Milk & Honey: A Real People-First PR Agency

Businesses often pride themselves in their fair and just treatment of their employees, or at least their PR agency does. Despite this fancy PR affair, inequality remains a growing concern around the world. There is a fundamental flaw in the business ideology that values profits over people – people build profits - not the other way around. Hence, the world needs more businesses to value the hard work, and sacrificesof employees. There are some notable exceptions to the growing greed in business culture. The PR agency, Milk & Honey has passed 55% of ownership staketo its employees. The company is a robust story in financial wisdom. In 2019, the company’s turnover rose to £923,000 with 20% in profits. In 2020, despite the pandemic, its turnover rose to £1.38 million with 11% in profits. Its journey is an anomaly in the business world, with its stepping stones laid out by the people, and truly for its people.

A Unique Vision

Kirsty Leighton, the founder of Milk & Honey speaks candidly about her vision. She notes, “For me, the answer always comes back to people. If you get people right, and give them the opportunity to be happy in their work – they will always surprise you.” She adds further that many companies are setting aside employee happiness to commit to endless, often nonsensical priorities. These include the clock watching, the trudge into the office, the Sunday night dread. Kirsty believes this endless ordeal needs to be accounted for in the business world as it eats into profits, productivity, and mainly, peace of mind.

Kirsty’s vision has become an inspiring journey for her team at Milk & Honey. The company is a frontrunner for services like corporate branding, social media, analytics, lead generation, content production, web design, and more. Milk & Honey today works with some of the leading brands in the UK, and globally, with clients like UK’s famous dating app, Inner Circle, and Turo, the world’s largest car sharing company. Its client portfolio today boasts of over 57 leading companies in the UK, within just 5 years of its inception. The company formed in 2016 with a single employee, has grown to a team of 26. On its successful journey, the company has truly taken people on-board with some great policies.

A Gifted Team

Milk & Honey has worked with PriceSpy, a product, and price comparison start up in the UK. Milk & Honey worked with PriceSpy for 18 months, to help the company gain publicity in every UK national outlet, and various personal finance digital platforms. The gifted team at Milk & Honey delivered PriceSpy, its most successful run on record for three straight months, along with an increase of 38% downloads through a single day campaign in 2017. The team at Milk & Honey also helped launch PriceSpy in new waters in New Zealand. The small team at Milk & Honey has delivered PriceSpy a promising 20% y-o-y growth.

Milk & Honey’s small team of 26 also takes on some of the most challenging PR works globally. One of its recognised clientlistsincludes, McMillan Cancer support. The group is one of UK’s largest charities, and a specialised provider of health care. The charity aims to reach every person, and family affected by the growing pandemic of cancer around the world. The charity began its association with Kristy 26 years ago in 1990. Today, McMillan cancer support celebrates 28th year of its renowned coffee morning, a special fundraiser event to bring patients, doctors, and their families together. This fundraiser is a glowing testament of McMillan’s faith, and commitment to working with Kristy, and her team.Liam Coleman, a senior executive at Macmillan notes, “World’s biggest coffee morning is a special event for us, and our PR agency helps us deliver a fresh and exciting look every year”

ATreasure of Wisdom

At Milk & Honey, employees can avail flexible working from day 1. Moreover, nearly a year of paid maternity leave is offered to female employees. Other benefits include generous pension provisions, profit-based bonus, shared ownership scheme, a separate personal training budget, interest-free loan-schemes, annual trips, travel loans, and robust support for mental wellbeing, and health. Some might look at all these benefits and say, “this is another gimmick” or “Hey, if they are paying that well, their employees must have requested it at some point”. However, truth in practice isn’t often as simple as that.

Modern world is devoid of traditional work ethics, where our relationship with work is often determined by money. Our business systems often solely rely on monetary incentives to get people to work. However, working often involves a profound sacrifice on part of the employees. For example, an employee with a panic disorder may always be left wondering if his commute to work is his last trip, away from his family. Employee from the LGBTQ community may find it difficult to express their creative ideas because they aren’t sure if their workplace is really open to their input.

Without a deep probe, and support, such profound psychological impact may always remain trapped in dark corners of our minds. Hence, a PR agency with its eye-sight set on profits alone will always be pushed towards growth, with a certain level of mediocrity - in its creative output. Without the passionate support for its people, these two equations are naturally at odds with each other. Hence, it is important to give people a real voice, a real expression, and a real goal to strive for every day. Their passion is one of the wisestinvestments in business in general, and essential to a great PR firm.Very few businesses understand this equation, and it is treasured even less.

The wise investment in people at Milk & Honey has paid off tremendously in recent years. The staff absence in last 12 months remains an all-time low, at 2.5 days. Furthermore, in the last year, company has offered jobs to 17 people with an 88% acceptance rate, and attrition reduced to a new low. Its people friendly policies, and glowing long-term relationship with its employees earned the company the tag of ‘the People Employer of the Year Award 2020’, placing it in the list of top 0.5% companies in the UK.

A Robust Future Roadmap

When asked about the future of the company, Kristy remains upbeat almost to a fault. She notes, “To put it simply, people are our strategy, and great PR is the outcome. Product evolve and people grow: Learning, sharing, and being better is always the process” Kristy’s wisdom seems to have come from over 26 years of experience, wherein she worked with some of the best tech, finance, and PR agencies. Her leadership at Milk & Honey remains crucial to company’s growth, with the robust competition in advertising becoming an eardrum in an increasingly smaller and global world.

Perhaps Milk & Honey will go down as one of the best PR firms of all-time. Perhaps, the company will falter in its track to be the best in the industry. However, in its small journey, the company has achieved many milestones that would make even advertising giants stop in their tracks, and take notice. Milk & Honey promises to rekindle a romance with work that has long been lost in the business world. Thisachievement alone is worth every accolade in the modern business world.