Get in touch with our team
Feature image for 27.01.2022

27.01.2022

3 min read

Impression enhances and updates internal policies

This article was updated on: 20.07.2022

When I joined Impression in June 2021, I led a session with the Leadership Team to determine who we wanted to be as an employer and what our vision for this was. From this, I was able to create a People Ambition statement, which underpins our approach to everything relating to our People:


We believe that high performance deserves high reward. We want everyone to perform at their best but we understand that we are humans, and sometimes things happen in our lives. At Impression, we want to make sure our people have everything they need to do their job well, and we will support them to be their best self inside and outside of work.  


This approach aligns with my personal values and I was therefore really excited to begin working on initiatives that would support our people ambition whilst also driving growth for the business. 

After gathering some initial feedback, and looking at the external market,  it was clear that we needed to reassess our benefits offering. We made a few immediate changes, including reducing our working hours from 40 hours to a 37.5 hour week with no salary reduction – and I decided to run some focus groups for everyone to be able to participate in the conversation about what benefits mattered to them. 

This was a really useful exercise, providing us with clarity from different people at different levels about what mattered the most to them. We found this approach so valuable that we will continue to run a focus group every 12 months as a check-in with the business.  I am delighted to announce that as a result of our first focus group, we have made some important changes and improvements to our offering:

  • Enhanced sick pay – 8 weeks full pay, 8 weeks half pay and then statutory pay in any rolling 12 month period
  • Compassionate leave – a discretionary amount because we truly believe there is no time limit on grief, and we will assess on a case by case basis
  • Pregnancy loss leave – guaranteed 1 week paid leave for miscarriage or a failed IVF attempt for any gender
  • Enhanced parental leave – 8 weeks full pay, 8 weeks half pay and then statutory pay for pregnant parents, 2 weeks pay and 2 weeks statutory pay for non-pregnant parents, 4 weeks pay for adoption leave
  • Bonus & Pension – An additional 1% per person paid in to the pension scheme if we achieve our target margin in 2022
  • Annual leave – increasing to 28 days plus bank holidays
  • Life Leave – discretionary paid leave for when unexpected events happen in your life i.e. car issues, house issues, moving house, supporting someone at a medical appointment

One of my main priorities is maintaining Impression’s status as a great place to work. I’m so proud and happy to see that our policies are inclusive and that Impression is a business that wants to support its people, even when they’re battling challenges outside of work or are growing their family. From our first focus group, we have been able to make these changes but this is only the start, and we plan to improve further as we continue to grow.  

Find out more about Impression or head to our careers page to apply to be a part of our journey.