From bringing home seven EBMA awards, going up and down the country for shoots, and completing our charity 10K and half marathon - September’s been a 2026 highlight! See what we’ve been up to with our clients and the Chatterinos this month.

What. A. Night. September saw us bring it home with seven - that’s right, SEVEN - EMBA awards. We scored a gilded hatrick, winning three golds for KFC UK & Ireland, Virgin Media O2, and evoke. And then won another four silvers with KFC UK & Ireland again, Medik8, Royal London and Yorkshire Building Society!

One giant houseplant, a saxophonist and many margs later, we couldn’t be prouder. Next up: the RMAs...

This month we caught up with Molly Johnson-Jones CEO and Co-Founder of Flexa - a platform that makes employer brands genuinely discoverable, using verified data. We asked Molly a few questions to lift the lid on Flexa and explore the latest talent trends, including why we at Chatter shouldn't be calling our own team "fully remote"!

What’s the story behind Flexa? What might people know you for, and what might surprise them about Flexa?

Flexa began with my experience of managing an autoimmune condition while trying to find a way of working that suited me. We started out helping people find flexible jobs, so that may still be what some people know us for. But people care about so much more than where and when they work, and Flexa has grown to reflect that.

Today, people use Flexa to explore employers through anything that matters to them: career progression, culture, purpose, pay, benefits, inclusion, flexibility and much more. We even work with companies whose teams are in the office five days a week. They might have brilliant career development, a mission people care about or a culture that appeals to a particular audience. Our job is to help them understand who values what they offer and make those strengths discoverable.

The part that might surprise people is Ebi, our employer brand intelligence platform. It uses the searches and interactions of 5.1 million Flexa users to show employers what different talent groups want, how their proposition compares with competitors, and how people respond to it. That helps them see where they have an advantage, where competitors are doing better, what to make more visible and what they may need to change to attract the people they need.

Flexa is a great platform for tracking trends in what jobseekers are looking for. What’s the biggest or most surprising change that you’ve seen in the past few months?

The rise in searches for autonomy and trust-based cultures has really stood out to me. They increased by 145% over the six months covered by our latest data. We’re also seeing growing interest in personal development, with searches for career progression opportunities up 35%.

Taken together, I think people are asking a fairly direct question: will I be trusted to do good work here, and will this job help me grow? Employers often talk about culture in broad terms, but candidates are looking for evidence of how it works in practice. What decisions can people make for themselves? How are they supported to develop? What happens after they join?

What trend do you think we’re in the early stages of? What’s the data pointing to?

I think employer brand intelligence is going to change how businesses decide what to offer their people. Every decision about benefits, progression, management and working patterns affects who will consider joining you. We’re getting to the point where employers can understand those consequences before they discover a recruitment problem.

The breadth of demand in our data is what makes this interesting. We’re seeing growing interest in mental health support, while searches for buddy schemes increased by 163% and social mobility commitments by 144% over six months. People are actively looking for specific aspects of the employee experience that companies might barely mention in their recruitment marketing.

That creates a huge opportunity to compete more intelligently. A company might already have something its priority talent values highly, but fail to make it visible. Equally, it might be investing in benefits that do very little to strengthen its appeal to the people it needs. Understanding demand alongside competitors’ offers helps you distinguish between a communication problem and a gap in the experience itself.

I expect that intelligence to give employer brand teams much more influence over business decisions. They can bring evidence about where investment could create an advantage, which strengths are being overlooked and what a proposed policy change could mean for attraction. Application numbers only tell you about the people who made it that far. There’s an enormous competitive advantage in understanding the people who could have considered you, and what would give them a reason to.

You’ve told us off before for saying your team is “fully remote”, when in fact they’re “remote first”. What difference does that make to how you work as a team?

Ha, yes! For us, remote first means that we work remotely most of the time, with regular opportunities to connect in person. We have a monthly team meet-up and an annual offsite, and those are an important part of our culture.

Calling us fully remote misses the value we place on those moments. Spending time together helps us get to know each other beyond the work we’re doing. Those few days together strengthen how we work as a team throughout the month.

That’s why the distinction matters to me culturally. Remote first tells people that they’ll have the freedom of working remotely, and that coming together regularly is part of being on this team.

Finally, tell us about your dog.

Gruff is our rescue dog from Hungary and Flexa’s former Chief Morale Officer, although he brought very little morale to the team. When we moved to Devon, he retired without permission. He now goes back to bed after breakfast until midday, and only gets up to run around his garden screaming, so he’s taken the freedom to choose his own working pattern quite a long way. Luckily, he's cute and he's won the team over, somehow…

Want to know how we helped Medik8 transform recruitment efficiency and engagement, and win a Silver EBMA in ‘Best Communication of the Employer Brand to the External Audience'?

With a big internal launch, hiring manager training and more, their new employer brand Medik8Made was all about humanising the science-driven brand, and grounding everything in real colleague experiences. Especially for their warehouse and production roles, this had to work hard. And it did - delivering big results as we integrated their core values of Community, Integrity, Innovation and Expert across every candidate touchpoint.

Click to see what we achieved 

September had us on the move as we were shooting content for our clients at Morrisons, Skipton Building Society, BKL, and FOOTASYLUM...

Morrisons

Alex Blow and Sarah Cockett had a shoot with the team at Morrisons, and it was very cool to say the least. We were creating a video for their logistics roles to help reduce attrition in the first 6 weeks, so we did a one-day shoot starting in the freezer (-28º and it was COLD, there was ICICLES on the CEILING), and then ambient (lots of vehicles) and then chilled (which we felt was colder than the freezer because you weren't expecting it to be cold, you know what we mean?). Keep your eyes peeled, as we’ll be going live in October!

Skipton at Leeds Digital Festival

Sarah Cockett and Kate Grindrod had a shoot with the Skipton team this month to make some noise about their sponsorship of Leeds Digital Festival. They went along to one of their events to create some social content on the Tech offering at Skipton, and get some thoughts from some of the people who attended, too. They chatted with loads of attendees and even did a mini takeover of some OOH around Leeds city centre. Keep an eye out for the videos on socials soon!

BKL

Eilis Buggy and Jeff Dillon headed down to the big smoke, shooting in London with the team at BKL. They spent the day with various colleagues from across the business to get photography and video content for their careers website. They also got to chat to the teams about what they BRING to a career at BKL - all in keeping with their new employer brand. Wait and see how we bring this all to life soon (see what we did there).

Footasylum

It was 4am starts and four days of shooting for the Footasylum team, as they captured content of all kinds for the new careers site that’s currently in development. They got experimental with photography and got to know people from all parts of the business, doing two days in store and two days in head office. It was hard graft, but after getting a sneak peek at some of the photos, we know it was all worth it. Stay tuned!

This month Eilis Buggy and Alex Blow hopped across the pennines to visit our friends at On the Beach. They had a great planning session with the team, and got to check out their cool beach themed office. We even got to meet Paddy McGuiness… in cardboard form. Big likey. Big lighty.

KFC UK & Ireland cook off

After putting 4,000 KFC Cooks to the test in The Colonel’s Cook Off 2026, our first video of the day went live as we kicked off the first week of a six-week content strategy.

Check it out below

We did it! There were some stiff legs and slight waddles in the office after the team ran the Vale of York Half Marathon and 10K in support of Physcap. It’s a 2026 highlight we’ll never forget - and to the 11 Chatterinos who laced up and locked in, you absolutely smashed it.

It was a beautiful day to get together and run for a meaningful cause. And we surpassed our fundraising goal, raising £1786 for a charity improving the lives of children with disabilities in Yorkshire. Safe to say, there were lots of celebratory post-race pints!