On Track for tabloid success

The challenge

Leading transport solutions company Siemens Mobility was looking for a way to deliver important messages in a clear and accessible way to a diverse workforce. It also wanted to recognise and celebrate some of the remarkable, innovative work going on within its teams based at sites across the UK.

The solution

We recommended a modern, 12-page tabloid newspaper printed in full colour, which would have the potential to be seen by around 5,000 colleagues across more than 30 UK sites.

The Siemens Mobility team was nervous about the scale, scope and complexity of creating a newspaper from scratch, so asked us to guide them through the process, all the way from planning through to publication.

A small 44 team worked with the internal communications team at Siemens Mobility to plan, write, design and deliver On Track, right from the conceptual stage, in less than three months.

The results

An initial planning meeting was held in August 2022, with the pilot edition arriving with colleagues in October. The Siemens Mobility team was so pleased with the result that they immediately asked for a second edition to be produced before Christmas – and this was delivered in mid-December.

Feedback from the Siemens Mobility workforce was collectively positive, and it was agreed that three more editions would be produced over the following 12 months.

The publication was recognised externally too, winning ‘Best News Channel’ at the Institute of Internal Communication (IoIC) National Awards 2023.

“We’d been looking for new and engaging ways to reach our people, especially front-line employees, for a while, but were concerned that our in-house team wouldn’t have the resources to produce it. We spoke to 44, and the team confidently walked us through the process, injecting lots of creativity and passion. The publication landed without a hitch and has been a huge success.”

James Hayward, Senior Internal Communications and Employee Engagement Manager, Siemens Mobility

Hannah Montgomery

Why we love it

“Getting the message out to diverse, hard-to-reach audiences – like Siemens Mobility’s workforce – is a challenge, but we worked hard to develop a bright, friendly, interesting and modern tabloid that’s designed to appeal to the company’s demographic. To have won ‘Best News Channel’ at the IoIC Awards is a testament to the publication’s success, and we’re so proud to have achieved this in partnership with the Siemens Mobility team.”

Hannah Montgomery, Editor