How to Apply
Awards have a very real place in the success of organisations; they are celebratory in a way that qualifications are not. They recognise the success of huge initiatives and smaller more focused interventions that can make so much impact. Here’s a checklist to help you plan your entry.
- Work out why you think an award would be good for the organisation.
- Gain support for the entry, and make sure that the message can be effectively conveyed.
- Identify an entry from a current achievement. Don’t set up a project , or a person, with a project especially to enter the awards.
- Before approaching a nominee, make sure other managers have gone through the project and the award requirements with you, to ensure you aren’t being over-optimistic.
- Make sure the chosen nominee is willing to be put forward.
- Don’t make a secret of the entry. Nominating someone for an award is a huge expression of your pride in the team as well as the individual.
- Mark the nomination in some way and put the nomination on the individual’s personal records.
- Support the candidate through the application, at all stages of the process, and if they win, for the awards ceremony itself.
- Make sure everyone knows that next year it could be their turn to be nominated.
- Do publicise any ultimate success, and don’t spoil it with any unfortunate HR decisions just afterwards!
To find out more about the award categories and judging criteria click here Once you’ve decided to apply read carefully these short tips for completing your application.
Top five tips for completing your application
- Look at the criteria for each category – make sure that you provide evidence against each of the criterion as part of your entry.
- Provide thorough evidence of proper evaluation of the learning intervention. Using Kirkpatrick’s model of evaluation, this should include business benefits. Many applicants rely on learning reaction forms and anecdotal evidence of the the intervention’s success without providing evidence of how this had benefited the organisation.
- Keep to the word count – all applications that exceed the specified word count will be rejected.
- Write the summary section last. Complete all the other sections before summarising the impact of your initiative. Treat the entry form as if you were writing a report for another part of the organisation. It is helpful to write in the third person, rather than using ‘I’.
- Re-read the document and ask someone else to check it for you. It is surprising how spelling mistakes and grammatical errors can detract from the content of an application.
Application Form
Applications are closed for this year.