The Duke of Cambridge recently launched ‘Mental Health at Work’ a new initiative from Heads Together and Mind. But, while it’s a huge step towards improving mental health in the workplace, it came alongside some shocking statistics. Hundreds of thousands of people lose jobs as a result of poor mental health, which equates to companies losing valuable staff, purely because they’re not equipped to deal with or support mental health problems. Only 2% of people said they’d feel comfortable talking to HR about their mental health, and as Mind’s research shows, a quarter of British people sit at work, suffering in silence.

But at Rufus Leonard the stats are pretty different. We found that 91% of staff feel comfortable talking to HR, 85% of employees know who to turn to if they have a mental health issue, and the same amount know that Rufus cares about their wellbeing.

Happiness and health are, without question, two of the most important things for humans to have; and for years businesses have been trying to introduce ways to make sure employees have both. To be clear, this isn’t in terms of health insurance or receiving an annual bonus to make you happy – rather, it’s about mental wellbeing. It means ensuring that day-to-day we’re feeling the best we can – not burnt out, run down, anxious…

Of course, the scope of problems is huge and just like most things, there’s no one-size-fits-all. Some people may only feel stress during certain periods of their lives, for others it can be a daily battle; there are over 200 recognised mental illnesses, so there’s probably at least 2,000 things that could be done to tackle these, and we can’t be expected to do all of them in the office. Considering we apparently spend a massive 90,000 hours at work during our life time, however, we can at least do our best to cover as much ground as possible. Which is what we at Rufus are trying to do – and, if our stats are anything to go by, it seems like we’re doing a pretty good job.

So how do we do it – and how can you?

 At Rufus, we’ve got a pretty extensive list of things we’re doing to ensure our staff are their happiest and healthiest.

Of course, there are popular choices like yoga and meditation. Where once yoga was considered just a fad, you probably won’t find a gym in the UK now that doesn’t have a regular class. And it’s seeping its way into workplaces, too. With yoga and meditation proven to ease the symptoms of depression and anxiety, there’s no doubt that regular sessions throughout the week will do a world of good for staff’s wellbeing, so we’ve introduced yoga sessions and a designated meditation room here at Rufus.

Like we said, though, no one size fits all. Sometimes things can’t be soothed by an exercise class (it’s certainly not a wholly adequate replacement for traditional forms of therapy), and much more needs to be done. 

 The most important thing, and indeed the first step necessary into making your workplace as happy and healthy as possible, is getting Board and Senior level staff involved. There are countless training and consultancy courses designed to better equip management to support staff who are struggling, and even a couple of days spent on these courses could do wonders for an organisation. This isn’t suggesting that all bosses need to become licensed therapists, but they should be willing to expand their understanding.

It’s also worth having advocates throughout the business – whether these are people who put on talks and courses, or just people who are trusted, and can act as a go-to if someone needs to talk. Here, we implemented just that, with Project Director Rosie Lee being appointed as our very first Mental Health First Aider, with the view to more joining her. While HR are always available to speak to, it’s important that other people are on hand to help staff feel comfortable talking about mental health issues. It’s a simple, but massive step, and one that will hopefully make our already hugely positive stats even better. 

Sometimes someone to talk to isn’t even what’s needed, but rather just some downtime. And in gaining an understanding how staff might be struggling, it’s likely management will be more on board with implementing classes or sessions during the work day, approving mental health days, and advocating for a more flexible working environment to benefit staff who may be suffering. As a result, staff will be more willing to have an open conversation, but as flexibility increases, pressure is likely to ease off, and what businesses will actually see is an increase in productivity and a decrease in sick days. Take Kirk’s story, as told by Heads Together as a prime example.

Flexible working is arguably one of the most important things businesses can make available – and not just for parents and carers. As Mentalhealth.org explains, people with ongoing mental health problems meet the Equality Act and Disability Discrimination Act’s definition of disability – and are therefore entitled to reasonable adjustments to their job/workplace.

Reasonable adjustments can include:

• Changing a person’s working pattern to enable them to start later or finish earlier because of the side effects of medication, or allowing them to travel the night before meetings and stay over to avoid early morning travel.
• Providing a person with a laptop, remote access software and permission to work at home on set days, or flexibly according to the severity of their symptoms (within a monthly limit).
• Excusing someone from attending work functions and client events involving food, instead allowing them to set up alternative networking arrangements that achieve similar business returns.

Once again, these might not work for everyone, but taking conversations with staff on board, and listening to how they feel they can be supported, means these adjustments can be tailored to create the best possible outcome for everyone.

Then there’s smaller things – freezers stocked with ice creams, free fruit throughout the week, dogs in the office, hungry days (where we’ll support staff in going out to events that will further their career development), regular social gatherings… Sometimes it’s the bigger things that matter, but sometimes, tiny gestures make all the difference necessary to feel a whole lot better.  

We’re still figuring out the best way to help employees with mental health and wellbeing – it’s a work in progress and there will be a lot of trial and error along the way. What we do know, however, is that people are talking – and that’s a massive step forward.

Here’s a full list of things we do at Rufus to help with health/happiness:

Healthcare

Ice creams

Hungry days

Social gatherings

Discounted gym membership

Discounted visits to the dentist

Manicures

Massages

Flexible working (for all everyone)

Mindful colouring in

Yoga

Cycle to work scheme

Open door policy with HR

Working environment

Regular reviews for staff

Family planning survey (to see how people really feel)

Ad hoc things (e.g. giving out cool spray during the hot summer we’ve just had)

A week-long plan for mental health awareness week including Tea & Cake with TED talks, yoga, a designated room for meditation, origin stories addressing mental health, smoothies, a place for people to feel comfortable sharing information and stories about mental health

Dogs 

Free fruit each week

Working with NABS

Opportunities to volunteer

Boxing club

*Source: Mind, the mental health charity

With one in five Brits now regularly shopping in the free-from section and with the dairy-free market growing at a rapid rate, Dairy Crest’s Vitalite was in a prime position to take a portion of the market, but the opposite was happening. Vitalite had been the number one selling dairy-free spread for many years, but Pure had taken over. With new competitors coming to the market, such as LactoFree and Koko, Vitalite was losing relevance. 

The problem for Vitalite was that most people thought of it as a sunflower spread; the one behind the catchy jingle from the 1980s advert. They didn’t see it as a dairy-free spread, but that’s exactly what it is. To reach the younger, health-conscious audience, they needed to embrace their dairy-free credentials, which for years had been seen as a necessary compromise. Collaborating with BrandOpus on a new identity and pack design, they looked to build brand equity within the growing dairy-free sector, whilst ensuring they didn’t put off their existing, loyal consumers. 

Vitalite already had a joyful brand image – thanks, in part, to the trappings of its 80s advert. It gave them the ideal platform to celebrate the dairy-free message. Sunshine had long associations with the brand, but by moving away from the cartoon-like character of the sun on the old pack, and embracing the vitality of sunshine with a new illustration, they promoted the natural and positive lifestyle choice of Vitalite being dairy-free. This continued throughout the design with the painted texture creating a natural feel. They also elevated the dairy-free description to the brand identity itself, making it the overarching selling point. 

Overall, the new design is much more contemporary, whilst remaining distinctly Vitalite with its green and yellow colours that help maintain the recognition of existing customers, and ensure stand out on the fixture.

The results speak for themselves. The rebrand has attracted new customers, driven penetration and increased value and volume sales growth. Perhaps most significantly, Vitalite regained its position as the number one dairy-free spread in the UK, gaining 17% more volume than Pure. 

Since rebranding, Vitalite has successfully reached a younger audience. In the year after launch they saw 150,000 new households trying out the product, and 1.2 million households buying it overall. Its penetration increased by 12%, despite an aggressive competitor landscape and Vitalite’s value grew by £508,000 – that’s up 11.6%. 

Off the back of the success, Vitalite is now producing another dairy-free spread: Coconut, which has brought new consumers to the market. This promising variant is strengthening their number one spot in the dairy-free spread category. 

BrandOpus and Dairy Crest won a Gold DBA Design Effectiveness Award for the rebrand of Vitalite. You can read their winning case study in full here. 

DBA Design Effectiveness Awards

The Raspberry Pi Foundation’s mission is to put the power of digital into the hands of people all over the world, by providing small, high-performance computers costing just $35, along with resources and training to help people learn about computing. 

The Foundation’s Raspberry Pi is the third best-selling computer of all time – behind only Apple and Microsoft. Only the size of a credit card, it’s a small piece of hardware and software that connects to a power supply, mouse, keyboard, display and internet to become a fully functioning computer. It’s a cheap and practical solution for people around the world.  

What it needed was a case. This needed to be both functional and elegant to sell as an appealing product. The design also needed to meet some specific requirements: to be simple to assemble with no fixing screws, low cost, appeal to all sorts of audiences, transportable and accommodate a range of inputs. It also had to embody the ethos of the foundation’s mission, showcase the Pi as the hero by providing visibility of the printed circuit board and, ideally, be produced in the UK. 

The solution is a set of six high-quality moulded parts that are held together with spring clips. It acts as a roll cage, protecting the pcb (printed circuit board) while providing open access to connectors on the board. A transparent light pipe also lets you see the status indicators. It also has ‘knock-out’ features that allow it to be wall mounted. 

From an aesthetic point of view, it is friendly, fun and sleek, mirroring the Raspberry Pi brand. It communicates the clever simplicity of the brand and product, and encourages adaptation and learning. And costing just £6, it helps the brand to maintain its low-cost selling point. 

“Every time the Pi is photographed now, it’s in the case. It’s beautiful enough to become every bit associated with Raspberry Pi as the bare pcb”, says Eden Upton, CEO of Raspberry Pi. This is particularly important for the foundation as it helps to maximise reach of the products, which is essential for a charity aimed at helping more and more people become computer literate. 

Reviews have shown that the case has been received tremendously well, and it is being used in various configurations. Although it wasn’t the aim to become a brand, the case has strengthened Raspberry Pi’s position by creating a distinct and recognisable visual identity, helping to assert its brand as a leader in an increasingly active hobbyist/maker market. 

In just two years from launch, 861,460 Raspberry Pi cases were sold. And encouraged by the success of the case, an even smaller one was developed. Named the Pi Zero Case, it has three alternative lids and sold 130,000 units in just two months from launch. Together the cases generated a total profit of over £725,00 for the Foundation between May 2015 and May 2017.

Since then, sales of the cases have continued to grow, creating longer-term security for the Foundation. Commenting recently, Raspberry Pi’s Director of Engineering, Gordon Hollingworth says, “With over 2 million now sold, the Official Raspberry Pi Case has been more successful than we dared hope. Its affordable beauty embodies the brand, its flexible functionality helps us reach more users, and its commercial success provides a valuable financial contribution to the on going work and mission of the Raspberry Pi Foundation.” 

DBA Design Effectiveness Awards

A DBA Design Effectiveness Award win represents independent and authoritative recognition of the value of your work and will enable you to powerfully demonstrate your ability to deliver competitive advantage through design. 

The 2019 Entry pack is now available at: effectivedesign.org.uk     The entry deadline is:  5pm GMT, 30 November 2018

In 2014, JP Campbell, a man with a soup van in Edinburgh, had an idea that would help tackle child hunger in poorer areas. What if hunger could feed hunger? This was the very question that led to the birth of One Feeds Two – a model that saw JP donate school meals to children in poverty for every soup he sold. Yet, despite JP delivering 40,000 school meals through his sales, he was determined to scale the concept in order to feed more of the 66 million children who go to school hungry everyday worldwide. 

Recognising that this was a mission too big for one person, JP partnered with The Clearing in order to help One Feeds Two snowball and raise awareness among consumers to deliver a mighty one million meals. Furthermore, the goal was set to engage one national food company and one retail chain to adopt the One Feeds Two mark within their own business models.  

However, the team and JP were faced with several barriers. Firstly, One Feeds Two needed a clear unifying positioning as the concept was being articulated in a number of different ways, and its language needed to be more motivating and memorable. On top of this, One Feeds Two was caught within the congested charity sector – a sector in which many find they are discouraged by common guilt trip tactics that tug on people’s heartstrings. 

What followed was a complete rebrand of One Feeds Two that transformed an old design that was too literal, lacked stand-out and confidence, into a clear symbol of quality – the smile. 

Not only was the smile logo placed across all packaging and media to help promote One Feeds Two’s concept, it also challenged the guilt-tripping notion of the not-for-profit industry. Instead, the logo represented the good side of giving and highlighted how even the smallest actions, such as buying a meal, can have far-reaching positive impacts.

The new brand identity soon convinced national food company Cook to adopt the concept within its own business model, and after spotting One Feeds Two’s eye-catching design on The Clearing’s Facebook, Byron Hamburgers also jumped at the opportunity to become a partner. Relationships with Higgidy Pies and Mindful Chef were also developed, with 73% of the school meals delivered attributable to partnered companies.  

Awareness for One Feeds Two has gone through the roof. Website visitors increased by 291% in the first three months after brand launch. Facebook followers and page views increased by 20% and 170% respectively. 

Most importantly, in the first three years after the brand relaunched, 2 million school meals were delivered versus a target of 1 million – and this figure now stands at 3.7 million in 2018. Over, 10,500 children have been put through school because they are no longer spending their days working or searching for food. 

In the words of Sir Richard Branson, One Feeds Two is “a great example of using business for good”.

DBA Design Effectiveness Awards

A DBA Design Effectiveness Award win represents independent and authoritative recognition of the value of your work and will enable you to powerfully demonstrate your ability to deliver competitive advantage through design. 

The 2019 Entry Pack is available at: effectivedesign.org.uk  The entry deadline is: 5pm GMT, Friday 30 November 2018

The Clearing and One Feeds Two won a Gold DBA Design Effectiveness Award. You can read the full case study here. 

Although Hagkaup was the fourth most popular food retailer in Iceland, it faced a threat from increasing popularity of discount stores and Costco joining the Icelandic market in 2017. Shopper behaviour was also changing with people visiting supermarkets more often but buying fewer items in each trip.

Hagkaup partnered with M Worldwide to revisit its flagship store proposition, customer experience and environment to meet customers’ new shopping needs and fight off increasing competition. Not only this, but the flagship store’s footprint was reducing by almost 50% as a result of the supermarket’s business strategy to lower fixed costs, but use remaining square metres ‘smarter’ to maximise the profit of each and every one.

Taking inspiration from department stores to bring more theatre to the supermarket, with distinct zones, places to dwell and seasonal displays, the redesign has been so successful that the concept will be applied across other stores. Through the environment, customers tangibly experience the product variety and exceptional service and special moments of activity in ‘hotspots’ throughout the customer journey ensure plenty of theatre to surprise and delight. At its core, traditional supermarket principles are swapped with the best of department store showrooming to encourage greater dwell time and smaller, more frequent visits. 

Hagkaup Smaralind is now almost 50% smaller in footprint but has more customers, more sales per square metre, and more EBIDTA than when the store was double the size. And this all happened against objectives to simply maintain year-on-year levels. 

You can read M Worldwide and Hagkaup’s DBA Design Effectiveness Award winning case study here. 

DBA Design Effectiveness Awards

A DBA Design Effectiveness Award win represents independent and authoritative recognition of the value of your work and will enable you to powerfully demonstrate your ability to deliver competitive advantage through design. 

The 2019 Entry Pack is available at: effectivedesign.org.uk  The entry deadline is: 5pm GMT, Friday 30 November 2018

Lund Halsey is a well-established, successful company that manufactures professional furniture for control rooms, for use in industries such as aviation and broadcasting. It’s a niche and complex market and in 2015, they identified serious potential risks from competitors that could jeopardise the business’s success; firstly from high volume (cheaper) furniture manufacturers who modify their products to compete on a professional level and secondly, from competitors offering more modern looking solutions, appropriate for ‘high tech’ working environments.

Lund Halsey was renowned for reliability and customer service, but this was not being reflected in its products. They realised they had reached a point where function alone was no longer sufficient to maintain market dominance.

To thwart the risks, Lund Halsey partnered with LA Design and the Kontrol Command project was commissioned to create differentiation through design and to define the future of the control room market. It needed to result in a product with significant perceived value and for long term growth, it was important that the tangible visual aspects of the company brand were aligned with their service offer. 

Moving beyond offering function alone, the focus shifted to delivering ‘solid, cool, contemporary, quality’ furniture and extending these values across the business. The final solution has a higher perceived value, based on a theme that associates the furniture with the sophisticated electronics and software that sits behind it. The choice of colours and finishes was contemporary but also selected to work in any environment, with the system appealing to prime contractors, architects and interior designers. 

With all original expectations having been met or exceeded, the company has changed its attitude towards design, with industrial design now incorporated more strategically at the early product specification stage. 

You can read LA Design and Lund Halsey’s winning DBA Design Effectiveness Award case study here. 

DBA Design Effectiveness Awards

A DBA Design Effectiveness Award win represents independent and authoritative recognition of the value of your work and will enable you to powerfully demonstrate your ability to deliver competitive advantage through design. 

The 2019 Entry Pack is available at: effectivedesign.org.uk  The entry deadline is: 5pm GMT, Friday 30 November 2018

The devil, as always, is in the detail. It seems that there are certain roles that women are dominant in – such as account management and new business (both 77% female) – and others with quite an even split – planning and strategy is made up of 48% women.

Digital, however, is 82% male (although that is an improvement on the 90% last year) and creative roles has a 61% male bias.

The key to all of these (not withstanding the general lack of women in digital roles) is the diminishing ratio of women as seniority increases. Women make up only 30% of agency management roles and of course the graph showing the change in creative roles tells it’s own story.

Bear in mind that the design sector in general has a far worse record that the DBA graph shows. Female creative directors make up only 11% of the whole. DBA members are positively progressive in comparison!

Social media is buzzing with questions of “How do we change this?” and there is no easy answer. The lack of gender diversity is just one element of a far wider diversity problem in the design sector. 

It is obvious where quite a few of the women go. Pointing out that they leave to have babies isn’t particularly helpful. A diverse workforce is good for business – so find ways of encouraging women to return. Make their role more flexible. Empower them. (Read some great advice from JourneyHR about this here.)

Small businesses without set processes are renowned for recruiting in their own image, the design industry is no different in that. Be aware of your bias when making staffing decisions.

Things are getting better. More women are taking the situation into their own hands and setting up their own agencies. There are many examples within the DBA membership.

If you really want to make a difference put policies in place to:

a) make sure women are not disadvantaged in the recruitment process

b) your agency is family friendly for whoever has childcare responsibilities, and

c) that women can progress up through your business.

The other thing you can do of course is join the DBA, if you’re not a member already. We are your trade association. We support you with running your business and represent you when it comes to lobbying government on issues affecting the industry (education and overseas recruitment being two of the hot issues of the moment).

Details at: dba.org.uk.

Read the full, unabridged version of this article here.

Why did you decide to get involved in Twenty/Twenty?

Lynne Dobney, Mentor: With a long (and quite varied) career in design, branding and coaching, it was great to be able use this to help other businesses facing issues at different times in their development.

Chris Bradley, Mentee: Our business is owned and run by myself and my partner of 20 years. We had a number of items on our agenda that we needed to work through (recruitment, business building, retirement, forward planning etc) and we both thought it would be worthwhile having an outside, objective view on some of the decisions – including some very personal ones – that we needed to make. We are a very busy studio so to have someone who I could chat to offline, without bothering my partner who was busy on project based tasks, was great.

How would you sum up the experience?

Lynne Dobney, Mentor: It’s been fun, and I’ve learned new things. I’ve met some really great people, who’ve become friends.

Chris Bradley, Mentee: I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. My mentor Lynne and I got on really well – we were very well suited (well done to the DBA for doing their homework). She has oodles of experience and has dealt with many of the issues we discussed. 

Also, getting away from the daily studio tasks to think down the line was a really good discipline for me. Things that we had been putting off or just never got round to doing were getting addressed.

What impact has the mentoring had on you and your business?

Chris Bradley, Mentee: Lynne has made me think more about forward planning and we are a better-run studio for it. She also confirmed that a lot of what we do is good, sound practice, which was great to hear from someone who ran a large, successful business. You just never know when you are doing it in isolation. We have and will continue to work with Lynne even though the programme has ended. I really value her viewpoint and knowledge and really enjoy her company. 

What would you say to someone who was undecided as to whether they should get involved?

Chris Bradley, Mentee: Get involved! On a personal development level it really helped me. Just talking things through helped me sort out my own thought process.

I am sure for many businesses like ours – owned by two owners – having a third viewpoint really helps to round-off/stimulate the discussions without anything getting personal or awkward. The discipline of getting away from the studio to talk the ‘business’ cannot be underestimated and having tasks and an agenda to run through really focuses the mind.

Lynne Dobney, Mentor: I’d say – get involved, and pay it forward. (Mentees become mentors!)

What is the secret to a successful mentoring relationship?

Lynne Dobney, Mentor: Listening, not judging.

What has surprised you the most about the programme?

Chris Bradley, Mentee: I didn’t expect to make a friend! 

Have a focused, clear mantra

It might sound simple, but it’s surprising the number of design companies who haven’t quite nailed their positioning or the way they talk about themselves. Creatives, quite rightly, are often so focused on delivering excellent work for their clients that they don’t have time for this. But now, more than ever, it’s crucial to have a clear and direct positioning that uses simple and transparent language over industry jargon and buzzwords like ‘purpose’, ‘experience’ and ‘authenticity’. Your audience knows that you and your competitors can deliver excellent design work, so your positioning needs to tell them what makes your business truly individual and unique. Being hyper aware of what your competitors are saying, and not saying, from a communications perspective is crucial here.

Foster a company culture based on your brand ethos 

Your team is your strongest asset and they are uniquely placed to help spread the word about the values you strive for. Each team member is a brand ambassador, so spend time educating them how to talk about what you do, so they can become natural spokespeople for your company. This is crucial when it comes to marketing and PR opportunities. Creatives are time-poor, so the more of your team who can confidently attend or present at events, talk to press, write a blog post, or speak on your company’s behalf, the better placed you are to maximise any press opportunities that come your way.  

Actions speak louder than words

It may be an old cliché, but it’s a good one. We can’t all be a Patagonia, Nike or Innocent Smoothies, but there are so many things you can do to help communicate your company’s ethos through the way you behave. At one end of the spectrum, it’s about ensuring the content you share online not only reflects your values but is also outward-looking and connects to other movements, companies and opinions, rather than being purely based on self-promotion. This can be extended to participating in events, creating mini event series yourselves, hosting a panel discussion, or creating a podcast. All of this can sound scary (and expensive) at first, but it needn’t be either if you partner with the right people and have a clear focus of what you want to achieve. 

Build a network of meaningful allies

One of the huge positives about social media is that the world is now much smaller in terms of who you connect with. Use this opportunity to forge relationships with other companies, clients and suppliers who share or reflect your values. Whether this manifests as co-hosting an event, writing a joint opinion piece, collaborating on a visionary concept project, or offering clients a new way of collaborating with you and a relevant partner, the results can be refreshing and memorable. Crucial here is having frank conversations early on about the PR potential of any partnership, as should be the case with all clients, so that both parties can reap the benefits later down the line. 

Engage in education

At a time when design education is under increasing threat, young designers need industry support more than ever in order to reach their potential. Many companies are already good at being involved in education initiatives, but more can always be done. This can include everything from being proactive about taking on interns and work experience students, to engaging with local schools and colleges to deliver student talks, setting student briefs at all levels of education, and fully exploring the creative industries network and getting involved in the initiatives that feel right for you.

After all, if there’s one value that all design companies should be embedding into their ethos it’s nurturing the future of our brilliant industry. Getting involved in design education, at whatever level you can, can go a long way to achieving this goal.