Peter Handford

WORK HISTORY

EDUCATION

SKILLS

ABOUT PETER HANDFORD

The quality of the conversation you have with your employees should be at least as powerful as the conversation you have with your customers.” I am a writer and communications director with more than 13 years’ experience in Employee engagement and Internal Communications (IC). For the past six years I have worked at Headlines - one of the top IC agencies in the world - and have worked with a huge variety of worldwide brands such as Amazon, Nike, Shell, Argos, Currys PC World, Tate & Lyle and Hyatt - creating communications strategies and campaigns to engage their employees, and find unique and innovative ways to communicate the things that matter to colleagues through channels that are relevant to them. What makes me unique and successful is my background is storytelling and film-making, and my core belief is the best way to convey any information and get someone to change their behaviour is through a story, well told. Internal communications often gets a bad rep as the less interesting and badly-funded cousin of external comms and marketing, but it doesn’t have to be this way. By taking a human-centred approach where we ask ourselves ‘what does this mean for our audience? Why is it important,’ we are able to identify the core of our story, our ‘core narrative’, and then focus on telling that in the most vibrant, dramatic and creative way possible. IC has a phenomenal power to work alongside depts like HR to unite and energise workforces, and transform workplaces into inviting, creative and hugely fulfilling places to build careers – but that only happens if it is attractive, compelling and tells a good tale. This is the value that I bring to every role.