DWP Digital’s Talent Marketing team is celebrating a double success after winning the Gold award for Best Employer Brand at the In-house Recruitment Awards and the Best Public Sector Employer award at the Women in Tech Employer awards.
The awards recognise the team’s work in supporting the continuous recruitment of digital specialists into the organisation through employer branding, and its commitment to close the gender gap and promote diversity.
Recruiting tech talent into government isn’t easy, as departments are in direct competition with private sector employers with bigger budgets and more established brands. So using insight and research, the team developed the new DWP Digital employer brand to demonstrate what a career at the organisation has to offer.
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.
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.
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.
Simon McKinnon, Chief Digital and Information Officer at DWP Digital said: “This is great news and reflects the strength of our new employer brand 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.”
