Supporting our Community

We know we have the opportunity to make a difference and we fully embrace that in every way we can, for our local, national and global community.

We’re committed to giving something back and making a difference where we can, so we encourage our team to engage in a range of activities designed to bring us closer to our community and the charities we’re passionate about.

Three key areas that mean so much to us, are education for all, charitable causes and the environment, so we enjoy taking part in a variety of activities associated with these themes that also cultivate a strong team ethos and common purpose.

Inspiring future quality engineers

Encouraging the younger generations to pursue a future career in technology is a key factor in plugging the digital skills gap in the future. To us, this means exposing technology to children and young adults in a fun and engaging way. We’ve taken it upon ourselves to get truly involved in educational communities to do this in a number of ways.

We liaise and work with schools, colleges, and universities across the UK to help all children develop themselves and increase their future opportunities. We are passionate about improving the lives of children. We actively support a variety of skills initiatives, for example, the Lancashire Digital Skills Partnership in their quest to improve skills to fuel the growing digital economy. We support mock interviews, school visits to our offices, careers fairs and guest lectures around the UK and actively promote careers in Quality Engineering across all ages and genders.

And it’s not just in the UK. Technology will only get more prolific all around the world. Education starts with the basics and that’s why even just in the last 12 months, we’ve funded six ‘Classroom in a Box’ student cases from Make it Write. That’s enough stationery to keep 120 junior or primary school students in rural schools overseas going for six months.

Education for everyone...

Further education

The Defectives University Challenge is a fun introduction to the world of quality and quality engineering, where teams work together to find defects on specific websites, vying to become the proud recipients of the coveted University Challenge trophy and some fabulous spot prizes along the way. We’ve had some fantastic feedback over the years and many of our Academy Consultants have been first introduced to Roq and the world of quality engineering through our Defectives events.

Knowledge sharing

In this fast-paced digital world, we all need to keep up-to-date and relevant. Our people have a wealth of information that they're keen to share. We host a broad range of webinars, present at events, share what they've experienced via blogs and articles and are always open to a conversation - online or in person. We also write whitepapers, reports and instructional guides, manuals and frameworks as well as produce podcasts to help anyone seeking to learn more.

Raising awareness

The technology community needs support to thrive. We take pride in campaigning to raise awareness of the growing digital skills gap - bringing the root causes to the fore. We champion diversity in technology, and we provide new opportunities for people to break into new careers in technology.

Community ambassadors

Charity work is really important to us, so the charities that we support and community activities we’re involved in are a team decision.

For some time now, we’ve had a dedicated and diverse team of Community Ambassadors from all across the business.

From Joe Horrocks in our Marketing team, Sarah Jane Riggott from our Leadership team, Steve Knowles, Kerry Stones, Rob Wallace, Holly Wylie, and Amanda Cole in our People team; to Denton Arnold, Louise Owen, Edward Warren, Connor Griffiths, and Steve Nattrass in our Delivery function working on and off client sites, they're all committed to representing the wider Roq team and the charities and community initiatives we're passionate about.

Meeting on a regular basis to discuss all possible fundraising opportunities, nominated charities and upcoming events. Our fantastic team of Ambassadors focus on arranging a variety of events and activities that are inclusive and allow everyone to contribute to the causes that matter to them.

We believe that this collaborative approach benefits us, just as much as it benefits the charities we support and everyone feels that they’re making a very real difference.

The Charities We Support

Our chosen charities and initiative are certainly diverse. They range from supporting local schoolchildren in learning valuable IT skills, funding school equipment in South Africa, gaming marathons for homeless charities, volunteer work and litter picking in our local areas, to annual walking challenges to support mental health charities and the wellbeing of our colleagues.

Charity and Community Events

Over the years we have hosted an array of different events to raise funds and awareness for a range of local, national, and worldwide causes we’re passionate about. It’s important to us that these events not only raise money but also engage our colleagues and local communities. Such beliefs have previously inspired events such as Music Bingo in aid of CALM, an annual BBQ, and the ever-popular Power Up gaming marathon.

Charity Matching & Community Days

As well as company initiatives and events throughout the year, we’re proud to run a charity matching scheme to increase the impact we make on those hard-working community initiatives. We also encourage our people to embrace their creativity in the ways that they can raise money for good causes of their choice by offering each Roq colleague one day out of work per year to give something back to their community – we consider it a way of paying it forward. It’s all about our team pulling together to make a difference.

The environment

Protection of the world we live and operate in may be standard business practice, but to us, it means more. We’re fortunate to not have the sort of business that has a high environmental impact, but that doesn’t mean we can’t go that bit further. We take a remote-first approach to work so that we reduce our carbon footprint from the outset. 

Even though this policy is in place, we appreciate how important it is to see our colleagues face-to-face, so we plant saplings in National Trust land for any company office or away days to offset the environmental impact.

We keep waste to a minimum, encouraging the use of reusable bottles and containers and operating a paperless office where printing is avoided. We use a local company for all our recycling needs and also ensure our IT supplies, furniture and office equipment is recycled, when possible, to avoid them going to landfill.

On top of all this, we’re committed to including environmentally conscious charities in our ongoing community initiatives.

Start speaking to one of our experts

We understand the importance of getting it right first time. We also understand how hard that is. Using our expertise and experience, we can work together with that intention in mind. Call us on 01257 208890, contact us using our online form, or email ask@roq.co.uk to find out more.

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