DWP Digital is the Best Employer Brand
DWP Digital (the digital team for the Department for Work and Pensions) is delighted to have won the Gold award for the Best Employer Brand at the In-house Recruitment Awards last week.
This accolade went to Nicola Platts’ Talent Marketing team for their work on the new Digital With Purpose brand and Employer Value Proposition (EVP).
Simon McKinnon said:
“This is great news and reflects the strength of our new EVP and the impact it has had on recruitment. The awards recognise achievements across the whole of UK PLC, not just the government or digital sectors. We beat household names such as BP and Balfour Beatty, showing that our brand really is best in class.”
Nicola’s team are responsible for the PR and Marketing behind the continuous recruitment of top tech talent to our teams. Recruiting digital specialists into the government isn’t easy! We’re in direct competition with private sector employers, many of who have bigger recruitment budgets and more established brands. Which is why earlier this year we introduced the new employer brand for DWP Digital.
Developing the DWP Digital employer brand
The team gathered audience insight from multiple data sources and carried out in-depth research, working closely with a leading employer brand agency – SRMS – to develop their new employer brand.
The brand consists of the ‘Digital With Purpose’ strapline – a variant of the acronym DWP – that summarises the essence of the brand, a supporting set of employer brand values, and a visual identity which creates a consistent brand look and feel.
DWP Digital’s new brand values really encompass what is important to their employees:
- rise to the challenge: interesting, demanding and rewarding work
- every person matters: an inclusive work environment where people can be themselves
- make an impact: meaningful work that has a positive impact for our users
- our time is now: being part of an exciting digital transformation
- own your career: the chance to develop skills and access career opportunities
Putting the brand into action
The team put the brand values into action, using real colleagues to advocate their experiences and demonstrate the Digital With Purpose story. They used the DWP Digital GOV.UK blog, LinkedIn and other social media to promote these stories. Paid adverts and videos were shared across Instagram, Facebook and a series of display network websites.
The team organised more than 30 opportunities for DWP Digital colleagues to speak about their work at industry events. And more than 50 positive articles about DWP Digital were published in trade media publications. They also organised a hackathon event for the Manchester digital community, and drafted nominations that led to 3 industry award wins and 21 shortlistings.
New starter, Olutade Bankole, joined DWP Digital in June 2020, during the coronavirus (COVID-19) lockdown. He said:
“I applied because I wanted to be part of the team that is helping people during difficult circumstances.”
Olutade was so impressed with DWPs values that he wrote a blogpost for National Inclusion Week, in it he said he is,
“making time to be an advocate to represent DWP,” he wants to “see more BAME colleagues who feel empowered and encouraged to tell people in their circle of opportunities to join the organisation.”
Ultimately the team’s work contributed to 930 new hires being made in DWP Digital in 2019/20, exceeding the target of 900. This is a notable achievement given the nature of the specialist tech roles that are some of the hardest to fill. Importantly, the team’s initiatives have helped to increase the percentage of senior women from 39% to 44% in recent years.
The award comes just a week after the team helped to secure the Best Public Sector Employer of women award at the Women in Tech Employer Awards, where DWP Digital was recognised for its work to close the gender gap and promote gender diversity.
Michael Connolly, Head of Digital Engagement said:
“DWP Digital is very lucky to have such a talented, committed marketing team. The brand has thrived because the team embraced it in a really cohesive and impressive way right across campaign strategy, creative and copy direction and execution, wider content development, channel planning and management, advocacy, PR and other areas.
They also worked with the wider Digital Engagement team to give it vital internal traction and credibility.”
- Image credit:
- DWP Digital Talent Marketing team (1)