released for 2018 International Women’s Day, when children were asked questions about their mothers: What silly things she does? What games she is good at playing? The best meal she makes?. ‘My friends think my mum is reet hard because of her uniform and they shouldn’t mess with her, but she’s actually really sweet,’ says one, before the ending reveals all their mums are also firefighters. The video was shared across the Service’s digital channels, but the comms team also made contact with administrators of influential closed groups and pages on Facebook, helping to reach an extra 1,400 people. Initially, it was hard to get female firefighters to get
involved. But when the video generated a double page spread in the local newspaper and led to 59 women registering their interest in becoming a firefighter within two weeks of launch – four times the number of registrations in the two weeks prior to its release – they could see its impact and were keen to participate in future projects. Putting their people front and centre
is a huge part of what South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue’s communications team does, whether it’s through a staff recognition scheme – where members of the public shared stories of good work – or showcasing the work of the frontline response team when floods hit the local area. Telling those stories generates pride, job satisfaction and ultimately makes the public safer. When the River Don broke its banks
younger people can only aspire to be what they can see, the communications team approached members of its BAME staff network, inviting them to have their portrait taken by finance team member Orestes Rix, who is also a fine art photographer. The exhibition also featured retired colleagues, including South Yorkshire’s first ever black firefighter who joined in 1978. Those featured were asked about their roles, what made them join and their cultural heritage. Pulled together in three weeks, the exhibition
You have to really hone down who your audience is
We’re always
looking for ways to innovate
to tackle new problems
in early November 2019, flooding parts of Sheffield, Rotherham and Barnsley, the strategy was three- pronged: safety, telling people not to enter flood water; reassurance, explaining what was happening as often as possible on social media platforms and in the local and national media; and praise, thanking frontline staff and highlighting human interest stories. A Facebook post about Rotherham firefighters who delivered food to a resident trapped by the floods reached more than 300,000 people on that channel alone. The public appreciated the efforts, and the communications team put together a video drawing on their social media comments, which was shared both on internal and external channels. But ask Mills what campaign he is most proud
of, and he cites a photographic exhibition for Black History Month in 2019. After research revealed that
CorpComms | February/March 2020
launched in a Sheffield gallery before touring local landmarks with the highest footfall, such as the train station and Winter Gardens. An estimated 485,000 people had the opportunity to see the exhibition throughout the month. ‘We’re expected in comms to be good at making videos, at digital, but putting on a fine art photography exhibition is different,’ says Mills. ‘It highlights the range of skills that comms teams can bring and the success of that reflected internally. We’re proud of the impact it had on recruitment.’ Indeed, 49 people from a BAME
background registered their interest in firefighter recruitment following the campaign, an 88 per cent increase compared to the monthly average across July, August and September.
‘We’re always bringing it back to objectives,’ asserts Mills. ‘Why are we doing this? Okay, we want a more diverse workforce, but we have to prove the data can achieve that. We’re always looking for the next thing. We’re always looking for ways to innovate to tackle new problems. It’s important that we stay on trend, particularly online, keeping our content fresh, edgy and different. It’s especially difficult for teams in the public sector but we always try to do things a little differently. We value outcomes over outputs. All that some organisations want to do is show off their vanity metrics, but we’re always trying to show our worth.’ Fortunately, the last 18 months have done just
that. Whether it’s reducing fires by up to 30 per cent at a time or boosting potential female recruits by 230 per cent in just two weeks, this is clearly a communications team who are flaming high. CC
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