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Entry Process, Judging Criteria & Judges for 2025

Entry Cost

Early Bird entries submitted up to 21st May 2025 cost £50 + VAT per entry

Entries submitted after 21st May 2025 cost £65 + VAT per entry

Charity/Not-for-profit Organisation of the Year is Free to Enter and finalists will receive one free ticket to attend the event.

The entry process

You’ll need to answer five questions in no more than 350 words as your entry. We also ask for a 200-word summary which will be printed in the awards brochure if you’re a finalist. The summary also signposts the judges about what’s in your entry.

Simply complete the entry form online – you’ll need to do one per category you’re entering. Upload a logo (high quality png or jpeg version please) and a photo to accompany your entry.

Then pay the fee. It’s just £50+VAT per “early bird” entry submitted up to 21st May 2025 and then £65 +VAT for entries submitted after 21st May 2025 and you can do it simply and easily online with a card payment.

For company entries, the questions are:

Tell us about your company strategy – who are your clients/customers, what are you selling them, and what did you set out to achieve this year? If you’re entering the collaboration award, tell us about the collaboration strategy. If you’re entering the Doing Good in Business award, you’ll need to tell us about your strategy for that. And if you’re hoping to win the Employer of the Year trophy, tell us about your strategy for being a great employer!
Explain your goals and objectives – it’s much easier for the judges to award higher marks if you give them something that can actually be measured, so try to avoid “increase” or “decrease” and give them finite information on which to judge you. Relate this to your organisation, the collaboration, your objectives for employee engagement or your doing good
How did you achieve the amazing things you’ve done? Tell us about the actual activity – was your activity based on research? Or different to anything you’ve done before? Bring to life what you’ve done to deliver fabulous results this year.
What was creative or innovative about what you did? It might not be mind-blowing, but it might be something you haven’t tried before. Maybe you targeted a new market. Perhaps you ran a creative campaign. Help the judges to see what makes you stand out.
What were the results? Compare these to the goals/objectives you’ve already told us about. We’re looking for impact here, so tell us, for example, “80% of our award entries have been shortlisted” rather than “we’ve written 150 award entries”. Again, giving measurable figures helps the judges to give you more points as your achievements are clearer and proven. All details are treated in the strictest confidence, of course.

You will also be asked to provide a 200 word general summary about the business/organisation. This will appear in the awards brochure which will be distributed at the event.

For individual entries for Apprentice of the Year, Rising Star or Business Leader of the Year, the questions are:

Tell us a little about the person you’re nominating and their role at your company. We’re happy to know they live on a canal boat or own a goat – help us visualise your amazing nominee!
What were the goals set for your nominee this year? Give us measurable numbers to help us understand the scale of the task they were set.
What have they achieved this year and how does that compare to the goals or objectives they were set? Ideally, you’d give us hard numbers in this section to demonstrate how fabulous your nominee is.
Explain what’s been difficult for your nominee this year. What obstacles to success have they overcome?
Why should your nominee win Employee or Apprentice of the Year? Give us your pitch about what makes them so amazing and why they deserve this award now.

You’ll also need to give us a short career history for your nominee – no more than 200 words. This will appear in the awards brochure which will be distributed at the event.

For the Multicultural Excellence Award the questions are:

Commitment to diversity and inclusion: Show us a clear commitment to fostering diversity within the workplace, workforce, and wider community
Creativity in addressing barriers and promoting unity: How have you creatively broken down barriers and helped people from a range of backgrounds?
Leadership: Evidence of sharing what you’ve learnt and acting as a role model to lead the way for others
Collaboration: Tell us how you’ve used diverse voices to help you shape your activities or working together to achieve results that are more than the sum of their parts
Success against your objectives: Whether the impact has been a more diverse workforce, better engagement with marginalised or under-represented groups, or another measure, show us what you aimed to achieve and how you fared against those targets

You’ll also need to give us a short career history for your nominee – no more than 200 words. This will appear in the awards brochure which will be distributed at the event.

Judging criteria

The criteria for judging all the awards, except for the individual categories, are the same. They will score each question against this scoring guidance:

Outstanding – robust evidence, a compelling description; 8-10 marks
Good – very good story with some strong evidence; 6-7 marks
Adequate – reasonable description of achievements and some evidence; 4-5 marks
Limited – some weak areas, limited evidence available to support the story; 2-3 marks
Weak – unconvincing, lacking evidence; 0-1 mark

There won’t be a second round of judging with presentations as we want to make the process as efficient as possible.

Entries close on 21st June 2025 and we’ll announce the shortlist week commencing 18th August 2025.