Welcome to our annual impact report! As we reflect on the last year, we realise how much the cost-of-living crisis has taken the spotlight, impacting businesses and households across the UK. Here at Gong however, we deeply care about every stakeholder in our community, valuing our people as much as our customers and financial success. So, following our merger with Cherish PR, which makes us now part of The Wilful Group, the Senior Team took the decision to provide a special one-time cost-of-living payment to help our invaluable employees navigate rising energy and food bills.
We have stayed agile by being responsive to our team and making a meaningful difference for clients, particularly in tackling urgent issues like climate change. Guided by our core values of being Heroic, Optimistic and Human, we have been striving to create a positive workplace and overcome challenges together.
We've also strengthened Wilful Group's proposition by creating sector specialisms (read more about that in our ‘Clients’ section) which has allowed us to foster further collaboration across The Wilful Group companies.
Learning and development is a core part of our ethos, so this year we've enhanced our program. The training programme benefits both junior members through valuable mentorship and senior members through training delivery. Additionally, we've established Wilful committees, such as the Ministry of Fun & Culture for exciting events, the Better Business Committee for B Corp commitments, and the Impact Committee for driving our CSR ambitions. The new committees allow the team to amplify their positive impact and expand their knowledge and experience beyond client work.
As a growing business we realise the impetus is on us to drive and communicate positive impact through our clients, our supplier network, and our partners. As we reflect on the year we’ve just had, we look ahead at what we need to improve and where we can do better. We have big ambitions for 2023, including B Corp certification for fellow Wilful group member Cherish PR – watch this space!
This year we altered our company structure to introduce Wilful client teams. The teams match our subjects of expertise, aiming to create a taskforce of specialists with honed subject expertise to deliver client work. It also gives our employees the chance to follow their passions into a specialism and grow in the areas where they are more passionate.
This year we welcomed a number of new clients into our team and welcomed some old clients back into the fold, which now sees us creating communications to support the impact made in a number of areas from diversity and inclusion, to ocean plastics, to the circular economy, and even electric vehicles. We use a taskforce style approach to select a team of specialists with honed subject expertise to help us create greater impact for our clients. It also gives our employees the chance to follow their interests into a specialism and grow in the areas where they are more passionate.
How are we doing?
Expanding our internship programme to reach talented individuals outside of the university education route was a stretch target last year. While we’ve managed to broaden our appeal to more applicants from diverse backgrounds, we haven’t yet quite cracked reaching those talented individuals without university education. Working alongside recruitment partners, such as the Taylor Bennett Foundation and B Corp recruiter Escape the City, whilst using our network in Africa, we have been able to reach employees and interns from more diverse backgrounds. In the last year we have hired full time employees and interns from Argentina, Kenya, the US and Sweden.
CASE STUDY: MENTAL HEALTH AWARENESS WEEK
To show our support for Mental Health Awareness Week (May 9th to 16th), Wilful hosted a series of events and initiatives for the team, aimed at focusing on achieving good mental health. Events included a Monday afternoon yoga session in the office (and virtually for at-home workers), an evening of laughs at the Laugh Out Loud comedy club, and free head and hand massages in the office. Our “Food for your mood” lunch focused on healthy foods that have a nutritional impact on the brain and our mood. To finish the week, Wilful gifted each employee with “the Big Lie-In”, an opportunity to spend the morning in bed with our weekly creative inspiration meeting attended virtually from the comfort of our beds.
JAD Jo Hooke added:
“It was such a great week for slowing down and taking stock of how to look after our mental health. Learning about ‘good mood food’ and having a laugh at the comedy club were my highlights.”
VOLUNTEER SPOTLIGHT
Account Executive Jess Bromham donated her skills as a digital marketer to not-for-profit Give to the World. Give to the World is fully managed by volunteers and its mission is to empower the world’s most vulnerable people with life-saving resources in conflict and disaster affected areas across the globe. Jess helped the charity create social media content and posts for an upcoming fundraiser in New York City and a Go Fund Me page to send more donations to their partner in Ukraine.
Jess commented:
“It was wonderful to help a company that is totally run by passionate volunteers, and I learnt a lot from them too!”
PRO-BONO SPOTLIGHT
Gong is supporting the Walk it Back project, whose founder, Craig Cohon, has a mission to wipe clean his entire lifetime of carbon emissions since birth. He is walking from Europe to Asia raising money to fund carbon removal projects. Gong is helping to create awareness of his efforts through editing and ideas generation for his Medium blog, plus assisting with a new social media campaign and influencer partnerships.
BUILDING OUR B CORP NETWORK
As in-person events fully resumed so too did Gong’s programme of networking and building our B Corp network. The Gong team has attended many networking events, including UKSIF’s Autumn conference, Invest Africa’s series on Impact Investing, B Corp’s milestone celebration of 1000 UK B Corps, in which it saw 1,000 B Corps come together for an evening of entertainment and networking at the Natural History Museum.
Timeline of our climate journey
B CORP WEEK
In October Gong kicked off an internal initiative to celebrate all things B Corp with the introduction of B Corp Week. The goal was to introduce B Corp to our new team members following our merger with Cherish PR and raise awareness of the movement more widely. We hosted a series of events across the five key assessment categories, Governance, Workers, Community, Environment and Customers. We launched our Cycle2Work Scheme, taste tested the B Corp community’s incredible selection of wine and chocolate and relaxed with a morning yoga session. To conclude the week, we put our employees to the test, asking colleagues to brush up on their knowledge by completing our own B Corp E-Learning platform ahead of the Big B Corp Quiz where teammates won a hamper filled with B Corp goodies.
Senior Account Manager Sofia Costa Navarro said:
“Having recently started at the company prior to B Corp week, it was a really fun way to learn more about the movement within the UK and what it means for Gong. As one of the hosts of the wine and chocolate tasting session, the week provided an excellent way to get to know my new colleagues, learn more about the movement but also teach them about my own country – as we all know Argentina makes some of the best wines!”
CASE STUDY: E-WASTE RECYCLING
Electronic waste (e-waste) is already the world’s fastest growing and most toxic waste stream and only 20% is currently recycled. In the UK, 50% of the devices thrown away are still working. On the other side, nearly 2 million children do not have access to a laptop, desktop, or tablet at home.
In 2022, we decided to give our devices a second life, cutting e-waste and CO2 emissions. By partnering with Reconome, an IT hardware recycling company (and fellow Bcorp), 100% of our electronical waste has been recycled. Eight laptops and one printer were donated to schools and charities, preventing 22.86 kg of waste and avoiding 2,438 kg of CO2 emissions, which is equivalent to the amount of CO2 that 110 trees would normally sequester over one year.
Our donations contributed to “Reduce Inequalities” (SDG-10) by supporting “Decent Work and Economic Growth” (SDG-8) and achieving "Sustainable Cities and Communities" (SDG-11).
STRENGTHENING OUR ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY
In March 2023, we strengthened our environmental policy, adding clear guidelines about measurement and monitoring, to hold ourselves to account to a set of interim goals related to pursuing a low impact operational footprint. These interim goals include:
- Minimise CO2 emissions through less business travel, and where we can’t stop, remove the CO2 we produce.
- When we socialise or entertain at work, we have taken the decision to be meat free to reduce our impact on the environment and promote awareness that plant-based food is healthy and delicious.
- Reduce energy usage everywhere we work by turning down thermostats and turning off devices when not in use and using low energy lighting.
- Go plastic free. We strive to keep plastic out of the office, buying products in glass or aluminium where the choice exists. If we do use plastic (at our office water station for example), then we return the bottles to the supplier for re-use or recycling.
WILFUL BUDDIES
Gong buddies are the friendly faces for someone starting at Gong to turn to, to make them feel welcome and to make sure they know they have someone they can ask any question they might have. In the first week, the buddy takes the employee out for a coffee, as well as checking in regularly throughout their first few weeks to make sure they are getting on okay and giving them the chance to ask any questions (nothing is a silly question) in case they don’t want to bother their manager. The buddy will also help initiate social plans to make them feel part of the team.
