Rio Tinto

The Global Employee and Partnering Communications (GEPC) team at Rio Tinto does more than just communicate; it claims to ‘unite’ 48,00 people ‘behind a shared purpose of safety, pride and advocacy’.

Spread across Brisbane, London and Montreal, ensuring a 24-hour ‘follow the sun’ strategy, the team is structured across four integrated functions:

• Digital

• Business partnering

• Editorial, culture, leadership and employee communications

• Global events, projects and insights

But each member of the team also has the ability to switch lanes, if necessary, to support their colleagues on tactical delivery or longer-term projects. In fact, the team’s co-created manifesto states: ‘A pod of dolphins always beats a shark.’

Designed to enable Rio Tinto’s business strategy, but also to find better ways to evolve the mining company’s culture and enhance its reputation, the team’s work is underpinned by three objectives.

• Shape culture – by empowering advocacy, strengthening inclusion and embedding behaviours to drive performance

• Supercharge reputation – elevate pride and trust by showing transparency and amplifying progress

• Corporate affairs excellence – maintain discipline in planning, governance and capability building

Each campaign is therefore mapped against three impact lenses: safety, pride and trust.

With a complex stakeholder landscape, encompassing the CEO, ExCo, senior leaders, transformation leaders, people leadership network, and colleagues across product groups who cascade messages worldwide, the team has invested in relationships.

It shares its global comms plan with product group colleagues, to ensure seamless communications and reduce noise, while investing in socialising with and briefing each stakeholder group to ensure they are all on the same page. Bespoke channels enable the team to update everyone at speed.

One of the team’s biggest projects across the year involved Rio Tinto’s iron ore mine in Simandou, Guinea, which is Africa’s largest mining and infrastructure project. The team had to handle communications relating to several fatalities at the site, while also reinforcing safety advice, known as Safety Shares, was embedded through the routine cascade communications.

But the mine, which is the world’s largest untapped source of high grade iron ore, is a relatively new project, and was not well known across the global workforce. Guinea Week was an immersive campaign, co-led by Guinean colleagues, to raise awareness and pride in the project, and showcase the benefits it brings to Rio Tinto. A bespoke visual identity, inspired by a traditional Guinean symbol representing unity, was created and used across all content.

Daily videos sharing stories of life at the mine plus digital content, hosted by Guinean colleagues, were posted on internal and external channels. A curated Guinean Spotify playlist, branded merchandise and interactive quizzes served to boost the message. Two Town Halls broadcast from Conakry, the capital of Guinea, were viewed by more than 2,000 people live.

Such was the response to the campaign, the team is now looking to adapt the model for other strategic projects, to enhance inclusivity and awareness. A leadership event at Karratha, a major mining hub in Western Australia, also brought 250 leaders together for a face-to-face event while experiencing the realities of site life.

Other notable projects across the year included supporting the executive team with Q&A sessions following the acquisition of Arcadium Lithium for $6.7 billion, leading to the creation of Rio Tinto Lithium.

Similarly, the appointment of Simon Trott as chief executive led the team to stress test messages, sequence announcements carefully and shift their approach to reflect his different communication approach to his predecessor. This led to a new narrative of Fewer Better Words.

The success of the latter two projects has prompted the team to codify a global playbook for leadership transitions and M&A communications.

The judges were impressed by the breadth and depth of the team’s work, and the collaborative approach taken to their work.