Many women take career breaks, particularly when they have children. However, a lack of training, part-time roles and flexibility prevent them from re-entering at a senior level. Under ReConnect, up to 500 women on career breaks will be recruited into management roles over the next three years, accounting for around 10% of Vodafone external management hires over that period. Additionally, Vodafone will recruit up to 500 women on career breaks into front line positions. ReConnect will operate across Albania, Australia, the Czech Republic, the DRC, Egypt, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Hungary, India, Ireland, Italy, Kenya, Lesotho, Malta, Mozambique, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, South Africa, Spain, Tanzania, Turkey and the UK, complimenting other Vodafone initiatives focused on encouraging and supporting women in the workplace, including its groundbreaking global maternity policy. The challenge was how to turn this recruitment drive into a global media conversation, setting a benchmark for businesses and getting career-break women from every industry applying.To understand the situation, Vodafone surveyed career-break women across five countries. 80% said more support is needed for women wishing to return to the workplace and for those with family and care responsibilities.61% said they wanted the option to work flexibly, 51% part-time.

Timing was critical, so the communications team created a campaign to launch one week ahead of International Women’s Day. This ensured that ReConnect was front and centre of global business news and Tier 1 consumer broadcast and lifestyle media.

The team followed 50 women in 11 markets over nine months who took part in a pilot programme, media training some.

Vodafone's most senior women: Serpil Timuray, Vodafone’s Chief Commercial and Strategy Officer, and Sharon Doherty, Global Organisation and People Development Director, were media trained for global Tier 1 media interviews.

News lines were created from the economic analysis, revealing an estimated 96 million skilled women aged 30-54 are on career breaks worldwide, of whom an estimated 55 million have management experience.

The announcement and economic findings were drafted into a news release and shareable animation. Approaches were made to the BBC, CNN, Bloomberg, Al Jazeera, Financial Times under embargo.

-Tier 1 media coverage achieved in 190 countries.

-1600+ news and broadcast pieces. Most online Tier 1 outlets used the animation

-Pre-recorded interviews with Serpil Timuray, Sharon Doherty and Vittorio Colao ran across Tier 1 media as the announcement was released, including the BBC Today Programme, BBC World News Radio, Al Jazeera and Bloomberg with a live CNN broadcast interview with Sharon the day before International Women’s Day.

-210 million people reached through earned media.

-In the first five days after announcing the programme, Vodafone received 2,400 applications to join ReConnect from women on career breaks with management experience and above (applications doubled to 5,000 in 3 weeks).

-In an independent post-campaign survey of 2,000 people across five markets (UK, Turkey, India, Spain and Greece), 90% felt more positive about Vodafone as an employer,92% felt more positive about Vodafone as an employer of women

-CNN:‘We need more programmes like this'

With a limited HR budget, three creative strategies were implemented. The first was to commission global economic analysis, calculating the economic benefits of bringing career-break women managers back into the workplace. If all such women worldwide could secure manager-level employment, we wanted to find out the value of the additional economic activity generated and the cumulative financial boost for those women’s households.

The second was to turn dry, economic findings into a short, shareable and creative animation that could communicate the message effectively across consumer media, with content translated into more than 10 languages for Vodafone’s markets.

The third was to create a narrative so strong, the conversation would continue for weeks. Activities were held across Vodafone’s markets in the days following the announcement, including a live panel in London which brought chief executives together with political thought leaders to discuss ReConnect and why businesses should retain career-break women.

In 2015, Vodafone launched a pioneering global maternity policy. Two years later - in a further effort to close the workplace leadership gender gap and increase the number of women in management positions - Vodafone launched ReConnect, a global recruitment programme spanning 26 countries, aimed at recruiting female managers back into the workplace from a pool of 96-million skilled women on career breaks. Vodafone's objective is to recruit 10% of its external management hires through the programme by 2020. To reach these women, a creative proactive media relations campaign had to be devised - telling them about ReConnect not only in global business media, but in lifestyle and consumer media, spanning online news, broadcast and print. Creative media assets as well as case studies were required to encourage shareability and help spread the word.