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HR PR and Integrated Communications

Creative, commercial communications for HR technology, benefits, pensions, payroll and recruitment, and for employers building somewhere people want to work.

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Where we work

  • HR technology
  • HR data and compliance
  • Employee benefits
  • Workplace pensions
  • Payroll
  • HR consultancy
  • Recruitment and staffing
  • Employer brand

HR PR covers two different jobs that often get confused. The first is building a market for businesses that sell to HR: technology and data platforms, benefits providers, pensions, payroll, consultancies and recruitment. The second is helping an employer be understood as somewhere worth working. Both matter, and they need different programmes.

This is long-standing ground for us. We have worked with XpertHR and Brightmine, MHR, Sodexo Engage, Buck and JourneyHR across HR data, payroll, employee benefits, pensions and HR consultancy.

None of those was media relations on its own. Buck ran across PR, social and content together; JourneyHR was a continuous content engine with fast reactive comment on top. We work as one integrated team across PR, content, social and design, because that is what actually shifts a commercial position.

Selling to HR is a considered, committee-led purchase

HR buying decisions rarely rest with one person. A benefits platform or payroll provider is usually chosen by HR, finance, IT and often a works council or employee forum, over months. Broad awareness does almost nothing for that. Being credible with each part of the committee, in the places each of them reads, does.

We map who is involved, work out which trade titles, analysts and peer voices each of them trusts, and build visibility against that map rather than chasing coverage volume.

HR technology and data

For XpertHR and Brightmine we broadened the range of PR content and tactics, won share of voice on the themes that mattered to the HR director agenda, including hybrid working and return to work, and built a measurement framework to track performance against competitors. The programme generates more than 750 pieces of media coverage a year and has built direct relationships between the client's experts and national journalists.

Payroll and finance

MHR, a leading HR, payroll and finance provider, appointed us to establish the firm as a thought leader across all three. We built a dedicated programme for multiple business units alongside a steady drumbeat of announcement coverage, which produced a full national profile in The Times when MHR was awarded a Royal Warrant, more than 50 placed thought leadership articles, and a 25 per cent uplift in website traffic driven by a 38 per cent increase in backlink coverage.

Employee benefits and pensions

We positioned Sodexo Engage as HR experts on benefits and incentives, generating over 100 million opportunities to see, with a third of coverage in national titles including The Times and the rest across the HR press such as People Management, Employee Benefits and HRZone.

For Buck, an employee benefits and pensions consultancy, we ran a thought leadership programme across PR, social and content covering pensions, HR innovation and benefits, with monthly national media briefings. A freedom of information request we filed on the firm's behalf produced front page coverage in the Financial Times.

HR consultancies

JourneyHR needed to be known as an HR thought leader for the creative industries specifically, rather than to the whole market. We built a continuous programme of thought leadership and fast reactive comment, reaching over 15.7 million opportunities to see, with a quarter of coverage in creative titles such as Creativepool and PRMoment and a fifth in HR titles including Employee Benefits and Incentive and Motivation.

Research and data that earns the front page

The HR press covers a great deal of research and dismisses most of it. What gets used is timely, methodologically honest and about something contested rather than something obvious. Freedom of information requests, properly targeted, are one of the most reliable routes into national coverage in this sector, which is how Buck reached the front of the FT.

Recruitment and staffing businesses have a related advantage: genuinely interesting data on pay, vacancies, skills and hiring intent. Used well it is a dependable route to national and trade coverage. Used lazily it produces another survey nobody covers.

Employer brand and internal communications

The employers that recruit well are the ones whose external reputation and internal reality match. Communications cannot fix a poor culture, but it can make a good one legible: what the organisation actually rewards, how people progress, what it is like on an ordinary Tuesday. We work on the external half of that, and on making sure the internal story and the public one do not contradict each other, which is where most employer brand programmes come unstuck.

Workforce topics we take seriously

Rostrum has joined Progress Together, the government-backed organisation working on socio-economic diversity in financial services, one of our core markets. Socio-economic background remains one of the strongest predictors of who reaches senior roles in the sector. Credibility on workforce subjects is easier to claim than to demonstrate, and it shapes how we approach this work.

What working with Rostrum looks like

Senior people who already know the HR press, a proactive newsroom service rather than a monthly report, and creative, commercial work that runs across PR, content, social and design as a single programme.

Common questions

What does an HR PR agency do?
It does two related jobs: building a market for businesses that sell to HR, such as technology, benefits, pensions, payroll and recruitment providers, and helping employers communicate what they are actually like to work for.
Which HR sectors does Rostrum work in?
HR technology, employee benefits, workplace pensions, payroll, recruitment and staffing, learning and development, and employer brand communications.
Does research really work in the HR press?
Only when it is timely, methodologically honest and about something contested. HR journalists see a great deal of research and dismiss most of it. We plan research around the argument it needs to win rather than around a press release.
Can PR fix a recruitment problem?
No, and any agency that says otherwise is selling you something. Communications can make a good culture legible and consistent externally and internally. It cannot make a poor one look good for long.
Do you handle regulated areas such as pensions and payroll?
Yes. Copy is written to be approvable, risk is flagged early and spokespeople are briefed on what they can and cannot say, so compliance review is part of the timeline.

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Location

10 Stukeley Street
London
WC2B 5LQ

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