bp had recently relaunched its corporate strategy to focus on ‘reimagining energy’, but now that this had been well established, it wanted to build its employer brand. It wanted to develop a brand that vividly portrays bp as a caring and supportive employer, with communications that went beyond its projects and showed an authentic and inspiring portrait of life at the company.

A year-long process of research, analysis, engagement, development and testing followed. The attraction team also needed to make their case to senior leaders, so set out what an employer value proposition was, why the company needed one, and who would need to be involved. Progress was regularly shared with a stakeholder group to ensure there was engagement and input from across the business. The team also worked alongside the culture and internal comms teams at bp, who were developing a new culture framework. The research covered 14 key markets and thousands of colleagues were represented via focus groups, senior leader interviews and pulse surveys.

This produced one key proposition: Be respected for who you are. Share in an unprecedented scale of impact. Underneath this were pillars around inspiring purpose, exceptional people, limitless opportunities and collective wellbeing. The tagline ‘We’re with you’ showed that bp was on the side of its employees. This is now the starting point for all employer brand activity, including a brand book and guidelines. Attraction statistics have improved, particularly among female candidates and hires, and a quarterly reputation tracker has shown significant improvement.