In 2022, the Department for Work & Pensions (DWP) won 'Digital in-house team of the year' at the Digital Impact Awards for their work, which included an important and emotive film to communicate with key stakeholders and a recruitment campaign.

The Department for Work & Pensions (DWP) had a tough challenge. Not only did it have to manage the resettlement of thousands of Afghan refugees coming to the UK after the war, but it had to communicate its activities in supporting them to the department and across the civil service.

To achieve this, it crafted a film that highlighted the Afghan experience, using emotive interviews documenting the refugee journey. The DWP worked across Whitehall to engage other relevant departments and ensure the content was signed off by key stakeholders within the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, Ministry of Defence, Cabinet Office and within government.

The resulting film was a huge success internally; 12,800 people across the DWP watched the film, with complete rates at 74%. Not only that, the video was shared across the civil service, garnering personal messages and advocacy as it went.

The in-house team truly shone in the development of this ambitious piece of video communication. One judge said, “It’s incredible that this was created without agency support and on a shoestring budget. It is so emotive and affecting that it obviously really resonated with people.” Another judge added, “This was a truly impressive, well researched campaign with an important objective. The subject matter is sensitively handled to deliver a compelling and impactful message.”

To inspire people back into work after the pandemic, the Department for Work and Pensions also started a recruitment campaign for 13,500 ‘work coaches.’ To do so, it used social video to connect with users across multiple platforms. One judge called it “a fantastic, simple campaign that used the ‘day-in-the-life methodology to connect with people and really bring the job to life.’

It was the department’s largest recruitment campaign to date, relaying the importance of these positions. The Prime Minister shared the video on his LinkedIn account.

The video also received 226,000 views and 2.9 million impressions.

To read more about the winning projects in the Digital Impact Awards you can do so by viewing

the 2022 winners book.

The Digital Impact Awards recognises excellence in digital corporate communications. To find out more and to enter your work, visit the awards website.