GFSL careers website

GFSL is a Ministry of Justice owned company that provides facility maintenance services to 49 prisons across the South of England. Set up in the immediate aftermath of the Carillion collapse, and then with the onset of Covid-19, GFSL literally had very little opportunity to think about, let alone develop their employer brand.

In addition, they also faced a number of significant and perhaps unique recruitment challenges. Not least that they had to overcome the security and wellbeing concerns that people would have, if they had never worked in a prison environment before.

WDAD was appointed after a competitive pitch, with the primary goal of developing an Employee Value Proposition for their onsite facilities staff, as well as for their corporate support team. We began that process by running a number of virtual focus groups with different employee groups across their regions.

We identified a number of key USPs for each group, including the variety of work, support structure, and a chance to influence the direction of an organisation that was still in its infancy; but it was clear that overall, there was a real sense of contributing something back to society. Our discussions also painted a picture that working with GFSL was safe, in many respects safer than the dangers most people faced in everyday life; prisoners view them as being there to make their environment better for them.

effective career websites
responsive careers website

We developed an EVP positioning statement, and content and messaging for their advertising channels and collateral. However, the key platform for the brand would be a new careers website. We undertook video and photoshoots across a number of penal establishments to create the people stories that would populate the site and convey our core massaging. Other pages focused on the rewards on offer, and the recruitment process which for obvious reasons is a complicated and protracted one. We also wanted to emphasise the inclusive nature of the opportunities.

The result is a beautifully designed careers website www.govfsl.com that was built on time and on budget. The client has commented that they are “massively proud of the site which managed to perfectly capture what we were looking for.”  Job done!