Gamban is a gambling-blocking software company. The app is designed to help people who suffer from gambling and act as a tool within their recovery journey. 

The company has invested in people at work by delivering a variety of company-wide training and workshops, including profiling people’s preferred ways of working and assistance with ways to communicate in a covid world.

Training days included workshopping communication techniques with a voice coach that helped employees develop their communication skills via a video platform.

Along with this, Gamban helped employees understand each other’s preferred ways of working and analyse personality types to improve upon collaborative workstreams.

The organisation has predominantly worked from home since before the coronavirus pandemic. Still, they had continued to ensure that staff are supported throughout this period via regular team check-ins and allowing space and time for employees to meet up when necessary (and it was permitted by law!).

We spoke to CEO Jack Symons about why they entered, what winning an award would mean to them and what the future holds for Gamban.

Why did you enter The Investors in People Awards 2021?

We feel it’s essential to continually improve and develop our internal ethos for supporting our team as a company. 

The value of entering an award such as Investors in People is getting to hear the incredible stories at other companies whilst being allowed to share our own. 

Are there any goals or challenges you hope an award will help you achieve or solve?

Winning an award for our employment practices and workplace culture is a goal, but not the end goal. 

We feel winning an award such as this would be a moment of recognition of the work completed in a journey to being the best employers we can be – a company that places the people that make it what it is at its heart.

Tell us what distinguishes you from other companies in the category you’re shortlisted in.

The companies nominated in our category are all great. It is heartening to see so many companies and organisations with a social purpose nominated. 

What makes us different is our innovative approach to being the best software developers in our space of gambling blocking software globally. We operate a small team with a big heart and a social purpose of helping those affected by gambling disorders to recover from harm. 

Our culture of trust, autonomy and agency has served us exceptionally well during such difficult times. Our willingness to make mistakes and focus on the journey over the destination.

What does being shortlisted mean to everyone at your company?

It’s great for our employees to know that they’re working for a company that puts work in to ensure they are listened to and that the workplace culture is positive.

What would it mean to win?

Winning an award such as Silver Employer of the Year would be a great nod to the work we do internally as an organisation to make sure that our values shine through, that we continue to look to improve and become a workplace that supports, develops and understands the great people that we have working for us.

How does being shortlisted benefit your customers?

The nature of our products is that they help people – we want the sincerity in our motivations for building our technology to translate into a value at the company’s core. 

We care about people, and that includes the people in the company. Being able to show that through awards such as this that reflect the human element of our company and let our humanity shine through.

How would you use being the recipient of this award to influence others?

It is essential that those we do business with value their employees – we must not turn a blind eye to the employment practices of organisations we work with. 

If we received this award, it would be put front and centre as part of what we at Beanstalk stand for. We must demonstrate that we ‘walk the walk’ and talk the talk when it comes to valuing our employees and colleagues.

What can we expect to see from your organisation in the next 12 months? (And beyond!)

We want to become the best employers we can: working towards gold and then platinum status in this area is the goal. 

We intend to export our product into European and US markets, which means the team is likely to scale and challenge our leadership skills as we create new leaders and bring together more people from diverse backgrounds to support those experiencing gambling-related harm.

What advice would you give to anyone applying for The Investors in People Awards 2022?

Do it! It is great to reflect on your work as an organisation to invest time and effort into your workforce. 

Applying for an Award offers a natural moment where you can pause for reflection, assess the successes and identify what will come next for a company.