It was all about well-deserved promotions and appointments in February and March, with 11 upward moves for Partners across the company. We also saw the appointment of three new members to our Operational Board on a rotational basis – the first move of its kind for our organisation.

Simon Driver, Gill Redfern and Charlotte Sykes have over three decades of DJS experience between them. United by their passion for our organisation, and desire to drive our continued growth, each brings a very different set of qualities and skills to the boardroom table. Eight months on we asked our newest board members how they're getting on and it’s clear they’ve rolled their sleeves up and got stuck straight in.

March also saw the launch of a training programme for all our Researchers on new platform, Walr. This training was designed to equip them with the skills and confidence to use this software effectively and integrate it into their quantitative data analysis procedures. Aiming to give our researchers greater autonomy in conducting additional analysis and improve efficiencies across both our Data and Research teams, Walr has already proven to be an invaluable additional tool in our toolkit.

This month saw our first published market research report of 2024, as the results of the West Yorkshire Combined Authority (WYCA) Bus Reform Consultation were released and immediately hit the headlines. An incredibly satisfying project, it was rewarding for our public sector team to see the direct impact of their hard work changing transport policy in the region. Read Director Matthew Bristow’s summary of this project here.

This month Daniel Hitchen, our Junior Software Developer, became our first fully qualified DJS Research Apprentice! Daniel has been studying for this Level 4 qualification, alongside his 'day job' for the last 2 years and passed with flying colours, obtaining the highest classification – a distinction. We’re absolutely delighted for Daniel and his top-class result is so well deserved – you can find out more about our road to apprenticeships and Daniel’s journey here.

April also saw our first ‘school day’ of 2024, as our Creative Services team attended a careers day at Bramhall Hall High School and brought the magic of jobs in the creative side of market research to life! We’ve supported several schools and careers events this year (more on those later), but our strong relationship with Bramhall High specifically has been forged by our social values lead Vicky Mullis through her voluntary role as a Specialist Enterprise Adviser for the Greater Manchester Enterprise Adviser Network. As Vicky explains, it’s a role that she finds fulfilling in both a personal and professional sense and something she encourages others within the industry to get involved in.

Our final ‘first’ for this month was the launch of our first ‘hub’ platform for our Interviewers and Field teams. The new Field Hub has completely revolutionised the HR and payroll for these teams, streamlining these important processes and maximising efficiencies. It has significantly reduced the amount of time taken to conduct these vital tasks, preventing any duplication of work and minimising errors and queries.

A key project highlight in April was the publication of another standout report – We Are Undeafeatable’s ‘Bridging the Gap’. After leading the public consultation, known as the ‘Big Talk’, our teams were involved every step of the way right through to the design and execution of the final reports and interactive infographic. Steph Skupien, Head of Creative Services at DJS Research, shared a few words about the experience: "It was a real pleasure working with the team at We Are Undefeatable on such a meaningful report. Their brand assets and guidelines were an absolute joy to work with too and visually speaking, the results speak for themselves". You can read more about the process behind this project here. 

Undoubtedly however, our standout moment of April 2024 was renewing our contract with Museum and Gallery Insight Consortium (MAGIC) for four more fantastic years. We couldn’t be more proud of the MAGIC team here at DJS who have continued to strengthen and evolve both our client relationship and our project work, end to end. It’s a project that our CATI interviewers absolutely love working on too – this quote from one of the team sums up the role of a telephone interviewer and 'the magic of MAGIC' perfectly:

“No two days are ever the same! On MAGIC we get to meet people from all over the world and get to hear their views on our museums and art galleries and an insight into their thoughts.”

Magic Interviewer

 

This month saw the culmination of hours of training and preparation for an intrepid gang of fundraisers, when close to 30 of DJS’s finest took on the Edale Skyline Challenge for our charity of the year, Blythe House Hospice. We also had a satellite team in Kent taking on their own mini-trek to show their support for this amazing cause. On 16^th May the team scaled over 1,200 metres of ascent, 5 ethels and 32km a piece – in all weathers – topped off with a well-deserved trip to the pub! Raising over £3k between them, they definitely earned that pint and a "cheers!" from all of us; it was most definitely the jewel in our fundraising crown this year.

May also saw the hounds hitting the office in our much loved 'Bring your dog to work day'. Pooches from across the DJS family came into Strines for a few hours to hang out with their doggie (and human) pals before a lunch time stroll and an afternoon nap (sadly not for the humans, though after all that excitement they could have done with one too!).

In June, our Training Manager Sarah Smith and HR Manager Lucy Pawson were delighted to be invited to Aquinas College to take part in a careers day for 16 and 17 year old students. DJS Research has supported multiple events at Aquinas in recent years and the feedback is always so positive – from students and our team taking part. This year was no exception and Sarah shares her highlights from the day here.

As Summer approached, we prepared for another milestone – our third anniversary of being employee-owned. We’ve learned so much as an agency over the last three years and as we entered into our fourth, we wanted to recognise and celebrate what makes us who we are – our amazing people. Throughout the month of July our ' Month of Us' campaign sought to reflect on how far we’ve come and shine a light on all the fantastic things we’re doing together here and now. From comms which focused on our employee Partners, to exciting announcements and launches (like our DJS Spotify channel - a big hit!), updates from our senior leaders and, and of course, lots of cake – we certainly started year 4 of EO with a bang!

We celebrated in a very different ‘researchy’ kind of way in July too – when the MRS came to Manchester! A team of our Partners from across DJS jumped at the chance to attend the Best of MRS Awards and Events held at the Co-op HQ. MRS events and conferences are always fantastic opportunities to knowledge share and connect with likeminded peers, and we encourage all our Partners to take up the opportunity as well as the fantastic training they offer. Across our teams we’ve attended more than a dozen conferences and MRS training events this year which have all played a part in personal and agency development.

Our Chairman Danny Sims is a huge advocate of the MRS and believes in the power of collaboration to drive cross-agency growth and, crucially, employee happiness. As well as being an MRS Award Judge again this year, he’s attended numerous MRS workshops and leader events (returning buoyed with ideas from the most recent Agency Owners & Leaders Conference!) and has been directly involved in the implementation of the MRS Employee Engagement and Satisfaction (EES) project. An initiative close to his heart, this aims to help organisations to understand their workforces better and benchmark their performance against others in their sector.

The summer also saw two fantastic new public-sector commissions for DJS Research, both with very different audiences at their heart. The Electoral Commission appointed us to deliver their Youth Public Opinion research, the results of which are just being finalised, and North Tyneside Council commissioned us to deliver the first of two residents surveys where we’ve introduced push to web into their mix for the first time. Two exciting new relationships that are already going from strength to strength – watch out for our Director Helen Menzies speaking with our client from the Electoral Commission at the MRS Gen A-Z conference in February 2025.

Finally, we introduced another new platform, Codeit, into our data services team to assist with our text analytics delivery solution. This powerful platform combines machine learning with human-coding to improve efficiency, quality and consistency. Our Data Operations Manager Liam Pringle describes the introduction of codeit as "an advancement of our arsenal of tools, helping to make our coding more efficient and easier to manage". And with over 255k verbatims coded this year alone, the importance of having the best tools for the job has never been more true!

Our in-house panel, Opinion Exchange, has continued to grow from strength to strength this year. With over 20,000 actively engaged panellists, the majority of whom have been recruited through our own research interviews, we can guarantee both quality and scale; as our panel Manager Carly Parsons explains, with challenges to online samples and panels mounting, our ability to verify our panellists is crucial.

The scale of Opinion Exchange, and breadth of our panel community, means it can also provide a strong platform to target harder to reach groups. One such audience, which we know is increasing in importance to many organisations and sectors, is people in vulnerable circumstances. This is where our new sub-panel comes in. Launched in September, Different Perspectives is a subset of 6,000 panellists, all of whom are facing or living with vulnerable conditions of some kind. From social and environmental, to economic or health factors, each panellist has their own individual vulnerabilities, and their experiences, views and opinions are vital to ensure inclusive research outputs.

Our new panel has already provided some key insights for the utilities and energy sector and we’re looking forward to many more deep dives with this community in 2025. We'll have more exciting panel news to share in the new year too - so watch this space…

On a lighter, more crumblier note, September saw the results of the much awaited ’Great DJS Biscuit Survey’! What started out as friendly banter between colleagues developed into a company-wide survey (of course!) – all good biscuity fun but with a genuine training opportunity at its creamy-centre, to give junior team members the opportunity to use TURF analysis for the first time. So what came out on top and are we an agency of dunkers? You’ll have to read the results to find out!

Someone who certainly didn’t crumble this month was DJS Director Alex McCluckie who was invited to speak about Behavioural Science at the Institute of Water’s annual conference. As our Behavioural Science Lead, he spoke passionately about how its core principles can be harnessed to foster a sense of unity and purpose within organisations across all sectors. Keep an eye out for Alex at more industry events in 2025, his diary is already looking pretty full…

Volunteering and giving something back is something we feel very passionate about, and that’s why every employee Partner at DJS has the opportunity to take a paid volunteer day each year. In 2024 we’ve racked up an impressive 35 days of volunteering between us – that’s almost one in three which ain’t half bad, but we’re always aiming for more!

Recently our HR and Finance team decided they’d like to spend their day with our charity of the year. With Christmas just around the corner they were delighted to help with preparations for the charity’s infamous wreath making events - you can read our HR Manager Lucy Pawson’s round up of the day here.

As Halloween approached ten partners from across DJS Research gave their support to Bramhall High School again but this time helping to conduct mock-interviews with year 11 students. Despite having some fears when they looked back at their own first-interview experiences (which can be the stuff of nightmares!), everyone loved the jam-packed day and saw how their sessions with the students made a really positive difference to both their overall demeanour and confidence levels. 

From support externally, to support internally. In November we recognised another wave of well-deserved promotions for 14 of our employee Partners across our Research, Field, FADs, HR and Training and Data and In-house panel teams – one more than a baker’s dozen and quite right too!

We jogged our way into December at the Blythe House Hospice Jingle Bell Jog, donning Santa suits and dashing around Buxton Gardens on a blustery Sunday morning – special congratulations to Rahat Imran who, completely new to running, completed the 5k route with her daughter. Well done, Rahat.

This month we’ve also announced our support for the White Ribbon charity. We were first made aware of this charity through our work with South Cambridgeshire District Council; its core aim is to prevent violence against women and girls by addressing the root causes and promoting education as a route to drive change. This struck a deep chord with members of our team. Our Associate Director Julie Hollingsworth has become our White Ribbon Champion and together we’ll be sharing more information internally at DJS to raise awareness of the important issues this charity stands for, as well as matters of abuse more widely, for women and men, in 2025.

We've also squeezed in another project highlight before the year's end too, with the publication of the 5th round of CCW's 'Testing the Water' report. With key highlights hitting the headlines across the sector press, it's another hugely rewarding conclusion to a project which has involved all departments across DJS Research. Once again the talents of our Creative Service team were enlisted to produce the final online report as well as an engaging video summary created by our Senior Animator & Multimedia Designer Angharad Pearce. 

And finally, we've raised a glass or two company-wide this month with festive team get-togethers in full swing including our ‘informal low-key Christmassy day’ (to call it by its official title!) in the Strines office. With Christmas jumpers and crackers a-plenty, we celebrated the end of another year with everyone’s festive favourite (pizza - what else?!) and unveiled the total raised for Blythe House Hospice this year – a whopping £6,708.70 (don’t forget that all important 70p!).

To crib a Christmas classic, another year over and a new one not yet begun. Here’s hoping, for one and all, it’s a good one.

 

 

A final word from our Managing Director, Al Gleed: 

"We’ve shown some real resilience this year in the face of tough market conditions, thanks to the hard work of all our employee owners who have brought their ideas and energy to develop and improve the business and tackle challenges and opportunities.

Although you couldn’t escape AI this year, our client consultation showed us that what our clients really value is our people, our expertise, flexibility and the way we manage relationships. The robots aren’t taking our jobs just yet!

We have evolved a lot as a business, thanks to all of the great brains around our company. We also have some really exciting developments on the cards for next year so watch this space.

As ever, thanks to all our people, clients, suppliers, respondents – and even our competitors. Recently it has been good to see even competing agencies coming together to share, collaborate and find collective solutions to some of the challenges we are all facing. That’s the (Christmas) spirit!

I think we have all earned a break - have a great festive season everyone."

 

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