How Newsprinters found a way to make a real impact with digital gifts

How Newsprinters found a way to make a real impact with digital gifts

The customer

• Major print & distribution organisation 
• 650 employees
• 19 locations across the UK 
• Always-on operational hours

If you’ve grabbed a newspaper off the rack recently, chances are that it’s there because of Newsprinters. Printing and distributing major UK magazines and papers, with 19 full colour presses, and a 650-strong workforce - it’s not surprising that they operate 364 days a year, and 24 hours a day.

With multiple locations and strict daily deadlines, it’s absolutely crucial that everyone works as a team. But you’re only as strong as your weakest link. Richard Johnstone, Chief of Staff, knows that. Which is why employee engagement and wellbeing is one of their priorities. 

The challenge

• A commitment to rewards & recognition
• Inefficient, admin-heavy gifting processes
• Different preferences and needs from their dispersed team

Newsprinters was committed to making recognition a priority. But Richard knew that ‘recognition’ is more than a HR buzzword. It involves finding meaningful, impactful, and - crucially - tangible ways to make employees feel seen. And Christmas is a key time for this.

Is it surprising that, given their industry, Newsprinters wanted to use printed greetings cards to thank their team for their hard work? No, not really. But they wanted to include a gift.

The year before, they had to spend hours manually adding plastic gift cards to each envelope. No mean feat with 650 cards, and not the most environmentally-friendly option. They needed a better, admin-free way - as the team already had enough on their plates!   

"As part of our commitment to reward and recognition, we partnered with Huggg to design a Christmas card for all 650 staff members and colleagues, incorporating a redeemable voucher barcode printed within the card.” 
- Richard Johnstone, Chief of Staff

The solution

• Partnered with Huggg, for better business gifting 
• Designed a Christmas card for 650 employees
• Included a gift card QR code

Huggg and Newsprinters made a powerful team - combining Newsprinters expertise with Huggg’s ability to offer a wide choice of quality gifts. There’s two reasons that this worked really well for their team:

1. Huggg gift cards are a step up, offering a choice of 80+ brands - from takeaway options and coffee shops, to theatres and cinemas. That means all 650 employees could choose something they actually wanted.
    
2. When your gift comes in the form of a barcode, there’s less admin for everyone involved. All employees needed to do is scan, choose their gift, add their address - and that’s it! And when gifting a dispersed team, that simplicity matters. 

“This feature significantly streamlined the administration process for our on-site teams and made it much simpler for employees to select a voucher from a retailer of their choice.”
- Richard Johnstone, Chief of Staff

The results

• No admin - Huggg took care of printing the greeting cards, with unique QR codes inside
• A much simpler way for employees to claim their gift card
• Enthusiastic feedback from their multi-location staff

The headlines? Happy employees. Less stress for people like Richard. And arguably the best Christmas card that 650 received that year… 

Newsprinters’ team members could open their Christmas card, scan the QR code, and claim their gift. It was fast and easy, with a choice to use it for 80+ major brands. 

“Huggg greatly enhanced the efficiency of this entire process. The feedback from the teams has also been very positive!"
- Richard Johnstone, Chief of Staff

Our takeaway

Newsprinters knew that - even in a large organisation - it’s important to remember that teams are made up of individuals. They also know that for a lot of us, gifts are a key ‘love language’ (even from your employer!). 

We all know these things matter. Huggg’s part is making it easier to act on that knowledge. Not by adding a complicated recognition platform to your HR techstack. We do it by simplifying gifting. Offering choice. Minimising admin.

See for yourself, or speak to sales to get started.