Our Voice Groups’ journey through 2024

Wellbeing Voice Group

Our Wellbeing Voice Group advocates for policies, practices, and initiatives that promote mental health and co-owner wellbeing, nurturing a culture where everyone is supported, valued, and cared for. This year, we focused on expanding our mental health support by training more co-owners as Mental Health First Aid Responders.

During Mental Health Awareness Week in May, we hosted a Spark Talk (our fortnightly lunch and learn sessions) with Hannah Kirkbirde to explore how low confidence affects our personal and professional growth. We learned practical strategies to overcome the inner critic, manage negative thoughts, and express ourselves more confidently.

We also collaborated with the Community Action Voice Group for International Happiness at Work Week, with a campaign to celebrate co-owners who brighten our days through small but meaningful gestures. The campaign featured daily winners and a special celebration reel, with donations to our Charity of the Year, Gympanzees.

October’s Mental Health Awareness Day saw us launch two co-working sessions to bring people together and boost our remote working culture. Following brilliant feedback and uptake, we've now made these a weekly fixture.

Looking ahead to 2025, we have plans for in-person and virtual Wellbeing Breakfasts, as well as enhancing our intranet's Wellbeing Hub, whilst continuing with initiatives like Headspace and co-working.

Community Action Voice Group

Our Community Action Voice Group has been busy strengthening ties within our local communities. This includes our two-year partnership with Gympanzees - a Bristol-based charity which provides disabled children and young people access to fully inclusive fitness and leisure facilities. We've raised funds through various initiatives including our Jurassic Coast trek, with more fundraising to come through our much-loved December charity auction.

Another important initiative is our sponsorship of Tech4Good South West, which entered an exciting new phase in March as they transformed from an informal collective to a CIC and membership organisation. Working alongside Annie Legge and the vibrant South West community has opened up new opportunities for positive impact in our region.

The group has also encouraged us to use our paid community leave to support initiatives like the BIMA Digital Day. In November, a group of Torchboxers worked with 30 year 9 students on creative briefs from Burberry and RSPCA, helping them develop ideas to promote sustainable fashion and higher-welfare farming. It was inspiring to see the students tackle ideation, research, design and presentation all in just three hours, bringing fresh perspectives to real-world challenges.

The group's plans for 2025 are already taking shape. They'll continue our partnership with Gympanzees and find creative new ways to raise money, build on our relationship with City Academy through work experience placements and another Digital Day, and launch an exciting new Torchbox team challenge.

Climate Voice Group

Our Climate Voice Group has shifted focus this year to tackle bigger, systemic changes in how we measure and reduce our environmental impact. Working with our partners Zevero and Giki Zero, the group has been reimagining our approach to carbon reduction with a focus on our two biggest opportunity areas: purchased goods and services and home working.

The group's influence extends beyond internal initiatives, including tackling client emissions through our digital emissions audit service. For our support clients, we now provide carbon reporting alongside invoicing, giving clear visibility of their digital projects' environmental impact.

Looking ahead to 2025, the group will focus on formalising their carbon reduction plan and communicating this to co-owners. A key part of this plan includes setting and implementing specific year-on-year emissions reduction targets, and collaborating with co-owners to ensure everyone is bought into our sustainability journey.

Social Voice Group

Our Social Voice Group does a great job of bringing us all together - whether in person or online, they make sure distance and time zones don't get in the way of us connecting as a team.

This year, they organised regional meetups across different locations, bringing co-owners together over pizza and good conversation. They also kept our annual traditions going strong with October's pumpkin decorating competition, which gets all the family involved.

D&I Voice Group

Our Diversity and Inclusion Voice Group, works closely with our People Team, to drive meaningful changes that make Torchbox more inclusive. This year, they've focused on creating practical improvements and strengthening support systems across the business.

They have introduced a new Transitioning at Work policy and an inclusive toilet in our Bristol office, as well as nurturing our private Slack channels for LGBTQIA+ and neurodiverse communities.

As part of our commitment under the Motherboard pledge to support working mums, they also released a new guide on navigating maternity in the workplace, with personal insight and practical guidance for creating a compassionate and inclusive culture.

For Menopause Awareness Month, they highlighted the importance of workplace support and understanding, reminding co-owners about the resources and flexible working options available. This work complements the group's ongoing efforts to ensure everyone feels supported at work.

Looking ahead to 2025, the group will launch another diversity survey to help us better understand our team makeup and identify areas for improvement. The last survey showed that 75% of co-owners feel people from all backgrounds have equal opportunities to provide input at Torchbox - a good foundation to build on.

As we close out 2024, this blog has been a nice opportunity to reflect on how our Voice Groups have maintained our sense of community and driven meaningful change, even during challenging times. Kudos to everyone who has contributed to and supported these initiatives throughout the year.

Follow us on BlueSky and LinkedIn to hear more from our Voice Groups in 2025.