Blueprint

Best Internal Communications Campaign

M&G is a global savings & investment business with a 175-year heritage. But its internal identity had become fragmented with multiple statements of purpose, strategy and values, leaving 6,500 colleagues confused.

M&G’s internal communications team set out to create clarity. Their goal was to develop a single, compelling framework – its Blueprint – to guide behaviours, embed its culture and help deliver on its purpose – which is ‘to give everyone real confidence to put their money to work’.

The first step was to listen. Through surveys, discussion groups and informal feedback, it was possible to identify what colleagues valued and what confused them. The team then worked with them on the solution, simplifying and refining messaging to improve relevance and impact.

Using these insights, the Blueprint was created. This is a visually clear framework that sets out M&G’s purpose, strategy, values and behaviours.

Between November 2023 and January 2024, the Blueprint was introduced to 200 senior leaders and 800 people managers through a series of events. Almost all – 98.5 per cent – left with a clear understanding of M&G’s new values and behaviours, while 99 per cent saw them as critical to delivering on its purpose.

Blueprint was launched across the group via two global webcasts featuring the executive team, followed by a digital takeover across its internal estate and a dedicated intranet hub.

Between February and March, manager-led team discussions Conversations Everywhere, focused on building understanding of the Blueprint, using bespoke cascade toolkits. More than 1,000 conversations reached nine in ten members of the workforce during this period.

This was followed in April by Say Thanks, a peer-to-peer recognition app, built in-house. Each Thank You triggered a personal email to the recipient, their manager and the sender, to create a ripple effect of positivity and visibility. Used more than 2,400 times since launch, the app has generated real-life stories that have fuelled an ongoing storytelling campaign across editorial and digital signage.

A 12-month behaviour development programme has also been rolled out. Winning Behaviours is designed to build belief in M&G’s behaviours. Almost all participants (96 per cent) said they now understood the importance of behaviours.

In October 2024, the inaugural M&G Stars recognition event took place. Colleagues nominated peers who exemplified its Blueprint across seven individual categories and one team category. In excess of 1,300 nominations were received from more than 650 colleagues. Each nomination needed to provide evidence of alignment with the Blueprint, leading to storytelling opportunities.

The judges said the campaign enjoyed ‘really strong success metrics, based on an approach which was thorough and engaged management to ensure they played a key role in engaging employees’.