Bright Horizons: Employee Appreciation Drive

As its preferred supplier for print management, and with a Christmas gift mailing completed for Bright Horizons, PDS was approached to help the business celebrate National Employee Appreciation Day.

The brief requested ideas to supply a gift box or hamper to each of its employees to show them how much their hard work and commitment is appreciated. Bright Horizons has always taken employee appreciation seriously and has previously operated an awards scheme where individuals’ personal contributions could be recognised.

Unable to stage in-person celebration events due to coronavirus restrictions, the team asked PDS to devise a treat for staff that could be distributed to them wherever they were based across the UK, either in a nursery setting as part of a bulk delivery, or to home addresses for individual recipients.

PDS researched options for the employee gift box based on a well-being theme and presented three concepts to Bright Horizons across two price brackets giving them six options from which to choose. Concepts were researched and developed within a tight timescale enabling Bright Horizons to meet the deadline for delivery on Employee Appreciation Day. A range of items was suggested to tie in with the theme including hand cream, sleep balm, a power bank, and a travel mug.

Before confirming the order, PDS provided a sample of the travel mug on request and discussed cost and design options before agreeing on a three-colour option. The home shopping boom had caused a shortage of corrugated cardboard material and PDS had to search extensively to secure a gift box and outer postal box that met the brief. The design team at PDS devised a creative solution by adding a branded presentation sleeve to a sturdy postal box.

PDS set about sourcing the items at the best price keeping costs within the specified budget. PDS designed and set up a landing page online so that Bright Horizons’ employees could provide their preferred delivery address based on their current work status and whether they were working from home or at a nursery location.

Once they had taken delivery of the contents, PDS managed the entire process of collating and re-packaging the items into attractive gift boxes and managed their fulfilment to individual employees and distribution to nursery sites using the database generated via the landing page. From receiving approval to proceed, PDS delivered the project from start to finish within a challenging frame.

Bright Horizons benefited from the responsiveness and flexibility of the PDS team as it tackled a challenging timescale, successfully delivering gift boxes to over 7,500 employees just five weeks after receiving its initial brief. Thanks to a bespoke data capture process set up by PDS for this project, Bright Horizons completed a high volume and complex mailing ensuring that all its employees received a timely gift.

PDS managed to overcome the challenges of a global shortage of cardboard by sourcing robust and protective gift packaging that was strong enough to withstand the rigours of the despatch process. Its design team delivered an appealing and attractive gift box that would surprise and delight colleagues.

Using the services of PDS, Bright Horizons handed over responsibility for the complex and challenging task of sourcing, storing and collating thousands of individual items that were required to repackage to meet a fixed deadline within a narrow timeframe.

The ultimate benefit for Bright Horizons was the knowledge that its employees had received a thank you as a token of their appreciation and gratitude for helping the business to adapt and continue to thrive despite the challenges of the coronavirus pandemic.