Teamwork is fundamental for businesses/organisations to succeed and thrive, and the winning company will detail a well built, integrated, cross-company team with a defined purpose. The award will go to the organisation that has an exemplar team, by providing evidence of how collaboration within a team has worked for the overall benefit of the organisation, highlighting how a productive team spirit has been developed.

Your entry for this award should cover:

• How the team has demonstrated excellent, creative teamwork in improving delivery against organisational goals
• How the team met and overcame the challenges of dealing with more exceptional circumstances or projects
• When and how the team has developed an innovative solution that has contributed to best practice within the organisation; and
• Any additional reasons why you feel you should win the Team of the Year award

The award will focus on strong initiatives between business and educational organisations and look at what steps they are taking (individually or jointly) to enable young people to achieve the critical initial steps towards their career ambitions.

This award also aims to recognise businesses and/or schools that have identified inspiring initiatives to develop the mindset of young people, apprentices or students as regards to career opportunities open to them. Provide detail of long-term initiatives in place the demonstrate how you motivate young people to fulfil their career ambitions and make a successful transition into a career or workplace, by utilising initiatives such as mentoring, work experience and placements. Can you specifically show quantifiable results in linking students to your workplace?

The world of work has changed. Challenging economic times, volatile world events and fast-changing technology can leave organisations vulnerable. Tell us how you’ve future-proofed your business. What processes have you implemented to harness the talents of your people to ensure success in the continually evolving business, economic and regulatory environment? What approach has your business taken to develop its product, services and people skills for the future? Tell us how your organisation allows for these ideas to be developed.

What really excites your talented people and makes them proud to work for you? If you have a uniquely innovative and effective approach to encouraging innovation and development from apprentice to boardroom level, then we want to know. Demonstrate how you ensure your organisation’s high performance is driven at every level to propel your business forward effectively. Give examples of how your staff are challenged and stretched within your organisation. Tell us how you can further develop high performance from your existing workforce.

In a fast-moving world a company’s success depends on enhancing the skillset of its employees. This category celebrates organisations that ensure their employees are constantly learning and growing in their roles. The winner will demonstrate how it champions employees’ skills development and has built a lifelong learning culture in the workplace. The award will distinguish your organisation as an outstanding employer that focuses and prioritises employees’ skills development.

It is a prestigious symbol of excellence and will help your company gain a competitive edge in talent attraction and retention.

This award recognises businesses with healthy and happy staff. They enjoy higher levels of staff morale, productivity and ultimately profitability. The winner will have an excellent approach to work-life balance, health and wellbeing practices. It will also have the support and policies in place to benefit their employees and get results.

The winning organisation will demonstrate how they have linked a healthy workforce, the impact of workplace support and policies, and employee welfare to improved performance within their business.

To demonstrate how you are making health and wellbeing an organisational priority we will be looking for:

• Do you have an organisational health and wellbeing strategy?
• How do you integrate a health and wellbeing strategy into the organisation’s policies and communications?
• Do you empower a team of workplace wellbeing champions to design and implement health-promoting initiatives?
• Is health and wellbeing embedded within the organisation’s skills and knowledge requirements of line managers?

The winning organisation will demonstrate how it harnesses a truly diverse workforce. Does your organisation excel in your commitment to equality and inclusion across all strands of diversity?

Please give examples how you work hard to create a culture where people are respected, appreciated and feel included.

Organisations will need to show how they work hard to create a culture where people are respected, appreciated and feel included, with the winning organisation demonstrating how it is harnessing a truly diverse workforce.

Diversity – the range of people in the workforce will be diverse. There will be a good mix of genders, ages, religions, sexual preferences, cultures and disabilities. These differences will be valued, not discriminated against

Equality – all people will be treated fairly, irrespective of differences

Inclusion – everyone feels valued. They will feel free to express personal opinions and ideas, discussing any problem areas with management and removing the presence of bullying, harassment and discrimination

This award is open to any organisations that sets new standards in lowering the carbon footprint impact of their business activities, champions sustainability and inspires new ideas and positive change, along with a clear commitment to long-term impact.

This new award for 2023 is open to organisations that have created or refined a particular product, solution or business model which holds the potential to decarbonise business and drive us towards net-zero – ideally with results already being proven and plans for future deployment.

The judges will be looking for evidence that this business is doing their best to reduce and/or eliminate emissions to the greatest extent possible, demonstrating that climate action is good for business.

The successful organisation will be able to provide evidence of how their leadership, passion and motivation has helped accelerate their company’s sustainability journey.

The award for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Programme of the Year is open to any company that contributes to the welfare of local communities in which they operate. This can range from involvement with community projects, raising funds and encouraging active involvement of the community in special projects.

• an initiative to address a specific need identified in the local community
• a programme or practice demonstrating the corporate social responsibility of your company
• a creative initiative in which a large impact is made with a small investment
• a long-term project, intended to be continuously supported by your company