to and working with our clients. Government clients are of special importance here, as our teams are often embedded with civil servants and mental health becomes a shared workplace issue.

 

Far from being initiative driven, mental health & wellness is an ongoing challenge that must be addressed in the work environment every day. To this purpose, we have a long-established team of Mental Health ambassadors. This team is constantly engaging with our staff, ensuring that there is support for them in the case of challenging personal or work circumstances. They are managing our Health & Wellbeing space on our intranet, containing documents and links to external mental health support resources.  Examples include guides to managing remote work, guides to nutrition and sleep, advice on physical activity and much more.

 

One of Transforms best resources to prevent mental health problems is our Fluid Working approach. We understand the 9-5 work often does not fit well with neither personal circumstances, nor client demands and therefore allow staff to manage their time with a great degree of flexibility, as long as they deliver what is expected of them.  This trust-based system demands that staff understand that we cannot let our clients down, but our experience has been excellent and client feedback has been very positive.

 

Fighting Climate Change

 

We believe that Transform, and the businesses with whom we work, have a critical role to play in delivering long lasting and impactful change. Our Climate Action Group, a cross-disciplinary team led by our Head of Sustainability Rachel Boland, is tasked with identifying opportunities across our own business operations and in our work with clients.

Whether that’s in developing more sustainable work processes and production approaches, or in advising our clients on how to use their influence to advocate for positive change, or in creating pro bono work for causes we believe in. Our ambition is to be at the forefront of change in our industry, to take courageous steps to protect the planet and use our position as a trusted advisor to businesses so that they can more fully understand their unique position of influence and reach and how they can help with the fight against climate change.

Actions have included:

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• We have ISO-14001 accreditation and an Environmental Management System

• We achieved an 8% carbon reduction in 2019

• We have an ongoing programme to minimise air and road travel and encourage the use of public transports; our Manchester office is positioned to maximise accessibility by public transport and our London office has been remodelled to increase support for bicycle commuters

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