We have hired our first ever internally facing role at William Joseph to specifically improve our B Corp score.

Impact measured against UN Sustainable Development Goals

01 no poverty S 02 zero hunger S 03 good health and wellbeing S 04 quality education S 05 gender equality S 06 clean water and sanitation S 07 affordable and clean energy S 08 decent work and economic growth S 09 industry innovation and infra S 10 reduced inequalities S 11 sustainable cities and communities S 12 resposible consumption and production S 13 climate action S 14 life below water S 15 life on land S 16 peace justice and strong institutions S 17 partnership for the goals S
View impact report

Our Senior Delivery Manager is specifically charged with looking at:

  • Improving our B Corp Score

  • Helping WJ become a more equitable and impactful team

  • Identifying processes which help support the team to do their jobs more effectively as we scale

We do not want to improve our B Corp score simply for the sake of it, or to figure in our marketing around recertification. We are investing in it because we know that if our score improves, then we will become a better, more resilient and impactful business.

In effect, our entire internal strategy at William Joseph is to improve on the areas that B Corp measures. This has removed an enormous overhead for a business of our size. We haven’t had to go through a lengthy and costly strategic design process - it is all right there for us to use.

The whole team has at least one of their core objectives relating to the equity and impact of William Joseph - directly linking to our B Corp score. Some examples include:

  • Front End developer: Finding ways to improve the carbon footprint of our web builds

  • Senior Product Manager: Lead Sociocracy test for equitable decision making, building up to bigger conversations

  • Product Manager: Find ways of bringing the team together

To certify as a B Corp, a company must achieve a minimum of verified score of 80 points on the B Impact Assessment. We achieve 98.9 but want to do much more to improve our score in areas such as environment and governance.

Results

Finding clients that share our values

A key part of our B Corp qualification is the clients that we work with. We are also increasingly realising that we do our best work with people that share our values - specifically around equality and collaboration.

We are getting better at how we understand whether potential clients do place the same importance we do on these aspects of work. It’s not to say that we can’t work with those that see the world differently to us - but we have to approach these projects in a specific way. It’s not good for anyone to force someone to work in a way that doesn’t suit them.

Some of the questions we now ask ahead of working with people are below - many taken directly from the B Corp certification process:

  • Do you show salaries on the jobs that you promote?

  • Do you require a degree or degree level qualifications on any of your person specifications?

  • Do you monitor your gender pay gap? If so, what is it? What steps are you taking to address it?

  • What have you done to increase the accessibility of your hiring processes?

  • What measures have you taken to increase the diversity of your leadership team?

  • What is your highest paid role’s salary as a percentage of your lowest paid role?

  • For any given project, do you tend to work in cross functional teams or do you work in silos?

  • Would you be willing to provide a supplier reference for us to speak to? (Doesn’t have to be the same area of work – although the closer the better)

What’s next?

We are creating a plan for our B Corp recertification, which will use the progress we’ve made over the last three years as a springboard for improving our score. A few of the areas that we’re keen to progress include:

  • A more effective and well understood Mission Statement

  • Full implementation of a sociocratic model for decisions made

  • Better 360 degree reviews for the whole team

  • How we review pay for everyone on the team

  • How we use our time together for volunteering

  • Better checking of the carbon footprint for each digital service and product we deliver

  • Tracking of client experience with William Joseph and improvements they would make