Case Study: Increasing engagement for Nuclear Waste Services staff

Nuclear Waste Services (NWS) provides solutions that are vitally important to the UK today and for future generations. Using their facilities and expertise, NWS safely manage radioactive waste created over the past 70 years – and will support the UK Government’s net zero ambition by preparing to safely manage future radioactive waste.

NWS brings together the best of the UK’s expertise in radioactive waste management, with an expert team of around 900 people whose skills cover nuclear science, technology, engineering, safety, security, programme management, environmental protection, and community engagement.

Their members span multiple professional groups with very different needs, so sending blanket updates to everyone was never going to deliver the best results. The communications team needed a platform that would allow them to be more targeted, more engaging, and ultimately more relevant to their audience. That’s when they turned to e-shot.

NWS also have very strict security requirements, which means only the most robust and secure partners are able to work with them. e-shot's dedication to information security enabled them to pass the quality and security checks with flying colours and so the NWS team could start working with them with complete confidence.

Before e-shot™, the communications process at NWS was limited. Messages went out to broad mailing lists, which often meant recipients were receiving information that wasn’t directly useful to them. This approach risked disengagement, with people ignoring emails that felt too generic.

Indeed, keeping engaged a workforce who may never see the fruits of their labours with projects that have timeframes of over 100 years is a challenging endeavour.

Debbie Openshaw, Internal Communications Manager explains:

“We couldn’t target before, so absolutely, that was one of the deciding factors for needing something like e-shot. We didn’t want to be telling everybody everything – they don’t need to know everything.”

The team were also conscious of the need to make communications more engaging. They had begun to experiment with video and wanted to bring new formats into their newsletters and campaigns, but doing so in a way that was easy and professional was proving difficult.

“I’m very conscious we need to start doing more of that,” says Debbie. “It’s just that until now, we haven’t had the right tools in place. Even embracing video in our comms has been a step ahead of where a lot of our peers are, but we know there’s more we can do.”

Essentially, the team needed a platform that could make targeting easy, simplify content creation, and allow them to deliver a more polished, engaging experience for NWS employees.

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For NWS, adopting e-shot™ has been a game-changer. The biggest transformation has come through the ability to segment and target communications effectively. Rather than sending blanket updates, the team can now tailor messages to specific groups and ensure that when an email lands in someone’s inbox, it’s relevant to them.

Debbie has already seen the difference:

“You get better cut-through by not telling everyone everything. When it lands in people’s inboxes, 99% of the time it’s something that’s relevant to them – so they’ll open it.”

Beyond targeting, e-shot™ has made the whole process of creating and managing communications far easier and more enjoyable. Debbie describes using the platform as intuitive and even fun, with features that simplify tasks that are usually time-consuming.

“I actually find it a bit of a joy. Even from bringing images in and resizing them – things that can be really difficult sometimes – everything’s just easy. It’s lovely.”

The senior leadership team now also find value from the analytics, which gives them insight into the engagement of staff on particular topics as well as being able to see persistent non-engagers. The comms team are seeing enviable engagement rates often into the high 70%s and one of the ways the team keep the information relevant and fresh is by launching certain news stories in “The Mix” their weekly newsletter, before the information is available on the intranet or shared elsewhere.

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Looking ahead, NWS is excited to continue building on the progress they’ve made with e-shot™. With targeting now firmly embedded in their communication strategy, the focus is shifting towards experimenting with new ways of engaging their audiences. Video and other interactive content are high on the list, and Debbie is confident that e-shot™ will make it straightforward to bring those ideas to life.

“The fact that we’ve already been able to embrace video in our communications puts us a step ahead, but we know there’s a lot more potential. Now that we’ve got the right platform in place, we can focus on being creative.”

For NWS, e-shot™ has delivered exactly what they needed: the ability to communicate in a way that feels relevant, targeted, and easy to manage. And as Debbie sums it up:

“It’s just lovely – it makes the whole process enjoyable. That’s not something you can say about every platform.”

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