Background

PeopleStrong provides outsourced HR administration services to large corporations whose swelling workforces can make HR departments unwieldy and inefficient. It manages the entire suite of everyday HR functions across the employee lifecycle. The company was five years old, and starting to compete against large players for clients, where it felt its identity came up short.

Discovery

PeopleStrong competes both with small firms that provide a partial, but inexpensive service, and with large multinational consulting firms who encase their reputation and offer these services as a lucrative adjunct to their advisory work.

Our appreciative inquiry into the firm’s operations, dreams, perceived obstacles led us to see that its culture had a unique feature: a humanistic position on HR, a concern for its employees and those of its clients. It yearned for a fairer world for employees, a balance of objectivity—a hidden reason why HR is outsourced—and a dose of hearts.

Brand Idea

Thus emerged the concept ‘employees first’ expressed as “Flying the flag for the employee”. It articulates a relevant differentiation from the large consulting firm. Second, as a specialist outsourcer, the firm could espouse the idea that critical, non-core functions should be outsourced, for reasons of expertise and not for cost saving alone.

Design

A new confident identity leverages the meaningful name via a wordmark. It’s styled to communicate solidity and precision on par with any worldwide firm. It reflects the firm’s stature as one that can design, not just implement, systems for clients and add a consulting flavour to its practice. The technocratic side, is humanized by the graphic device that accompanies the lettering, and by a unique colour palette that proclaims its vital difference from its bland co-leaguers.