We use creativity, digital channel expertise, and applied psychology to create effective employee communications that move people to do things differently.
At Blackbridge Engage we are huge fans of applied psychology inside organisations and how it supercharges communication effectiveness.
We apply psychology in the right way for your brief. In practice this means that we ask unexpected questions and focus on what you’re asking people to do, not just what you want to say.
Our psychology-led approach to creative communications starts with Empathy – we get under the skin of your people to identify what matters most, and what is driving, or stopping, the behaviours you want. We design, facilitate and analyse research with employees including interviews, online surveys, focus groups, and anonymous online discussions that generate startling candour from your employees. We conduct desk research including any existing research you have. And we look for inspiration, ideas and rigour in published social sciences research.
In the increasingly complex and fragmented world of work, it’s more important than ever to identify the single, compelling idea at the core of your brief, which is where we start with creative development. We’ll also articulate a clear, single call to action for your audience, and we’ll be rigorous to make sure that we are talking to the right people who will understand and can do what you are asking of them.
We believe that creativity is the not-so-secret sauce that turns content into engagement.
With our digital and social expertise we’ll create a channel strategy and content-based tactics that will resonate with your audiences and engage your people on channels where they spend most time.
Great content shows (it doesn’t tell) your audience what we want them to know, so we’ll work with you to identify the right messenger, actions and format that will achieve our objectives most effectively.
Liz has over 15 years’ experience devising and delivering strategic employee engagement campaigns, working with a diverse range of clients including Southwest Airlines, Lloyds Bank, Roche and Anglo American.
Currently completing a masters in psychology, Liz is a huge fan of the power of creativity together with applied psychology to amplify communication effectiveness and change behaviours.
Al has over 25 years’ creative agency experience, spanning design, art direction and creative direction.
Since joining in 2023, Al has strengthened our creative offering, building out the studio with top creative design and copy talent, earning Blackbridge the title of RMA Agency of the Year.
Ben has over 16 years’ experience in social media and digital communications, as an expert in strategy, channel management, content creation and execution. Ben built his knowledge through roles in a wide variety of agencies, including employer branding, sustainability, consumer and corporate PR.
Ben heads up the social media consulting and delivery offer and manages our team of specialists.
Suzanne has over 10 years’ experience in employer branding and communications and is responsible for overseeing and implementing a wide range of employee communications and branding projects.
An insightful and proactive leader, Suzanne advises clients on how best to achieve their communication goals.
Help us launch and embed our new ways of working
SE leaders were focusing communications on macro challenges like sustainability and reliability. While critical, these messages were missing the mark for frontline employees who need tangible ways to make a difference.
We helped 5,000 employees shift from passive observers to collaborative problem-solvers by focusing on what they could control.
“The creative communications Blackbridge Engage developed to change behaviours are going from strength to strength.”
Steve Foster, Chief People Officer, Southeastern Railway
Help us get our people back to the offices.
There was little data to understand why people were or weren’t working in the office. We recommended qualitative research to better understand the employee experience of the current hybrid working policy.
We spoke with 40 DNV colleagues, conducted thematic analysis of the focus groups, and presented recommendations for next steps in the evolution of the DNV Hybrid Working policy.
“Liz helped us clearly define the problem by asking insightful and challenging questions, and her focus groups received highly positive feedback for their engaging and inclusive format. The comprehensive, detailed research report and expert review gave us clear, actionable insights to shape our Hybrid Working strategy.”
Magda Kisielewicz, Senior Employee Experience Consultant, DNV
Help us launch our new uniform to colleagues.
The uniform had been developed with extraordinary attention-to-detail by an ex-tailor, now HR colleague. The details mattered for comfort, convenience and sustainability.
Our creative put that attention to detail centre stage, with copy that communicated the details and why they made a difference.
Help 10,000 busy leaders to understand the new strategy and see its relevance to them.
It’s an unfortunate truth that most company strategy is both easy to understand, and yet deeply unrelatable to most people working in an organisation. Particularly in large, complex organisations with diverse operating environments and roles. The rational management speak often bears little resemblance to the work that most leaders and managers are doing every day.
We developed a relatable character who could explain the strategy in simple language and introduce segments of content from real leaders who would give their take on the strategy in their role. The film we created collaboratively with our client team closed the gap between the high-level strategy and leaders’ day-to-day.
DNV had run a successful Colleague Appreciation campaign in 2024 and wanted to build on their success for 2025 Colleague Appreciation Week.
We developed a creative campaign and applied psychology to ‘design in’ effectiveness to the behaviour we wanted, i.e., showing recognition to colleagues. These included building motivation (it will make you feel good, too), making it easy (it will take a minute or less), and being clear that recognition could be given privately (a counter-intuitive finding in the social science literature was that public recognition can have a negative impact on feelings of appreciation).
The campaign was a raging success, doubling the number of thank you cards sent via the recognition platform, to over 13,000 (in a population of 15,000 employees).
Our thinking on work, people and change
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Posted on 7th February 2025
For a clear-thinking, pragmatic approach to knotty employee challenges, get in touch. Email engage@blackbridge.co.uk to find out more.