Case study

Making people feel at home, at work.

Bromford know who they are and what they stand for.

But their people didn’t know what this meant to them.

Category: Employer Brand
Client: Bromford

Bromford Housing is a charitable housing association and one of the biggest builders of affordable housing in the UK – developing homes that are safe, energy efficient and designed for people to thrive in. They do important work.

But whilst Bromford know who they are and what they stand for, their people didn’t truly know what this meant to them. We needed to build on their understanding and help them to see Bromford as home to them, too.

The approach

Turning ‘What’ into ‘Why’.

When we met them, Bromford had just completed a thorough piece of work to identify the key characteristics of people within the business. Knowing this enabled everyone in the business to understand exactly what’s expected of them.

This is known as the ‘Bromford DNA’

It involves four key strands:

• Be.Honest.

• Be.Brilliant.

• Be.Bold.

• Be.You.

Each strand outlines specific qualities and characteristics that people need to help Bromford succeed. But employer branding isn’t only about helping businesses perform. It’s about helping people thrive too. So, we set out to develop some attributes that would tell the other half of the story.

We built an attribute to complement each strand of DNA:

• Be Bold...because - People are counting on you

• Be Brilliant...because - You can thrive here

• Be Honest...because - We can learn from the truth

• Be you... because - Relationships are built on personality.

And, by combing the attributes and DNA we were able to express why Bromford is such a wonderful place to work. This became their proposition and the big idea at the heart of their employer brand.

What we created:

Belong at Bromford.

This simple proposition beautifully encapsulates what Bromford is all about - giving people a place to belong. It expresses how Bromford makes everyone in their team feel at home in a community of friends and colleagues who genuinely care about one another. And it also references the outcome of the positive work they do to give customers a place where they feel safe and supported to live their life to the full.

We built a campaign with people at the heart.

Using real photography of their people doing great work combined with inspiring messaging we highlighted how Bromford gives colleagues and customers’ a place to belong and live their best life, in a community of friends.

All our communications centre around a simple, engaging and versatile question and answer structure. We call out some great qualities and tell our audience that if they’re lucky enough to see these qualities in themselves, then they’ve found a place where they truly belong. It’s a very clear and powerful way to deliver all kinds of messages.

The outcome:

Making an impact internally and externally.

Since launch, Belong at Bromford has been positively received at all levels of the business. It’s helped colleagues engage with and deliver the new business strategy as well as helped to unite their team.

From an attraction perspective, our employer brand has joined up all their recruitment marketing messages, allowing them to deliver a more connected candidate experience, it also allows Bromford to tell a more compelling story about who they are. We look forward to seeing this impact continue to grow.