Splice Post

• Kate Higham, facilities director; Duncan Western and Damian Dolniak, co-owners

Jack Howells joined us aged 18 in 2015 as a junior engineer. We noticed his potential when we interviewed him and we’ve invested heavily in his training. In the past two years, he has designed an entire new network at our Perseverance Works facility, improving both stability and efficiency.

The one thing we’re lacking is a proper space for staff to take a break and get away from their desks. With a new facility on the cards for Splice, we hope to provide our team with more room to socialise, relax and unwind.

In an industry with a fairly small talent pool, for senior positions it comes down to networking – but you need to expand and diversify that talent pool at entry level.

We’ve built affiliations with colleges, universities and training programmes, running annual placement schemes with the likes of Ravensbourne, Mama Youth Project and Meet a Mentor.

Our runner training scheme gives runners an afternoon off to shadow a department of their choice, while our mentor scheme pairs edit assistants with a member of our creative team to increase their exposure.

Regular department socials provide opportunities for staff to feed back to their line managers in a relaxed environment, while a weekly heads of department meeting feeds that information to senior management.

One employee suggested that we have more time to socialise as a company, so last year we introduced monthly pay day drinks, hosted on rotation by each department. They choose how to spend their budget, any theme or games and what they want to drink.