We're one of UK's 100 Best Small Companies to Work For

What's that?

For those who don't know, Best Companies are the global specialists in workplace and employee engagement. They have a star rating system, which to our minds makes it a kind of Michelin of company culture. This year, we have earned our One-Star Accreditation.

The accreditation, which recognises organisations with “very good” levels of workplace engagement, was awarded to us following all our employees completing of a survey about wellbeing, pay and benefits, personal growth, their team, the agency’s leadership and more. We ensured that as many Wasters' voices as possible was heard.

Alongside our One-Star accreditation, we have also earned 3 more accolades, which rank us against the other businesses who have gone through the Best Companies process:

• Marketing and Media’s 40 Best Agencies to Work For

• The UK's 100 Best Small Companies to Work For

• Top 30 Best Small Companies to Work for in London

"It’s amazing to receive accreditation from Best Companies. It’s been a challenging year for all businesses, but we are really proud that throughout the pandemic, we’ve been able to retain our unique culture and prioritise our people’s happiness and wellbeing, as shown by these accolades.” - Mike, Co-Founder

According to Best Companies, the accolade is “a significant achievement that shows an organisation is taking workplace engagement seriously”. Yes, we are - and it feels really good to hear that it's been working.

Supporting Wasters Through the Pandemic

Our people are always our priority. Over the last year, we worked with our HR department to make sure we were aware and doing something about the effect that the pandemic was having on our minds & bodies. We had a weekly mental health & wellness newsletter go out to our wasters (with helpful bits of info such as the benefits of gaming on mental health), gave them access to resources and even got their minds off things with regular get-togethers, a zoom magician experience and - our favourite - a digital llama farm experience. It didn’t disappoint.

We review our employee benefits regularly to ensure that they are still suitable to our employee’s needs and send out an engagement survey once every month to get a sense of how everyone is feeling and work on any areas of improvements from our feedback.

Talent & Recruitment Approach

Our approach to talent and recruitment is to level out the playing field to attract and hire a more diverse range of candidates. We’ve encouraged those in leadership teams and those in hiring positions to take unconscious bias training and diversity and inclusion training. We ensure that there is a diverse hiring panel during the interview process and re-evaluate job expectations in order to remove job spec barriers.

One of the most notable initiatives was that we created our very own Waste Office in Animal Crossing: New Horizons and posted a brief for potential interns to answer. We were looking to reach out to a more diverse pool of people and strengthen our links to the gaming industry. It was a smashing success, and we also found our new brilliant intern Bella though it. Serendipity?

"We couldn't be happier with this accolade. It recognises the spirit of every Waster and it shines a light on the ingenuity of our admin and HR teams and all their effort, care and hard work. We don't see this accolade as a "job done, box ticked" thing, we see it as one of many steps in our journey to continuously improve our company while staying true to our cultural principles." - Visar, Co-founder

Diversity & Inclusion

Since summer last year, we’ve also reached heightened levels of awareness about diversity and black minorities - which prompted us to take action and do what we can. We matched our wasters’ donations to BLM causes and also created a Diversity panel to support our commitment to making our agency a diverse and inclusive environment. They meet every fortnight to share ideas, experiences and monitor the progress of the D&I plan. You can read our Diversity & Inclusion statement here.

We’re also in the middle of a partnership deal with our preferred gaming charity Special Effect, who are driven by their mission to enable every child to play.

Moving forward

These accolades follow a year of successes for us, which has seen us add to our roster of clients, increase revenue by 12%, and receive Agency of the Year awards at both The Drum Content Awards and The DADIs. It's been a hell of a year - and we're planning on an even greater 2021.

We'll keep on putting our Wasters first, listening to them and offering support wherever needed. As we emerge out of the pandemic, no doubt more challenges will come our way, but we'll get through it all with our Waste mindset of being kind and brave.

Find out more about our philosophy on our Culture page.