What does it take to win an HR award?

By Valerie Hughes-D’Aeth

January 2021

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Have you ever wondered what it takes to be an HR award winner? What it is that fellow HR professionals have done that stands out? And how they went about putting their entry together? 

 

Having had the privilege of judging many HR awards over the last few years, here are some tips to help: 

 

• Look for an innovative strategy or an initiative of real substance that you’ve delivered. Something that’s making a real difference to the success of your organisation – not just a nice HR initiative. Something that’s fully embedded and not something you’re only part way through implementing.

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• Make sure you can show genuine measurable and sustainable results - a return on investment, quantifiable metrics and qualitative anecdotal feedback

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• Be sure to select the most appropriate award category. Read the evaluation criteria carefully. Is it really about reward or is it more employee engagement or even internal communications? It’s surprising how often this is confused.

 

• Follow the award guidance when putting together your submission, particularly the word count. If there’s a template use it and if supporting material is allowed think about what might grab the judge’s attention. Remember they have a large pile of entries, so you need to stand out.

 

• Tell a story when you write up the award entry. The judges probably won’t know your organization and its challenges, so start at the beginning with what the organization does, the market context, external environment and challenges faced. Describe the business strategy and values then outline the people strategy that is in place to achieve it.

 

• What’s the specific challenge you’ve addressed that you’re writing about? Why did it need doing? What difference does it make to the organisation’s overall success? What were the objectives for the challenge and how is success being measured?

 

• Describe in some detail what you did and how – and use case studies/visuals if possible, to bring it to life. What input did you get internally and externally to help you shape what you did? How did you go about it? What challenges did you face and how did you overcome them – and what did you actually put in place that is innovative and a bit different. Think about what will grab the judge’s attention, what will they remember?

 

• What were the results and what quantitative metrics and qualitative anecdotal feedback illustrate this? Link it back to your original objectives and success measures and clearly demonstrate the return on investment and the impact it has had on the business strategic outcomes you laid out at the start. Did it increase productivity, profitability and customer perception? There should be a golden thread running through the story.

 

• Wrap up by showing how you’re sustaining the change and continuing to evolve by describing what you’re doing next.

 

• Enjoy the process! Putting together an award entry makes you stand back and take a moment to celebrate what you’ve achieved – something we usually don’t take enough time to do. 

 

And you never know – you might be lucky enough to actually win. Very best of luck!

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