Engaging a diverse and geographically spread workforce
With over 3,500 employees working across 53 locations, North East Ambulance Service is one of the region's largest employers, providing lifesaving frontline healthcare to those most in need. In 2023, NEAS noted a need for an initiative to bring staff together and raise their profile as an employer. JUMP supported this initiative by creating a visually engaging internal brand communications strategy.
A unique and engaging identity
JUMP pitched to create a unique and engaging identity, demonstrating an opportunity to create a bold, powerful presence that would reflect the dynamic nature of the organisation to both a regional and national audience.
The underlying purpose behind the project was to unify various employees as one workforce, bridging gaps between staff through a connected brand story and communications strategy that would be rolled out across a range of mediums.
Unifying a widespread organisation
It immediately became clear to JUMP that staff involvement would be paramount to the project's success. The organisation was divided and spread across multiple teams, locations and departments. It was therefore fundamental that the new identity was representative of the workforce in its entirety.
One of JUMP's main goals was to capture the essence of NEAS, both physically and emotionally, whilst encouraging employees to ‘buy-in’ to this new identity.
In response, we presented a proposal for a large-scale staff engagement project; interacting with staff from across the organisation to understand the various attitudes and pain points of the entire workforce to form the foundations of the project.
From the outset, JUMP clearly understood our brief. Their meticulous attention to detail, creativity and thorough research into our organisation brought our vision to life.
Sam Reed, Communications Manager
Engaging staff through a company-wide employee engagement project
We engaged with a range of staff from across the organisation including senior managers, call centre staff and patient-facing associates to align staff ambitions with the goals of NEAS. JUMP also undertook thorough research into both NEAS and the wider sector to analyse culture, offerings and opportunities.
For the project to be successful and the new identity to be authentic, JUMP wanted to involve key stakeholders and team members from across the organisation. Over a series of weeks, JUMP conducted a range of questionnaires, workshops, station visits and interviews - engaging with 224 staff members from across the organisation to get a broader understanding of how to approach the identity.
Creating one identity to represent a diverse workforce
The key challenge for this project centred around creating an identity that would successfully reach, communicate and engage with all NEAS employees. From our meetings with the client, JUMP understood the need to build the profile of NEAS; communicating the culture and ethos of the organisation whilst increasing the awareness of its aims, objectives and activities.
The identity also needed to sit alongside and complement their pre-existing brand whilst being recognisable and appealing to all. The new identity would be utilised in their internal communications platform ‘Siren’ as well as letterheads, staff presentations, staff appraisals and evaluation forms.
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We are better together
Following the staff engagement process, JUMP developed a range of concepts, underpinned by our findings throughout the engagement and learning process. We wanted the identity to communicate that although the organisation is widespread and composed of many moving parts, the staff still come together to create one unified team.
It was pivotal to the project that we combined a range of perspectives, providing an accurate representation of the entire workforce and ensuring that staff felt involved. The concept “Better together” was developed directly from conversations with staff; linking to how the workforce connect, collaborate and are unified in their mission of providing safe, effective and responsible care for patients across the region.