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16.01.2025

8 min read

Impression’s Impact in 2024

This article was updated on: 17.01.2025

Each year, we publish our Impact Report documenting our efforts over the previous 12 months. This demonstrates our commitment to our “Business for Good” value and to make a difference to our people, our community and our planet.

In 2023’s Impact Report, we commented on the various economic factors resulting in challenging market conditions. Despite these ongoing challenges, Impression has had a successful year financially and has become a better business.

We have invested heavily into our proposition, which in turn has developed our employee value proposition through an increased focus on training, EDI and improving our Total Reward offering.

We have developed and delivered new service lines such as Creative Strategy and Digital Experience, helping to deliver greater results, for many clients who are seeing greater pressure on marketing budgets.

As we prepare this report, we are approaching our B Corp™ re-certification date and we’re truly looking forward to seeing the impact of the improvements we’ve made over the last three years.

B Corp™ continues to be our North Star and we see it as a key element of our continued success.

Our second year as B Corp™

2024 was our second year as a B Corp™ certified business and looking at our report, it’s been really interesting to see the things we set out to achieve and understand our progress against this. In the last 12 months, we have been even more mindful of our B Corp™ commitments and how we can blend these into our day-to-day operations. 

As a part of this, we asked individuals across the business to think about the ways in which they live this value in their everyday activities, by asking every team to complete a Team Manual (an expansion to our My Manual), and so having this front of mind has been important to ensure we are continuing with our journey to do better each year. We have also introduced a role into the People Team which is 20% focused on “Impact”, which includes Wellbeing, CSR and EDI activities. 

Our B Corp™ score

83.2

Impact assessment overall score

88

Our goal for re-certification

Whilst we have improved on our score of 82.3, we still have ambitions to improve on this following several changes which were implemented in the second half of 2024. We will continue to strive for a minimum of 88 in time for our next re-certification.

Governance

The Governance Impact Area evaluates a company’s overall mission, engagement around its social and environmental impact, ethics and transparency.

The plan

To ensure that the BCorp ethos is at the heart of our decision-making and we are honouring our commitment to our value of “Business for Good”. 

What we have done so far

Measurable KPIs

As part of our commitment to EDI, we have created 4 EDI Action Statements. One of these directly addresses senior leadership accountability and engagement, with a KPI of 75% of the management team engaging with and attending EDI activities over 2025 (each individual will be measured and held accountable).

Corporate oversight

We have acknowledged that there is an opportunity to improve our level of corporate oversight, by expanding our board to include non-owners and execs, and we will review our options in doing so.

Compliance training

We have researched, chosen and signed off on a learning management system to start implementing in January 2025. This will house all policies, procedures & compliance training across the business, including anti-corruption.

Financial education

We created a self-led module to explain the commercial of the business in greater detail to our employees, so they could understand terms like EBITDA and GP and gain an understanding of how the business operates financially

Goals for next year

Achieving EDI KPIs

We plan to make significant progress with EDI efforts, achieving our measurable KPI of 75% of the management team engaging with and attending EDI activities over 2025.

Measurable compliance training

With the successful implementation of the learning management system in the first half of 2024, we will move compliance training onto the system with measurable tracking and reporting of training completion across the business.

Workers

The Workers Impact Area evaluates a company’s contributions to its employees’ financial security, health & safety, wellness, career development, and engagement & satisfaction.

The plan

Our vision is to be the best place for digital talent to transform their career, and this is what we are working towards achieving.

What we have done so far

Salary benchmarking

We undertook annual benchmarking, comparing our salaries against similar competitors. This resulted in us raising all middle and senior management salary bands to exceed the market average.

Promote feedback

We introduced guidelines for delivering and receiving feedback, alongside running mandatory workshops on providing feedback with purpose.

Learning needs analysis

We created a survey to capture feedback on existing training methods and feelings towards our current Learning & Development offering. We received 75 responses with both quantitative and qualitative data, which were then used to define our L&D strategy and priorities, and to inform our choice of LMS.

Impact calendar

Using direct employee feedback from a diverse range of voices, we created a calendar of events which covers Wellbeing, EDI and CSR, with the aim to uplift minority voices, celebrate diversity and take action on matters important to our employees, such as sustainability and mental health.

Goals for next year

Employee-led initiatives

We will organise and deliver consistent Impact initiatives across 2025, and ensure the celebration of more diverse holidays than we have before.

Learning pathways

To support career development and to use the learning needs analysis, we will create learning pathways for every job role in the business, including a list of competencies, skills and outputs expected of individuals for full clarity. These will then be uploaded alongside relevant training to our Learning Management System.

Customers

The Customers Impact Area evaluates a company’s stewardship of its customers through the quality of its products and services, ethical marketing, data privacy and security, and feedback channels.

The plan

Take proactive steps to continue to keep our client data secure against the backdrop of an evolving threat landscape.

What we have done so far

Data privacy

Overhaul how we approach client data confidentiality: in order to better protect our client data and information, we implemented access-controlled cloud-based Google Shared Drives for storing data for each client account, thereby decentralising access to data and mitigating the risk of unauthorised access to client data.

Ethical marketing

Restricting where we place clients’ paid ads to avoid showing alongside harmful content.

Client feedback

We extensively seek feedback from our clients with varying touch points and communication methods to help clients share their thoughts in a way that works for them. Our feedback schedule includes monthly 121s between CS and our client Point of Contact (POC), quarterly NPS forms (20-second completion time), 3-6 monthly in-person team and client team meetings and 6 monthly calls or in-person meetings between senior client POCs and our Executive Sponsor team (Impression Directors) to evolve our partnerships.

Goals for next year

Enhancing our security further

To bolster our security further, we will explore the use of endpoint detection and response solutions to better protect us as we continue to promote remote working.

Improving client feedback

We plan to work with our clients to better understand how and when they prefer to provide their views. We have multiple channels at the moment, so we’re now refining and customising our requests to better suit our clients. We will continue to proactively request and share candid feedback with our clients.

Environment

The Environment Impact Area evaluates a company’s overall environmental management practices as well as its impact on the air, climate, water, land, and biodiversity. This includes the direct impact of a company’s operations and, when applicable, its supply chain and distribution channels.

The plan

We have been limited in our scope to reduce our environmental impact.

Our headquarters is leased, providing us with little opportunity to make environmental improvements, beyond changes already implemented. Our remaining two offices are serviced – giving us even less opportunity for improvements, but also causing challenges in monitoring our energy usage. In addition, as a business, we typically use little energy, so our scope for decreasing this is limited.

What we have done so far

We continued to embed and incrementally improve a number of environmental improvements over the last 12 months including;

Product purchasing

Removing the use of single-use coffee pods. All cleaning and sanitary products are ‘zero waste’ (previously we’d just looked at eco-friendly), removing the use of single-use plastics, purchasing water bottles and encouraging their use. 

Suppliers

Using local suppliers for office improvements, maintenance and providing refreshments for workshops, events and meetings.

Goals for next year

We plan to further review the opportunity for our leased and serviced offices to be accredited by a green building program.

Community

The Community Impact Area evaluates a company’s engagement with and impact on the communities in which it operates, hires from, and sources from. Topics include diversity, equity & inclusion, economic, impact, civic engagement, charitable giving, and supply chain management.

The plan

To be a business for good and continue to be mindful that everything we do has an impact: on our people, on our planet, and on the wider community.

What we have done so far

EDI action statements

As part of our commitment to EDI, we have created 4 EDI Action Statements which speak to our operating systems, senior leadership accountability, and employee & community support, with 18 measurable KPIs to be achieved in 2025. These have been agreed upon by our board and shared with business-wide for transparency.

Charitable donations

We have made charitable donations to 16 different charities as of December 2024, including Nottingham Pride, Save The Children and Cook For Good.

Inclusive activities

We continued with our Women’s Health & Men’s Mental Health brunches, as well as held a celebration for Diwali in our Nottingham and London offices, with educational communications sent business-wide.


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