Awards + Press

Walker Sands Awarded 2022 PRSA Skyline for Data-Driven PR Work

Through strategic surveys, powerful visuals and story angles that highlight newsworthy findings, our teams continue to leverage creativity and data to create compelling, results-driven campaigns.

The PRSA Skyline Awards recognize campaigns that display creativity and produce exceptional results in public relations, and we are honored to receive an award in the Integrated Communications (Business to Business) category for our data-driven PR campaign for Visier.

Here’s a recap of the work that earned the PRSA Skyline Award: 

Stop the Exit: Exploring the Link Between Employee Burnout and the Great Resignation

In May 2021, workplace burnout was driving a mass exodus from the workplace: the Great Resignation. While there was some data on burnout, there was nothing concrete to prove the Great Resignation actually existed, nor was there data that identified a link between burnout and the Great Resignation. 

But Visier, a global people analytics and workforce planning company, had a secret weapon. Anonymized, standardized workforce data from Viser’s more than 15,000 clients and their tens of millions of employees could prove the existence of the Great Resignation and burnout trends beyond anecdotal evidence. 

In the second half of 2021, Walker Sands partnered with Visier to develop and launch a series of reports that used Visier’s data to verify the existence of the Great Resignation and solidify the company as an expert in this phenomenon. Specifically, the reports set out to drive brand awareness among Visier’s C-suite audience, elevate the thought leadership profile of Ian Cook, vice president of Analytics, and establish Visier as the first organization to produce market research on the Great Resignation and employee burnout. To achieve these goals, we packaged Visier’s data into three distinct reports: 

  1. “The Resignation Wave,” a proprietary research report, used Visier’s workforce data to confirm that the predicted spike in resignations was beginning to happen, based on data from January to May 2021. 
  2. “Stop the Exit,” a second proprietary research report, used Visier’s data to uncover trends among the vast number of resignations, and showed that one out of every four employees in the U.S. had left their job in 2021.
  3. “The Burnout Epidemic Report 2021,” a third-party survey, used Visier’s data to determine whether burnout and stress were driving factors in employees quitting their jobs.

Using data-driven media outreach strategies, we widely shared all three reports to showcase Visier’s contribution to research on this topic, and pitched Ian Cook as an expert on the Great Resignation. Throughout the campaign, Walker Sands and Visier drafted several bylines for Ian Cook and created dozens of posts for Visier’s blog on topics including employee resignation trends and how to increase retention rates. To supplement Walker Sands’ media outreach and content strategy, Visier launched a national advertising campaign and created an entirely new suite of products, Visier NOW, focused specifically on talent retention challenges created by the Great Resignation. 

Visier media placement in Harvard Business Review

As a result of the campaign, Walker Sands secured 120 media placements in the second half of 2021 for Visier in outlets such as Bloomberg, CNBC and Fast Company. The strategy also helped Ian Cook gain visibility through 14 thought leadership placements in outlets including Business Insider and Harvard Business Review. Overall, Visier gained brand recognition in a crowded HR technology market and asserted their expertise in employee burnout and retention trends.

Congratulations to Visier and our teams for their outstanding work and impressive results. Get in touch to learn more about how Walker Sands’ public relations expertise can help your business achieve its most pressing goals.

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