Employ Their Ability

The Brief 

According to research commissioned by the Department of Social Services (DSS), many employers in large organisations are open to hiring people with disability — but few are actually doing so. Employers want to be spoken to directly by their peers, see examples of disability employment in action and know where to go to get help to do the same.

Idea

Employers don’t want to be told what to do by the government. They need to see the benefits of disability employment from sources that they trust — leaders and organisations from within their own industries. 

To achieve this, Think HQ developed a comprehensive public relations strategy including event management, stakeholder engagement, social media and media relations to share information and stories about disability employment.

Our mission was to connect hiring managers with the resources available on the JobAccess website. To do it we created continual touch-points through eDMs, websites and social, and created peer-to-peer sharing of content across trusted networks. In that way, the campaign came from trusted sources, without feeling like a ‘government lecture’.

We also created an online toolkit for employers housing engaging video lessons that walked them through the process.

Outcomes

The 12-month campaign was an enormous success. Overall awareness of tools and resources available through JobAccess increased by more than 8% amongst middle managers and HR managers and non-advertising channels (public relations activity) provided 8% more awareness than advertising channels 
at the midpoint of the campaign, and 5% at the end.

Communications activity was extremely successful in engaging 
our audience. We leveraged partner channels to share content, building a network of 1,252 individual supporters (target 500), while securing 106 official partners (target 100). In total there was 353 pieces of known shared content on partner channels (target 200) and 460 pieces of user generated content (target 400) — lending legitimacy and providing the ‘peer to peer’ communication employers wanted.

Partnership activity involved the development of a prospectus document to on board partner organisations, face to face engagement through a series of breakfast events, regular monthly EDMs with shareable content, and regular one on one contact to offer support. Think HQ managed three breakfast events in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane each attended by 60+ decision makers from target industries. 

This was complemented by media relations and social media activity. Media relations focused on industry media, and the vast majority of articles included case studies sourced by Think HQ — giving employers the real-life stories they wanted to see. Think HQ secured 153 media clips (target 100) with a total of 663 key messages mentioned (target 150). Overall media coverage reached a potential audience of over 2 million people.

Think HQ identified, approached, vetted, interviewed and drafted stories of disability employment from all over Australia. In total Think HQ secured 62 individual case studies, 38 of which appearing in media, and wrote up 32 case studies uploaded to the JobAccess website. These stories wove personal anecdotes with links to available support — giving employers everything they needed to transition from ‘open’ to hiring.

Social media focused on LinkedIn, where we shared stories from the campaign, and key stats about disability employment. Think HQ established the LinkedIn page and built it to a following of 1,161 by the end of the campaign period (target 1,000).

Concurrently, we produced our online learning resource — 
the Employer Toolkit. The Toolkit stepped employers through disability employment from start to finish. Development of the Employer Toolkit was entirely in-house, including: production of videos, web development, producing resources, sourcing case studies and talent, and ensuring accessibility.

Visit www.jobaccess.gov.au