Rose Watkins Jones, Impression Digital

In December 2022, Rose Watkins Jones – described by the judges as a “credit to the profession” – introduced a tool called My Manual, a living document to help employees at Impression, a digital growth agency, discover and communicate their working styles, motivations and individuality to help everyone work better collaboratively.

The need to increase understanding and awareness of a diverse set of working styles, improve employee engagement and working relationships through a continuous people-led initiative was identified as a priority as Impression was growing fast. The team had doubled to 120 employees in one year and there was a disconnect between departments and locations in their ways of working. The workforce was also diversifying and had an increased number of neurodiverse employees. 

“As a B-Corp organisation, our approach to diversity and inclusion is critical and we felt we could be doing more to support those who are neurodiverse or to recognise that everyone has a unique way of working,” Watkins Jones said.

“From studying ethical practice in my CIPD Level 3 People Practice qualification, I knew that when working as part of a team, people professionals can show respect and inclusivity by valuing team differences and understanding how this can be used for the benefit of a productive business.”

The manual, which was rolled out to the whole organisation by email and via posts on its intranet, included a series of self-exploratory questions for an individual to fill in. The people team then distributed this to that person’s line manager and included it in a live shared drive for anyone across the business to access. Despite not being compulsory, there was a 98 per cent engagement rate. 

In the Great Place to Work survey 2023, Impression scored highly in five areas: safety, caring, competence, team and integrity. Its overall score of 94 per cent placed the organisation 21st on the leaderboard of Great Places to Work (Medium) out of more than 250,000 entries. 

The judges said: “What we especially admired was the extent to which she had identified a business need and developed a solution to it that was both strategically astute and entirely practical. Her personal role in leading the initiative was very apparent. Overall, we thought Rose was outstanding and a credit to the profession. We look forward to seeing her career thrive into the future.”