Inform, connect and inspire. That’s Articulate Marketing’s mission, both when we deliver marketing and websites for B2B tech clients and when we think about our own company culture.
We are committed to learning and development, building happy, supportive and creative teams, and enabling a little thing we call ‘human flourishing’ (thanks to the Ancient Greeks for this concept).
As part of keeping ourselves honest, we invited IIP to audit our organisation, and they subsequently awarded us ‘We invest in people (Standard)’ last year. Then, we upped the ante by achieving Silver accreditation in 2021. With the 30th anniversary of Investors in People, we’re excited to share our story.
A trip down memory lane
Articulate has been on quite a journey with Investors in People. When we first started looking at the criteria for accreditation, we realised two things: how far we’d come already and how far we still had to go.
The rigorous assessment framework measures several indicators over three categories: Leading, Improving and Supporting. Our assessor praised our openness and transparency, robust performance management processes and gave us in-depth pointers for where we could improve, too.
Showing our appreciation
When we received our certification, we were pleased to find that we had scored well above the average for IIP organisations. Good grades aside, we appreciate how IIP took the time to give us advice with their report and one-to-one feedback. Investing in people is all about the journey, not the destination.
It was heartening for our Chief Happiness Officer, Liz, and our CFO, Mirela, to be acknowledged for their efforts in spearheading initiatives in the company. These have included developing a learning culture, becoming a B Corp and our happiness culture (which you can learn more about here).
A commitment to people
Over this last year, employee wellbeing has been front-of-mind for us. People are experiencing higher levels of stress when managing the responsibilities of work and life during the pandemic. We believe IIP has helped us focus our attention on our friends and colleagues at work, ensuring we are always mindful, proactive and supportive.
That’s why we’ve recently launched the BUPA Employee Assistance Programme for everyone in the company. It offers mental health resources such as online cognitive behavioural therapy and access to a remote nurse or GP. The company has also scheduled a ‘week of calm’ later in the year to give people a respite from online meetings, supported by free subscriptions to the Calm app and mindfulness coaching.
This is a benefit, alongside many others, which has helped us attract talented new hires and build resiliency in our current team for when times get tough.
The future for Articulate Marketing & IIP
IIP is symbolic of our ambition not just to be a successful marketing agency but a sustainable business in the long term. We have made other such commitments to B Corp, to be a real Living Wage employer, to a goal of reaching net-zero carbon emissions by 2025.
As you can tell, with many of us in the business being writers and creatives, we know the value of a second pair of eyes on our work. Feedback is a gift. So, thank you to IIP for what they’ve given us and congratulations on this amazing milestone. Next year, we’re going for the Gold.
Discover how Investors in People can help your organisation by viewing our success stories or accreditations.
