CASE STUDY
Ambitious London-based marketing agency, Raptor put in clear people and culture foundations for future growth.
Raptor is a London-based fully integrated marketing agency, that specialises in connecting brands with the youth market. Established in 2015, they have seen significant growth and now have about 30 employees across three teams.
The agency was initially set up because the founders, David and Jonny saw a gap in the market, Seamus, the Managing Director then joined the team in 2016. The teams have worked with some awesome brands, including Tinder, Pinterest, Nandos and Deliveroo.
Project Summary (What We Did)
Here is what Dave and Seamus had to say about working with Gemma and Culturehood:
When we first spoke with Gemma about how she could help us, we wanted to understand the current state of our HR operations, gauge team engagement, and gather feedback to help us move forward. Based on this, Gemma recommended her PeopleEngage+ program as the ideal solution.
The PeopleEngage+ program is for established small to medium-sized businesses. It begins with a deep dive into the overall employee experience and includes an employee survey supported by one-on-one interviews to understand team perspectives and pain points. Additionally, Gemma conducted a review to evaluate how effectively we were positioning ourselves as an employer of choice. Drawing from this research, Gemma created a set of people and culture objectives containing priorities and future metrics for us to continue to monitor.
Industry: Youth Marketing Agency
Team size: 50 plus
Website: www.raptor-london.co.uk
Work (so far!): PeopleEngage+ Program and 9 month Retainer
The Outcomes
Once the strategy was clear, we brought Gemma on board on a retained basis to help implement the identified actions. She established a working party called CultureLabs, bringing together team members from across the agency to focus on the key priorities. This process has worked well, as the team is eager to be involved in helping shape the agency’s future. The collaborative approach has also strengthened the SLT's credibility as leaders.
Gemma has shared with us some tried and tested solutions to help us overcome our people challenges, as a result of which we are seeing fewer people leave the business. She also provided us with clear metrics to measure the impact of our initiatives, including employee turnover, recruitment spending and eNPS. All of these steps are being put in place to help us continue to build a strong foundation for future growth and retain our existing talent.
We realise there is more to HR than we initially thought. We know we are in safe hands with Gemma, who can guide and help us understand how to harness and build upon what makes Raptor’s company culture so unique, so we can continue to attract and retain top talent.
What Happens Next
Raptor is not quite ready to hire a Chief People Office so by working with Gemma we have access to her immense expertise, saving us time and budget.
We are methodically working through all of Gemma’s recommendations, aiming to have everything in place by the end of January 2025. The first phase has been focussing on our performance framework and our company values to ensure they’re truly woven into our employee experience—not just words on a website! Next, we’ll focus on elevating our hiring and onboarding over the next 2-3 months, so we’re ready for early 2025.​​
“Gemma has quickly integrated into the Raptor team, making a huge impact from the start. One of her first encounters with the team was during an offsite away day where she introduced the HR project to the team starting with a personality profiling exercise, she smashed it and was a hit from day one Curious, objective, open, honest, experienced, challenging (in a good way), supportive and generally awesome, Gemma does a great job and is highly recommended!”
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- David Burgman and Seamus Wright, SLT Raptor London