Hult Ashridge Executive Education – Team Engagement

Hult Ashridge Executive Education, part of Hult International Business School, published the biggest ever UK study of barriers to team engagement, alongside Engage for Success and Oracle. The study suggested that teams are often nowhere near as engaged as their organisations think they are.

We worked with the report author, Dr Amy Bradley, to communicate the findings to the general public through media relations. We chose to promote the research over Christmas, when the news agenda was quieter, but journalists were still looking for interesting content.

The BBC interviewed Dr Amy Bradley and wrote a feature around the epidemic of ‘pseudo-engagement’ in organisations. The angle was also covered by a range of national titles, including The Guardian, Daily Mail, Yahoo News and The Week. Amy conducted interviews on radio stations including Talk Sport and BBC local radio. Features were also set up in key trade titles, including an interview with a contributor at Forbes, who writes on HR and leadership issues. Amy Bradley authored articles for many other magazines including Training Zone and Training Journal and took part in an interview for Personnel Today.

Insights Learning and Development

Insights Learning and Development - the people development company with a presence in over 90 countries – has developed tailored solutions for thousands of companies worldwide, including Microsoft, Philips and the NHS, with the aim of bringing self-awareness to people, teams, leaders and organisations.

Since 2017 GriffithsHunt PR has provided media relations and external communications consultancy to Insights, to help widen their reach as a respected media commentator and global authority on people development and learning solutions.

Over that time we have secured a wide range of opportunities in mainstream and trade media, working with key spokespeople and stakeholders - including founder and Group CEO Andy Lothian - to develop content and build relationships with key journalists.

Examples of coverage have included Forbes, Management Today, CEO Today, as well as features/articles in HR trade titles such as HR magazine, the HRDirector and People Management.

Professor Isaac Getz

Professor Isaac Getz’ bestselling management book Freedom Inc, has radically transformed companies across Europe by giving the majority of employees complete responsibility to take actions that they—not their superiors or procedures—decide are best for the company’s vision. Huge brands including Michelin, Airbus, and Decathlon, two public ministries, French Social Security as well as hundreds of small and medium-sized businesses, have adopted corporate liberation across Europe.

We have worked with Isaac Getz since 2015 to cement his profile as one of the world’s leading management thinkers, particularly within high-profile UK-based media titles.

Through our collaboration we have successfully placed a huge number of comment pieces, interviews and speaking opportunities. These have included:

• Face-to-face interviews with the Economist and the Financial Times, which led to a three page feature on Michelin’s transformation in the print copy of the FT.
• An interview with Forbes on Corporate Liberation - Managers share power in new French Revolution
• An interview with Management Today which has led to a number of opportunities, including a feature on liberated companies.
• A double-page Q&A in BA Business Life Magazine
• Comment pieces in nearly every major HR and management publication including HR Magazine, People Management, HRD Connect, TheHRDirector, Changeboard and Edge (ILM membership magazine).

Our work has also resulted in speaking opportunities for him at the Drucker Forum and as keynote speaker at the 2018 Employee Engagement summit. He has also been nominated for HR Magazine’s Most Influential and the Thinkers 50 lists.

The Centre for Education Economics (CfEE)

The Centre for Education Economics (CfEE) published a major report investigating the wide range of evidence around the relationship between pupil happiness and achievement. It found that on average, traditional, teacher-centred methods are more effective from a learning perspective than the progressive ‘child-centred’ teaching methods widely advocated in modern schooling.

We worked closely with CfEE to analyse the findings and create a news story which would have have an impact with stakeholders in education, as well as the wider public. We then targeted a range of high-profile national and trade media outlets to secure coverage, to co-incide with the launch of the report at Westminster.

Overall a huge number of articles were placed including comment pieces by Director James Croft in the Huffington Post and TES, as well as articles in the Daily Telegraph, i newspaper, Schools Week, FE News and Education Executive. On social media the topic of how learning can be made more effective in UK schools was a hot topic that week, as the result of the report.

 EF Education First - EFMD Award Submission

Since 2015, EF Education First has rolled out an ambitious English language programme for Arcelor Mittal staff in 53 countries, with over 12,000 courses delivered in total. The result has been the development of a common language around topics including sustainability, diversity, the environment and the cyclical nature of business.

GriffithsHunt PR worked closely with EF to pull together an entry for the EFMD Excellence in Practice Awards 2020. The result was a 13-page tailored award submission which closely matched the rigorous judging criteria, showcasing this impressive global language programme.

We were delighted that the final entry won the Gold Award in the Professional Development category, ahead of other competitive submissions.

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