Lansons

Sector

Professional Services

Employees

110

Website

www.lansons.com

About us

Lansons is one of the UK’s most respected reputation management and strategic communication consultancies and possibly the only truly employee-owned business in this industry. A third of our people own the agency, with no outside shareholders. We were founded 30 years ago by our current chief executive Tony Langham and our current chair Clare Parsons. Our clients encompass brands like Co-op Bank, London Luton Airport and BlackRock. We work for governments such as The Isle of Man. We have helped launch entrepreneurial businesses like Metro Bank and continue to advise them many years on. We also work with less-known businesses to help them achieve their communications goals. We deliver a genuine, fully-integrated ’no silos’ service. This also offers unrivalled opportunities for our people.

We are a distinctive voice helping companies, organisations and governments build reputations and engage with wider society in a human and direct way – and we work that way ourselves.

We embrace change. Our people look for the possibilities; they think ‘why?’ not ‘what?’; they set out to be valued and develop their own voice within our high challenge high support culture. We urge them to ‘go for it’!

Awards

What employees say

I began working at Lansons as a temp after spending five months travelling in the States and Mexico. I didn't expect to stay, but I enjoyed the work and the culture much more than I expected and was happy to accept a permanent role after two months of temping.

Lansons has an exceptional culture. I am so impressed with the forward thinking attitude to mental health/gender/diversity. This was completely at odds with my preconceptions about corporate comms, which, as a journalist with a background in arts and feature-writing, were quite negative.

That the culture is so good is thanks in large part to the founders, Clare Parsons and Tony Langham, who, despite being successful entrepreneurs, are politically progressive. They set the tone for an inclusive culture in which staff are made to feel valued as people rather than just employees. For junior staff, Lansons' comprehensive review system is an effective way to monitor morale and ensure progress is being made. Everyone is listened to, and there is a sense that senior staff have a genuine interest in your professional and personal wellbeing.

I have always felt, while working at Lansons, that my bosses have taken a sincere interest in my development. When I felt my account portolfio didn't make the best use of my skills, it was changed. And when I've wanted to attend events for my own professional development, Lansons has covered the cost. There's a sense, at Lansons, that you're being invested in for the long term, which explains why so many stay at the company for a long time.

There's a mercenary element to agency life, and some degree of churn is to be expected, but many Lansons staff have stayed at the company for five years or more. That so many people are willing to spend their entire lives working here obviously reflects well on the company, especially in an industry where most people changing jobs every couple of years.

Alex Dymoke

Senior account executive

87 %

Management is honest and ethical in its business practices.

96 %

People here are treated fairly regardless of their sex.

95 %

This is a friendly place to work.

92 %

My manager/supervisor treats me with respect.

86 %

I am offered training or development to further myself professionally.

94 %

I feel good about the ways we contribute to the community.

What defines us

We focus on what we know makes the biggest difference to people’s happiness and their engagement with work.

• We run Lansons on clear ethical principles

• We have no gender pay gap

• We are clear about, and involve people in, our Reinventing Reputation Management agency strategy

• A third of our people share financial ownership of Lansons as partners and this ‘you are part of it’ culture permeates

• We empower people to make a difference with cross-agency involvement in everything from developing our content marketing offering to running our charitable initiatives and choosing carbon neutral offset projects

• We then add a liberal sprinkling of fun and friendship … the famous celebration trolley, two parties a year, celebrating the’ big ones’ abroad, and surprise-and-delight celebrations for our New York acquisition

Our people sum up how it feels to be at Lansons. “Such a collaborative, open and trusting culture.” “There doesn't feel like there's a hierarchy.” “Transparency in board decisions.” “A sense of working to retain staff.” “Environment which fosters strong friendships.” “Wellbeing initiatives, flexible working, celebrations of personal and professional achievements.”

What inspires us

When Lansons was established we committed to donating 1% of our annual profits to charity, and ever since we have tried to raise as much as we can on top of this. Anybody can nominate a charity to support and we all vote for our Charity of the Year. Mental health charity Mind won the vote a few years ago and we used this partnership to build our mental health support programmes. Currently we are supporting Centrepoint with a plethora of fundraising events ranging from pumpkin carving, sleep outs, bake offs, sweepstakes, our Lansons Lottery and our annual Christmas fair. Everyone gets involved, offering their skills, creativity and sense of adventure in some way.

Our pro bono team looks at ways we can give our time and skills to charities including running creative brainstorms, helping with messaging, through to implementing initiatives. And we also partner with three social mobility charities for work experience and recruitment into our junior roles.

Ten years ago Lansons established a pioneering partnership with HighTide Festival Theatre, a charity dedicated to discovering and producing the work of emerging playwrights. Lansons provides the charity’s base and we engage our staff in unique and imaginative ways. There’s theatre-based personal development as well play readings, theatre tickets and paid-for trips to enjoy HighTide’s festivals in Suffolk and Walthamstow.

With citizenship sitting at the heart of Lansons’ values, social responsibility means a lot to people and our voluntary Green Team reviews our environmental policies and encourages good environmental behaviour across the business. Over ten years ago we became carbon neutral, actively reducing our carbon footprint before voting for off-setting projects.

At a glance

Age of employees

Years with company

Gender ratio

Fulltime / Parttime

Action highlights

Having a inclusive workplace culture is at the heart of Lansons and we listen, and act, on what our people think. After a recent employee survey we committed to expanding our food and drink options in the office to enhance our healthy working environment. Our people had great fun tasting and voting on a range of food and drink options and and the wellbeing team has since incorporated their favourites into office celebrations, team events and meetings as you can see from these photos.

Word from the top

Lansons has firm values around consultancy excellence, ethical behaviour and sharing in success. It matters to me that people feel the impact and relevance of this in their working lives. Our leadership team sets out to make our agency strategy relevant and tangible to everybody in the agency and it’s important to us that everybody feels they personally can contribute.

Tony Langham

Chief Executive

Career and jobs

Application tips

It was entrepreneurial spirit that drove the formation of Lansons and we continue to look for entrepreneurs and would-be entrepreneurs to work with us.

We like to recruit ‘at the bottom’ and then help our people develop through the agency, so we are always looking for talented people setting out on a comms career. But we also welcome fresh thinking and new perspectives, so let us know if you are working in a communications agency, or have an active in house communications role, and want to be inspired by your next career challenge. But be prepared to work hard and create your own opportunities within the amazing career support structure we offer.

It might sound harsh, but we’re not interested in you if you’re not interested in business and what makes companies tick. You need to show us you have views on what drives ‘reputation’. Tell us how, and when, you personally have achieved great results and made a difference in your working life. Tell us, using practical examples (and none of the generic clichés!) why you would be great for Lansons.

If you do join us we’ll help you settle in before you’ve even arrived, inviting you to meet peers so there are familiar faces on your first day. From day one there’s a buddy to guide you and we run a comprehensive, often-praised, welcome programme covering all aspects of Lansons life. Every joiner meets our chief executive, and our chairman invites groups of new people to breakfast; a fantastic opportunity to forge a relationship early on with senior management and get to know others joining around the same time.

Our great workplace

Lansons offers amazing career opportunity; over a third of our people at account director level and above started at our most junior levels, including five board directors. Almost half our people have been promoted in the last year.

Everybody is paired with a career manager whose role it is to understand the career ambition of their partners and take responsibly for helping them achieve their ambitions. Our Career Guidebook contains all the tools needed and our recently revamped training initiative, Lansons2, is driven by an energetic all-level team of volunteers. A training calendar advertises the myriad of learning and sharing opportunities. Consultants earn L2 points for attending skills and ‘brainfood’ sessions and points mean prizes … like a culture trip or a five-star weekend abroad.

Our no-silos structure means people stretch their experience cross-agency in truly integrated teams learning from multiple skillsets. And the ‘extra’ things continue to underpin development. Numerous people have been inspired by visits to agencies abroad, client secondments, pro-bono work, and learning from our partnership with High Tide Theatre.

It’s amazing that people make a career at Lansons and we want to say a big thank you when they do. So people receive an extra ten days of paid ‘milestone’ holiday on top of their annual leave every five years to reward and celebrate this fantastic achievement.

Contact

Rebecca Henning

HR Manager

Tel: 07860251455
Email: rebeccah@lansons.com