At Marlowe Consulting, we strongly believe that modern social values are inherent to success on both corporate and personal levels. Everything we do is led by our people-focused values and therefore key areas of our focus include employment, education, training, well-being and environment. It is good practice to understand the role these areas play in the communities around us and to regularly review, report, and celebrate the value they create in the places where people live, work and play.
Marlowe Consulting aligns business plans and social value performance in several ways. These include:
Partnerships with organisations
Building relationships with schools and colleges
Bringing local people into the Marlowe Consulting community
Providing service to those in need
Improving social justice in the workplace
Marlowe Consulting includes delivering social value as part of its business strategy. We have a rich history of supporting local communities, collaborating with local schools and colleges, helping students develop business skills, monitoring and reducing our carbon footprint, supporting organisations tackling homelessness, employing local people and creating an inclusive, supportive workplace for all Marlowe colleagues.
Marlowe Consulting is a female-founded, female-led business with no gender pay gap. The company places gender equality at the heart of good business practice, and women make up over 66% of directors and senior leadership team and over half of our consultants.
As an equal opportunities employer, our business is designed to facilitate working for colleagues with a range of needs. We work flexibly and remotely and provide staff with the equipment and training appropriate to their roles. Training is delivered to maximise accessibility and cater for physical disabilities (e.g., accessible locations, virtual access), neurodiversity (e.g., providing a variety of options to engage and learn independently or in groups) and other potential needs of our consultants or clients.
We are committed to enabling everyone that Marlowe Consulting’s works with, allowing all to work around any responsibilities such as childcare, caring for the elderly and disabled, and, more generally, managing family life. We do this by operating a flexible approach to work delivery via part-time, flexible and job-share approaches.
Alongside our inclusive working methods, we take a broad and open approach to recruitment, attracting and employing people from all walks of life.
Marlowe Consulting supports research relevant to our own and our clients’ work, including recent research by the University of East London into the imposter phenomenon in consultants. We have observed that many consultants experience the imposter phenomenon, particularly those who have been out of work for extended periods of time, and we now apply the findings of the research to support the welfare and personal development of our team. We hope that through this, we can attract more diverse recruits and encourage more people back to work who may currently lack the confidence to do so.
Marlowe Consulting has a proven commitment to social value and directly supports a number of local (London, Kent and wider South-East) organisations, including food banks and homelessness charities.
Improved Educational outcomes
Marlowe Consulting supports students from diverse and socially-deprived backgrounds through our long-standing relationship with Kent University. We offer internships that provide high-quality, paid work experience, helping to build confidence and soft skills that will enable them to achieve their ambitions. As a result, 100% of the interns have been able to find employment within four weeks of their internship.
Our Directors personally work with local schools to support youth opportunities and skills development among students from diverse backgrounds. Marlowe Consulting staff are provided with time to share their experience and support students with advice on CV writing, UCAS applications and job interviews.
We recently found success with a postgraduate student who had been out of work for two years. We supported him by giving advice on self-presentation and interview techniques and re-writing his CV. He has since (within four weeks of our support) gone on to land a role in a London hotel chain which gives him his first break and a chance to work.
Supporting Local Communities
Marlowe supports the local community through pro-bono training, internships, and CV reviews for members of underprivileged communities. We also donate to and support RADA’s Stage Critical to enable underprivileged students and minorities to study at the prestigious Royal Academy for Dramatic Arts (RADA).
As a business, we support local food banks and other community causes. We encourage colleagues to be active in their communities, and our flexible working methods facilitate this.
In the past couple of years, Marlowe has created more employment opportunities, providing opportunities for a diverse range of skills. 100% of our consultants are contracted to work remotely and are based in a range of locations across the UK, with 79% based locally in London and the Southeast and travelling into London using public transport.
Our growth has meant that we have been able to recruit and employ new staff, bringing back into the workplace people who had been through periods of unemployment or who had been made redundant during the pandemic. Our employee numbers increased by over 200% in the two years of the pandemic. These new team members have been onboarded and provided the training required to ensure they feel ‘ready’ to work on the client side.
From our base in East Kent, we have also been able to maintain and, in some cases, increase work and potential opportunities for work with our suppliers, many of them small, diverse local businesses.
As a growing business based in East Kent, we work closely with local partners who tend to be of similar or smaller size than our business. We also work with minority-led organisations where possible – helping to identify opportunities for mutual growth.
Our team regularly participates in local and regional business networks, which helps to raise awareness of opportunities to work with us, and in turn, learn about potential new suppliers.
Supporting the community
Benefitting wider society, our business performance has allowed us to maintain and increase our work with our suppliers. Marlowe Consulting generally engages with small specialist local businesses (for example, in design and communications, catering, legal firms and administrative support), bringing opportunities for work and other economic benefits to UK-based organisations and communities.
As an SME-sized business based in East Kent with staff across the UK, we are always conscious of our ability to contribute to the communities in which we live and work. In East Kent, we support creating opportunities for local young people through our internship programme with our partners at Kent University and our outreach to local schools.
All Marlowe Consulting staff work from home, meet remotely and work flexible hours. This saves both the number and duration of business journeys, helping to decrease the use of fossil fuels and reduce air pollution. When it is necessary to travel for work, our team is encouraged to use greener travel options wherever possible.
We also aim to reduce emissions in transporting goods and services, for example, by procuring fresh local produce in catering for events and using sustainable materials. In addition, we operate a paperless office.
Together with our colleagues, we regularly consider the environmental impact of our working practices. Our team is encouraged to share ideas to help reduce waste or increase our positive impact. In addition, we promote and encourage sustainable practices among our suppliers and customers.
Because regenerating and planting native trees and woodland is one of the most effective ways to fight climate change, Marlowe Consulting is a Woodland Trust Corporate Member, helping to create, restore and protect the UK’s precious woodland.
Supporting Social Justice in the workplace
Marlowe Consulting takes measures to mitigate and manage the risks of modern slavery through pre-employment checks, ensuring all employees and suppliers have access to the company’s Modern Slavery policy, and the grievance process to report incidents or suspected instances of modern slavery through whistleblowing and reporting.
Safe and supportive workplace
The health and wellbeing of Marlowe Consulting staff is vital to our success. This is a priority for our management team and is reflected in our key success metrics, which we review regularly.
Through our remote and flexible working policies and practices, our business is structured so that our talented team can balance their work with other essential aspects of their lives, from family care and community commitments to outside interests and activities. Employee feedback shows our staff value the benefits to their wellbeing of our flexible, remote working methods; however, we also recognise the benefits of face-to-face group meetings for social interaction and peer support. We arrange regular opportunities for the team to come together.
We actively encourage staff to care for their physical and mental health. With the advent of Covid-19, we increased this focus through regular 1-to-1 wellbeing sessions, which have been very positively received. As a result, we have decided to continue this prioritisation of wellbeing into the future with all new employees and associates.
Marlowe Consulting also provides staff with access to an independent, confidential support service for any stress and wellbeing issues, with further support provided in the event of significant problems.
We recognise the very serious issue of domestic violence in all its forms and the need to break the cycle of violence in families. To this end, we have a nominated team member who is our domestic abuse support advisor able to offer confidential advice and support to any employees and extended team members that need help.