Spirit Pub Company has won the Best HR Campaign Award and the coveted Gold Award for Best Overall Campaign for their ‘Training Tree’ learning and development programme. The national awards were presented by the Institute of Internal Communications.
Interactive website to support employees
The Training Tree, which was created with employee communication specialists, like minds, is an interactive website that was created to support employees with their learning and development.
The website is segmented into branches according to the career pathway the employee is on, with each area hosting a variety of materials including videos, workshop programmes and role-specific training information, as well as videos from others about the opportunities and experiences of career development at Spirit.
The judges commented: “The Training Tree is a fantastic brand with immediate impact and first-rate materials, it’s eye-catching, colourful, fresh and modern, yet functional too, as the tree forms the interactive menu. Brilliant creativity and, as soon as we picked it up, it made us smile.
“This is a very strong, phased and focused campaign which puts the needs of colleagues – wherever they are in their career and whatever their ambitions – right at its heart…It’s clear that Spirit values its people and wants them to fulfil their potential.”
What it means to work at Spirit
The campaign started with the seed of an idea to help employees see their way clearly through the different training and career opportunities at Spirit. From that, it grew to become an aspiration to change perceptions about what it means to work at Spirit.
The Training Tree was also successfully applied externally to promote Spirit at a recruitment fair aimed at 16-24 year olds.
Overall, the website and brand have given Spirit the opportunity to:
- Show the range and scope of training they provide
- Bring pub and support centre roles together
- Clearly show the steps employees should take to achieve their career goals
- Make accessible the training resources in one place, and
- Equip managers with everything they need to develop their teams
The scheme received full marks in all three judging categories at the Awards: strategy and planning, execution and measurement of success.
The scheme has also been shortlisted by Melcrum, the global organisation for internal communication professionals