Laura Pulleyn

Laura Pulleyn is the Community Partner at boxxe, a leading provider of hardware, software and IT services for public and corporate sectors. 

While sustainability is a core priority in everything boxxe does, social responsibility as a whole is the foundation of their company culture. For this reason, Laura has made it her task to identify and direct boxxe’s key strengths as a force for personal, collective and environmental good. 

Her personal purpose?

In her teens and early twenties, Laura personally faced a number of barriers to inclusion, particularly in the workplace. She also faced obstacles by not following a traditional career path, eventually joining boxxe as an apprentice at age 30. 

Part of the reason Laura is so invested in her role today is because her own experiences have made her highly aware of inequalities in our society. At boxxe, she feels she has an opportunity to promote inclusivity and challenge societal attitudes that keep systemic inequalities in place. 

Laura said, “Bringing my personal experience into my role is incredibly important to me. I have an understanding that not everybody has about the challenges and inequalities people face, and the changes we need to make. In the UK, and worldwide, we’re talking about heading into times of crisis, but the flipside of that is that it offers a real opportunity for innovation: how can we re-evaluate and improve the way that we, as a corporate sector, work together with the third sector?”

Programme mission

Working towards B Corp status, boxxe is committed to helping the local community become more inclusive and sustainable. The company uses a holistic approach, leveraging all resources in its power - from employees to customers and partners - towards driving change and delivering meaningful results.

“When we’re looking at building out programmes and selecting charities to work with, we think about three things: How can we maximise impact? What is the community’s need? And, at boxxe, what skills and ability have we got to respond to that need and act on it?”

Laura Pulleyn, Community Partner at boxxe

boxxe focuses on three key areas to deliver on social impact goals:

1. Social ability: improving social, physical and cognitive wellbeing.
2. Working to alleviate digital poverty by providing IT products and pro bono services. 
3. Supporting the third sector with the benefits of technology.

Proactive in its approach to personal, collective and environmental good, the company has dedicated 5% of its time to giving back to the wider community. This translates to an impressive 11.5 days per year of paid volunteering time off for all employees. 

Read on to learn how Laura and her team inspire employees to use these paid volunteering days, despite the adjustment of their hybrid working environment.

Engaging remote workers in volunteering and giving

For Laura and her team, employee engagement is a top priority. And bringing people together is where it all starts. However, achieving this within the context of remote/hybrid companies requires skill and thorough planning. 

The pandemic has completely revolutionised office culture as we knew it, and boxxe is one of many now hybrid companies. While hybrid or remote working does offer employees a certain freedom, it also creates challenges for employers when it comes to maintaining a cohesive company culture. 

Let’s look at how Laura and her team keep employees connected to social impact on a more consistent basis. 

Outcomes-driven volunteering

Purpose is personal. So, before anything else, it’s important to connect your employees to a sense of purpose that’s meaningful to them. That’s why boxxe has integrated an outcomes-driven mindset into their programme, which encourages team members to think about their own, personal impact when it comes to volunteering. 

“We’ve tried to transition into outcomes-driven reporting and more robust impact stories because that's what everybody connects with. What impact did that have on a person, what impact did it have on the charity? What change did it make for them? The story is incredibly important.”

Laura Pulleyn, Community Partner at boxxe

Sharing personal stories is a powerful way to get team members engaged in the causes that they could be aiding through volunteering or giving. To ensure that these stories are seen by everyone at the company, Laura and her team put a big focus on how this information is communicated internally to employees. 

Strong internal communication

Laura’s main strategy to engage employees in social impact work is to ensure efficient and effective internal communication.

In many companies, the interest among employees to help their communities is already there, but what’s needed is direction for real social change to take place. It’s not just company policies and volunteering allowances that drive action - but effective communication about these opportunities. 

boxxe has an impressive list of social impact goals, but it’s crucial to provide resources ensuring that these goals can be fulfilled. As Community Partner, Laura is often approached for advice on how and where to start volunteering. However, individually helping employees based all around the UK find opportunities within their local communities is a huge task. Laura does what she can by signposting, but they’ve found that the best way to connect is through their corporate purpose platform. 

“Everyday people are asking you what they can do in that area, what opportunities are coming up…and with all the will in the world, as one person, that's not something you can respond to. So a tool like Benevity helps you address those questions.”

Laura Pulleyn, Community Partner at boxxe

By identifying common concerns among employees, the platform channels a sense of community from within boxxe towards the greater community. For the company, their corporate purpose platform functions as an effective way to channel employees’ enthusiasm to give back to the wider community, which is demonstrated by their high engagement rates. Plus, Benevity offers more ways to engage remote employees in volunteering, which gives direction to positive action.

For example, Benevity’s Micro-Actions feature and Benevity organised events have played a key role in further engaging boxxe’s employees in goodness.

“The Micro-Actions function of running environmental and inclusion challenges has been incredibly popular as well. That's just a fun tool that can connect teams and actually show the impact that small actions can have. We’ve also had a lot of engagement in Benevity events.”

Laura Pulleyn, Community Partner at boxxe

Community as a cornerstone of company culture

While employers are still exploring ways to encourage connectivity and coordination, many, like boxxe, have discovered the power of unifying teams with a strong mission. One thing that fuels their company culture is a shared dedication, which thrives when company goals are so closely tied to social impact. 

Laura said, “We do encourage people to take a local-first approach for a number of reasons. It gets people out and connected to their local community, and it fits with our sustainability promises because people aren’t travelling and putting out unnecessary CO2. It also means that people are giving back to their local community, while targeting the grassroots organisations which really need our help.”

There are benefits of having annual awareness days or monthly fundraisers, but Laura’s goal is to embed the idea of community into the company culture so that it is constantly present and engaging. 

“We want community to be a foundation piece of how we do business. And we want everyone in the company to play a role...The community programme needs to be consistently present and engaged with. It’s a part of the company culture.”

Laura Pulleyn, Community Partner at boxxe

Skills-based volunteering & partnerships

The post-pandemic ‘return to the new normal’ initially saw a strong enthusiasm for field volunteering and team events. However, boxxe has seen hybrid employees become increasingly interested in using their specialised skills to deliver more meaningful work through skills-based volunteering. 

At boxxe, Laura champions their collaborative efforts to determine the company’s core skills. Then they effectively direct these skills to where they are most needed. This holistic approach has already proved itself to be a force for good. By enabling boxxe employees to think outside the box, this model leverages all company resources at their disposal to make a difference. 

And, as a tech company, they have a lot to offer. That’s why their skills-based volunteering programme enables tech employees to put their expertise to good use. They do so by providing digital workshops, security health checks and improvements to a charity’s technical infrastructure. 

To satisfy the demand for skills-based volunteering and produce meaningful social impact, while utilising the company’s vast and varied talent, boxxe has set up a partnership with the Charity IT Association (CITA). They deliver pro bono advisory and consultancy services to charities. 

CITA matches skills with places where they’re lacking, directing volunteers with IT backgrounds to charities looking to improve their tech capabilities. 

Laura stated, “As our third sector faces more and more challenges, such as the cost of living crisis and the skills gaps in the charity sector, there’s going to be a revolution in how they approach getting the support they need. And the corporate sector is going to start to rethink their corporate volunteering programmes. If we can get those to align, it could be the start of something really exciting. It’s a new conversation in the UK, but hopefully one we can help lead the way in.”

Another great example is their partnership with local digital poverty charity IT Reuse, which repairs donated mobile devices and redistributes them to those in need. 

After the charity nearly folded when demand far exceeded supply, boxxe decided to donate old or surplus devices. These were fixed up by the boxxe repairs team and delivered by their logistics team and has become a highly sustainable, ongoing campaign, delivering tangible positive results. 

“I’m always proud and blown away by how generous people at boxxe are with their time, in whatever capacity. Our boxxe community programme would not be what it is today without their engagement and their support. It always fills me with pride that as a company we can say that our employees are that generous.”

Laura Pulleyn, Community Partner at boxxe

Results 

After launching with the Benevity platform nearly five months ago, they’ve seen: 

• Over 50% of boxxe’s employees have used the platform to get involved in their community programme.
• A significant increase in employees leveraging their allotted 11.5 days of pro bono work a year.
• Strong employee networks and team efforts to support specific causes or charities. 

Tips & Advice for other companies

1. Look to other companies for inspiration, but don’t be put off by the scale. It can be daunting to consider the successes of others, but there is also much more value in forging your own path with a specific direction, network and influence. Every movement must start somewhere.
2. Take a step back and work out where you can make the biggest difference. This will involve many conversations with charities, community stakeholders and employees. Build a strong network of professionals where you can share your experiences.
3. Persevere and remember: it is worth it in the end. It is a long process. True impact won’t happen overnight. Don’t compare or compete; join forces and work together.