1. Who these terms are between

These terms are a contract between HELM Impact Ltd (“we”, “us”, “HELM”) and the organisation buying or using HELM Culture Score (“you”, “the client”).

HELM Impact Ltd is a company registered in England and Wales, company number 14608323, registered office at 61 Brookhead Drive, Cheadle, SK8 2JA. We are registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office, registration number ZB777003.

By placing an order for HELM Culture Score, confirming you wish to proceed by email or in writing, or completing a purchase through our website, you accept these terms in full.

2. What HELM Culture Score is

HELM Culture Score (HCS) is a ten-question employee survey across five pillars, producing a single, externally usable score that reflects how your employees experience working for you at a point in time.

HCS is a measurement. It is not a certification, an audit, a diagnostic tool, a wellbeing assessment, or advice of any kind, including legal, HR, or employment advice. It does not test compliance with any law or regulation, and it does not guarantee any particular business outcome, including but not limited to improved retention, recruitment, or profitability.

3. Who can buy HCS

HCS is designed for organisations with 30 or more employees, based in the UK. We may, at our discretion, run HCS for smaller organisations, but the 30-employee guide is a statistical rule of thumb, not a guarantee of validity below that size.

4. Our programmes

• Annual Programme. A twelve-month cycle including the survey, a full report, industry benchmarking where available, and a score badge. Priced by headcount band, as published at helmculturescore.com/pricing-3/.
• Snapshot. A single, one-off survey, report and score, without the score badge. Priced separately, as published on our website.
• Free Trial. A one-off survey and report provided at no charge, without a score badge, external usage rights, or benchmark comparison. We retain the resulting data for our own internal use, including contributing to our benchmark dataset.

Each Annual Programme is a fresh decision each year. It does not renew automatically. If you would like to run HCS again the following year, you will need to place a new order.

5. Placing an order

An order is placed, and a contract formed, in one of two ways:

• By invoice, following a conversation with us, once you have confirmed in writing or by email that you wish to proceed. A PO should be provided were available; or
• By card payment, through the checkout on our website, where you confirm your acceptance of these terms before payment is taken.

Prices are those published on our website at the time of your order, or as separately quoted to you in writing for the Enterprise band or any bespoke arrangement. All prices are shown exclusive of VAT, which is charged in addition at the prevailing rate.

6. Payment

Invoices are payable within 14 days of the invoice date, unless otherwise agreed in writing.

We do not open your survey until we have received cleared funds. If payment is outstanding, your survey start date will move back accordingly; this does not extend the twelve-month period of an Annual Programme unless we agree otherwise in writing.

Where, exceptionally, we begin work before payment is received, we will not release your report, your score, or your badge until the invoice has been paid in full.

If payment is not received by the due date, we may charge interest on the overdue amount in line with the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998, and we may pause your survey cycle until payment is received.

7. Cancellation and refunds

Once an order has been placed and payment made, it is non-refundable. This applies whether you cancel before the survey opens, during the survey window, after you have received your report, or at any other point, and it applies regardless of whether you are satisfied with your score or the results.

HCS is a measurement: a genuine, independent reflection of how your employees answered. It is not designed to produce any particular result, and being unhappy with a result is not grounds for a refund. If you believe there has been a genuine problem with how we delivered the service, see Service standards (Section 15) for how to raise it and what we will do.

8. What we need from you

To run HCS, you agree to:

• Provide an accurate employee headcount for the purposes of pricing and quota setting.
• Distribute the survey link to all employees through an all-staff channel, and not selectively exclude individuals or groups.
• Take reasonable steps to encourage a good response, including sending reminders and chasing participation during the survey window.
• Provide your correct company name and an approved logo file for use in your report.
• Respond to reasonable requests needed to set up and run your survey on schedule.
• Not attempt to identify, or pressure any employee to disclose, their individual responses.

You are responsible for the participation rate your survey achieves. We are not liable if you do not distribute the survey, do not chase or remind employees to respond, or otherwise do not encourage participation.

9. How the survey runs

Your survey runs for sixteen days, opening on a Tuesday and closing on a Thursday, within a single calendar month, with a quota set at your headcount plus ten per cent. We aim to deliver your report within five working days of the survey closing.

If a survey window needs to be rescheduled, this must be agreed between us in writing. Rescheduling does not entitle you to a refund.

10. Your score, report and badge

We will provide you with a report and an overall HELM Culture Score, together with a score for each of the five pillars. Where you have purchased the Annual Programme, you will also receive a score badge for use during the twelve-month period it covers.

You may use your score and badge externally, for example on your careers page, in tender responses, in board papers, or in investor materials, provided you use them accurately and do not alter, edit, or misrepresent the score, the badge, or the period it relates to. Any external use must show the year or period the score relates to, so it is never presented as more current than it is. Once we issue you a new score, you must stop using an earlier one for any external purpose.

The method we use to calculate your score is proprietary. We do not disclose it, and you may not attempt to reverse-engineer, copy, or replicate it.

11. Anonymity

We do not collect names or email addresses from survey respondents. We only know how many people responded, never who said what, and we will never attempt to identify an individual respondent from their answers.

This is a contractual commitment between us, not just a description of how the survey works. You are entitled to rely on it, and to repeat it to your employees, when you tell them about the survey.

12. Ownership of survey data

All data generated through your survey, including individual responses and aggregated results, belongs to HELM Impact Ltd, both during our relationship and after it ends. We use this data to produce your score and report, and, in anonymised and aggregated form, to build and maintain our industry benchmarks. You do not own, and cannot claim any rights in, the underlying survey data. This does not affect your ownership of your own score, report or badge as issued to you, or our obligations to you under Data protection (Section 14).

13. Intellectual property

Except for your own company name, logo, and your rights over your own score, report and badge, all intellectual property in HCS, including the framework, the five pillars, the scoring methodology, our reports, our website, and our brand, belongs to HELM Impact Ltd or our licensors. Buying HCS gives you the right to use your own score and report as set out in these terms. It does not give you any wider rights in our intellectual property.

14. Data protection

We are the data controller for the personal data we process in delivering HCS. Full details are in our Privacy Notice at helmculturescore.com/privacy-notice/, which forms part of these terms.

15. Service standards

We will provide HCS using reasonable care and skill.

We rely on the information you give us, including your headcount, company name, logo, and how you distribute the survey. We are not liable for any inaccuracy in your score, report, or badge that results from information you have given us being incomplete or wrong.

We are not responsible for any decision or action you take, or choose not to take, as a result of your score or report. What you do with your result, internally or externally, is entirely up to you.

If you believe there is a genuine defect in the service we have delivered, you must tell us in writing within 7 days of your report being delivered. We are not able to consider issues raised after this point.

Where we agree there is a valid defect, our only obligation is to put it right. We will do this by correcting the report or re-running the affected survey at no extra cost to you. This right to remedy applies instead of, not in addition to, a refund.

Beyond the promise of reasonable care and skill above, and to the extent permitted by law, we exclude all other warranties, whether express or implied, including any warranty that HCS will improve any aspect of your business.

16. Limitation of liability

Nothing in these terms limits or excludes our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud, or for any other liability that cannot be limited or excluded by law.

Subject to that, our total liability to you arising out of or in connection with HCS, whether in contract, tort, or otherwise, is limited to the fees you have paid us for the annual cycle or Snapshot giving rise to the claim. We are not liable for any indirect or consequential loss, including loss of profit, loss of business, or loss of reputation.

17. Term and ending the relationship

Each Annual Programme runs for the twelve-month period it covers. It ends automatically at the end of that period unless you place a new order.

Either of us may end an ongoing arrangement with written notice if the other is in material breach of these terms and has not put this right within 14 days of being asked to. Ending the relationship does not affect any score, report, or badge already issued to you, and does not entitle you to a refund of fees already paid.

18. Circumstances beyond our control

Neither of us is responsible for a delay or failure to perform caused by something beyond our reasonable control, including illness, IT or platform outage, or events affecting the wider economy or public health.

19. General

• Whole agreement. These terms, together with our Privacy Notice, are the entire agreement between us for HCS, and replace any earlier discussions or documents on the same subject.
• Changes. We may update these terms from time to time. Where we do, the version that applied at the time you placed your order continues to apply to that order.
• No partnership. Nothing in these terms creates a partnership, agency, or joint venture between us.
• Assignment. You may not transfer your rights or obligations under these terms without our written agreement. We may transfer ours as part of a sale or restructuring of our business.
• Severability. If any part of these terms is found unenforceable, the rest continues to apply.
• Third parties. No one other than you and HELM Impact Ltd has any right to enforce these terms.

20. Governing law

These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales have exclusive jurisdiction over any dispute arising from them.

21. Getting in touch

If you have any questions about these terms, or a concern about your service, contact us at info@helmculturescore.com.