The cHeRries Awards
ENTRIES HAVE NOW CLOSED
The Press and Journal and The Courier would like to thank all of the businesse who have entered The cHeRries Awards in association with Mattioli Woods.
The awards recognise excellence in the fields of human resources and organisational effectiveness in Scotland.
The worthy finalists will be announced on Thursday 20th April, 2023.
Now in their 15th year, The cHeRries Awards will take place on Thursday 8th June, at P&J Live, Aberdeen.
We are also delighted to announce that our hugely successful cHerries Conference will be returning to P&J Live on Thursday 8th June. Full details and how to book your place will follow in due course.
For all event enquiries please contact Sharon Methven (Senior Event Manager) on smethven@dcthomson.co.uk
For all sponsorship enquiries please contact Carole Bruce on carole.bruce@dcthomson.co.uk or 07799 545753.
Key Dates
| 20 Apr 2023 | Finalists announced |
| 8 Jun 2023 | Conference and Award Ceremony |
Categories
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Culture Transformation Project of the YearWorkplace culture has changed rapidly in recent years and HR has been at the forefront of adapting to, supporting and advancing these changes. Cultural transformation helps organisations evolve their company culture to achieve their strategic objectives. It is also key to ensuring a positive employee experience for the workforce. We are keen to hear from teams who have undergone, or are currently undergoing, a culture transformation within their organisation, and the benefits this has delivered for both employees and the business’.Nominees should be able to demonstrate how the team created and initiated the culture transformation project and provide evidence of the impact.Judges will be looking for:
- The challenge and/or change facing the organsation that led to the the initiation of the transformation
- Full details of the culture transformation that the team introduced within their organisation
- Evidence of the transformation project benefits to both employees and the organisation, this can include newly launched or transformation initiatives in it’s infancy but with early positive results
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Employer of the Year
This award will be presented to an organisation which clearly demonstrates that people are genuinely at the heart of the business and that the business strategy and leadership are inclusive, that the business values are clearly embedded in the culture of the organisation and has the commitment of the whole organisation. The employer of choice.
Nominees should be able to demonstrate how a strong employee focussed culture within the organisation has helped employees feel valued and what effect that has had on outcomes.
Judges will be looking for evidence of:
- Exemplary staff communication and engagement practices
- An Inclusive, diverse and equitable strategy for all to have opportunities for growth within the organisation
- Creative initiatives proven to enhance employee engagement, attraction, retention, succession and staff recognition
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HR Leader of the Year
This category is open to the Human Resources Leaders at the top of their organisation or within the wider human resources team, depending on the size of the organisation and team. As each organisation is different this will be the individual leading human resources and job titles may include HR Manager, HR Director, Chief People Officer or other variations of this title.
The award will be presented to a Human Resources Leader who, in the past 12 months, has made a clear and measurable impact on the organisation. Nominees should be able to evidence high impact measurable and quantifiable results.
These results are likely to have been achieved through a programme of development, implementation and integration of strategy, initiatives, and practices which clearly support the organisational beliefs, objectives and commercial impact. These achievements will have made significant impact on the organisation’s success, both internally and externally.
Judges will be looking for evidence in the following criteria:
- Strategy, initiatives and practices that the individual has forged within their organisation
- Impact on these have had on the organisational objectives, organisational culture and how these align with the organisational beliefs
- With all this in mind the individual will be able to describe the commercial value of introducing this strategy, initiative or practice
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HR Professional of the Year
This category is open to the Human Resources Professionals in all areas of Human Resources from Business Partnering to Compensation & Benefits. As each organisation is different this will be the individual working within an HR Team, job titles may include HR Advisor, HR Business Partner, L&D Advisor, Compensation & Benefits Specialist or other variations of this title.
This award will be presented to a Human Resources Professional who, in the past 12 months has gained respect from their client base by ensuring high visibility and face to face contact while proactively delivering a high standard of HR service and solutions.
Nominees should be able to demonstrate that they have undertaken duties or initiatives beyond expectations. They should be recognised as contributing to the success of the team and the organisation whilst being eager to commit to their continuing professional development and provide evidence of how this supports their ability to understand their business and apply and adapt best practice to suit the needs of their clients.
Judges will be looking for evidence of:
- Their individual impact within the organisation
- Their individual HR service and solutions
- Measurement of their performance and achievements in the last twelve months
- Learning from CPD activities undertaken in the preceding year
- Relationship management
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Learning & Development of the Year
This award will be presented to either an individual or team who in the last 12 months have demonstrated a strong commitment to innovative design and delivery of cohesive learning and development programmes for their organisations. This may be for a one-off project or for transformational sustainable learning and development within the organisation.
Nominees should be able to demonstrate their contribution to learning and development within their organisation, that there was measurable improvement between the business’ learning and development and the performance of organisation, teams and/or individuals.
Judges will be looking for evidence of:
- What new and novel ways they engage learners and integrate learning
- How the team ensure sustainability of organisational learning and generate business impact and commercial value
- How they have fostered an environment of learning which develops capability within the workplace
- What the key performance metrics and results have been in relation to both business impact and meeting stakeholder expectations
- A strong relationship between the outcomes of such programmes and the organisation’s strategic aims and objectives
- A direct link to and from Performance Management processes and the organisations Diversity, Equality/Equity and Inclusion strategy
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Local HeRo Award
Recognising someone in the field of HR who, out with their day to day job, continually commits their time and efforts to volunteering, fundraising or otherwise supporting good causes in their community.
An ordinary person doing extraordinary things for their community.
Nominees should be able to demonstrate evidence of their fundraising activities, and how this has impacted their community.
Judges will be looking for evidence of:
- Activities deriving support or help to their community
- Any fundraising activities (if appropriate)
- Personal development or enhancement as a result of their voluntary contributions
- How have they made a difference and what positive impact has the out of work volunteering and support brought to the organisation?
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Rising Star of the Year
This award will be presented to an individual who is in the early stages of their HR career, an up-and-coming talent within the field who demonstrates an outstanding attitude to their work.
Nominees should be able to demonstrate a genuine commitment to developing a career within Human Resource Management, and who understands the contribution that HR professionals bring to an organisation.
Judges will be looking for evidence of;
- That the individual goes above and beyond expectations
- That there have been clear achievements attributable to this individual in the last twelve months.
- That they bring a fresh dynamic to the team and the organisation
- An understanding of the organisation’s aims, goals, objectives, values and culture and their contribution
- Clear career and personal development goals
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Team of the Year
This award will be presented to a team. This can be a HR Team or a Team within an HR such as Learning & Development, Compensation and Benefits, either an established or a team which has been formed to complete a specific project with people at the core.
Nominees should be able to demonstrate how the team have excelled and how this has been recognised across the organisation for the work within their discipline and business partnering with other departments and the organisation as a whole. Highlighting their hard work and collaborate methodology
Judges will be looking for evidence of:
- Their people management ethos, the positive impact on the business and organisation
- The commercial value that the team have added to the business and organisation
- The team successfully partnering with the wider organisation to achieve functional or cross functional success
- Innovation and collaboration
- How the team has impacted on the overall strength and success of the business and organisation
- Sustainable teamwork and continuous improvement plans
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Wellbeing in the Workplace of the Year
This award will be open to a Human Resources Team, an Organisational Wellbeing Team or equivalent who has influenced, developed, implemented or embedded a wellbeing culture within their organisation over the last 12 months which provides a positive working environment, that will enable employee engagement and organisational performance
The wellbeing cultural should be supported by Leadership and engage all employees. Nominees should be able to demonstrate a clear and genuine commitment to wellbeing in the workplace (this should be more than addressing Mental Health), and how this aligns to their core values, current or future company culture and their organisational objectives.
Judges will be looking for evidence of:
- Influence with their leadership team to gain buy-in and engagement with employees
- The strategy, initiative and/or practice which were put in place to create positive working environment that will enable employee engagement and organisational performance
- How the strategy, initiatives and practices has created positive working environments in reality and how employee engagement and organisational performance, as well as the commercial value this has brought to the organisation
- The measurement/metric put in place to ensure sustainability and success
- How the strategy, initiatives or practices have supported their people in real terms
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Top cHeRry Award for Outstanding Contribution
The Top cHeRry Award for Outstanding Contribution is the most prestigious cHeRry award to be won. The award is presented to an individual who has been nominated by peers within the industry.
It may recognise an HR professional reaching the end of their career who has made an impact beyond the organisations in which they were employed, but it may also be someone who is at the pinnacle of their career making an impact on the future of HR, Education, Development of the future workforce or influencing policies and practices beyond their organisation. They should be a recognised leader in their field.
A specially selected panel judge this category together with testimonials and other business ranking information.
This category is not open for general entry or nomination.
Event Sponsors
Mattioli Woods plc is one of the UK’s leading providers of wealth management and employee benefit services, advising over 10,000 clients with assets under management, administration and advice of over £12 billion. The Mattioli Woods employee benefits team delivers benefit solutions to help clients increase productivity and profitability through improved employee engagement, retention and motivation. These include:
- flexible benefits – our portals allow for all sizes of business, covering employee engagement, total reward statements and employee discounts
- pensions and workplace savings – pensions and group SIPPs
- employee health and wellbeing – financial education, executive financial counselling, healthcare and risk benefits
- specialist services – covering mergers and acquisitions and international
Our wealth management clients, meanwhile, come from many walks of life – from the young entrepreneur in the early stages of their career to the retired property developer couple with a combined wealth of more than £20 million.
Whoever they are, Mattioli Woods is here to help and support our clients in protecting and growing their finances to meet their aims and ambitions.
Visit Mattioli Woods website- flexible benefits – our portals allow for all sizes of business, covering employee engagement, total reward statements and employee discounts
- pensions and workplace savings – pensions and group SIPPs
- employee health and wellbeing – financial education, executive financial counselling, healthcare and risk benefits
- specialist services – covering mergers and acquisitions and international
Mattioli Woods plc is one of the UK’s leading providers of wealth management and employee benefit services, advising over 10,000 clients with assets under management, administration and advice of over £12 billion. The Mattioli Woods employee benefits team delivers benefit solutions to help clients increase productivity and profitability through improved employee engagement, retention and motivation. These include:
Our wealth management clients, meanwhile, come from many walks of life – from the young entrepreneur in the early stages of their career to the retired property developer couple with a combined wealth of more than £20 million.
Whoever they are, Mattioli Woods is here to help and support our clients in protecting and growing their finances to meet their aims and ambitions.
Visit Mattioli Woods websiteBilfinger UK is a leading engineering and maintenance provider, supporting customers across the chemical & petrochemical, nuclear, oil & gas, pharmaceuticals & biopharma, power & energy, utilities, renewables and food & beverage markets. We enhance the efficiency of assets, ensuring a high level of availability and reducing maintenance costs. We have extensive experience in offshore and onshore facilities; specialising in asset management services throughout all life cycle phases from consulting, engineering, manufacturing, assembly, operations, maintenance, and decommissioning. This commitment is delivered by an experienced and highly competent workforce of over 4,500 employees operating from 14 offices in strategic industrial hubs, upholding the highest standards of safety, compliance and quality.
Visit Bilfinger UK websiteTop 50 UK law firm Brodies LLP is the largest law firm headquartered in Scotland measured by income, legal directory rankings, and lawyer numbers.
The Employment and Immigration team at Brodies LLP supports clients with all of their HR, employment law and immigration needs. With lawyers in Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow, the team partner with a range of clients across many sectors including energy, construction, transport and food, drink & leisure.
The team have been consistently ranked in the top tier in independent legal directories in recognition of their innovative and business-focused employment practice. One client said: “Strong team with practical solutions to a variety of employment law problems. Brodies were able to advise on both the legal aspects and the soft skills when advising in difficult situations” (Legal 500 UK 2022).
To help organisations manage their people with confidence, Workbox by Brodies was developed. This award-winning online HR and employment law site provides subscribers with quick and easy access to practical and up-to-date resources which have been written in plain English by a team of dedicated employment lawyers.
Visit Brodies websiteAs the voice of the people profession in Scotland, the CIPD works closely with our network of members, volunteers, partners and stakeholders to develop the profession and build our policy relevance and reach.
With more than 11,000 CIPD members across Scotland, we sit at the heart of a community of practitioners, members, partners, policymakers and thought leaders in the world of work.
Through our collaborative efforts we’re championing fairer work and better working lives in Scotland.
Visit CIPD websiteHunter Adams is a UK HR consultancy and recruitment business. We offer commercial solutions with a focus on bottom-line profitability, and are experts in workplace culture and employee engagement.
On the HR side, we provide all HR services under one roof. We consult in all areas of HR, provide HR interims for assignments and projects of any duration, and we offer HR call-off support to SMEs and charities – essentially acting as their HR department.
On the recruitment side, our talented team of HR recruiters work with their signature speed and efficiency to meet and exceed our clients’ needs – whether that’s for a single hire or for a multiple-role recruitment campaign. Quite simply, we are HR people hiring HR people.
Visit Hunter Adams websiteHutcheon Mearns is a global finance people and business advisory specialist headquartered in Aberdeen. We help businesses build exceptional finance teams, solve complex financial challenges, and deliver growth through focused strategy. Our team of qualified accountants and finance professionals transform your finance team with the best people – interim support, project support and strategic recruitment.
Specialists – If you need to bring additional people resources into your finance function on an interim or longer-term project support basis, Hutcheon Mearns’ Specialists are primed to become part of your team.
Resourcing – Our recruiting services are delivered by finance professionals who know the business, so you can rely on us to source the talent you need.
Executive Search – Our team of practice trained accountants have nurtured industry relationships over decades to bring you a unique executive search service designed to recruit the highest calibre finance professionals.
Visit Hutcheon Mearns websiteBuilding a solid foundation that endures takes time, and cultivating positive culture at work is no different. It requires commitment, challenge, honesty and careful attention to detail — and that’s where Lang & Co come in. A People & Culture Consultancy, we offer engagement, training and consultancy services that help to unlock these traits and optimise your teams across every aspect of their working lives — leading to improved performance and profitability.
Visit Lang&Co websiteWe have a purpose-led strategy built around the core principles of change, progress and enabling everyone that combine to make business work better for people.
Our purpose gives us a clear sense of who we are, what we stand for and why we exist. It helps us to create the kind of inclusive, diverse, curious, innovative and considerate firm we think you want to work with.
Law is at our core, but the breadth and diversity of our professional expertise helps us to innovate to make your business work better. By understanding your needs, we combine efficient processes, deep sector knowledge, technology and methodology, with the expertise of all of our people, to deliver outcome-based solutions that enable you to achieve your business strategies.
Visit Pinsent Masons websiteRelyOn Nutec delivers an innovative range of safety services and solutions globally. Our core function is to support our customers develop and sustain healthy and safe work environments ensuring that their personnel have the right skill set to stay safe in hazardous and potentially life-threatening situations.
Since our inception over 3 decades ago, we have been leading the industry, and through the intelligent application of leading-edge technology we have evolved into the preferred end-to-end partner for our customers.
Complemented by our digital learning, leading training simulators, and applications, we deliver safety and technical training to customers across the world. With training centres in 21 countries, our modern facilities cater to delegates in safety critical industries, and are built to emulate real-life environments, featuring state-of-the-art equipment, modern classrooms and training simulators. As our customers’ operations and people have become more technical, we have invested in new digital ways of learning, making the training experience increasingly realistic – and increasingly efficient.
Our market-leading suite of digital applications offers customers a modular approach to managing safety across their business processes while minimising risk and through our managed services and consultancy divisions, we share our subject matter expertise to help our customers build and sustain safe workplaces while protecting their assets and the environment
Visit RelyOn Nutec websiteW M Donald Ltd is a multidisciplinary Civil Engineering contracting business operating from Netherley, Stonehaven since 1977 and supported by regional offices in Inverness and Perth. We have a skilled and dedicated workforce of 227 employees, with a further 80 subcontractors. Our teams deliver an unrivalled breadth of services to public and private sector clients, including many of the leading national and regional housebuilders. We undertake complex enabling and major infrastructure works as Principal Contractor and as a subcontractor across the north of Scotland. W M Donald’s teams are currently working on over 40 live sites and we continually strive to be the market leader in our fields of operation. We are committed to investing in our people and help them to be the best they can be. We make it happen.
Visit WM Donald websiteWe bring almost half a century’s worth of maintenance and asset integrity experience to a wide range of energy and industrial sectors. Collaborating with our clients throughout their asset’s entire lifecycle, Stork supports them every step of the way – from planning and design through to development and construction, as well as commissioning, maintenance, modifications and decommissioning.
With a longstanding track record of working in offshore oil and gas environments, in recent years, our business diversification strategy has enabled us to secure new contracts in onshore-based industries such as nuclear and power.
Visit Stork website
Judges
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Kate Mountain
Senior Employee Benefits Consultant, Mattioli Woods
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Roger Hunt
Chief of Business Services, AGS Airports Ltd
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Wendy Atkinson
Head of Client Relationships, Hunter Adams
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Helen Stuart
HR Director and Non-Executive Director
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Louise Lang
Managing Director, Lang & Co
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Andrew Knight
Partner, Burness Paull LLP
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Lynsey Scott
Chief People Officer, DC Thomson
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Chris Grange
Director Executive Search, Rawmarsh
Gallery
Contact Us
For sponsorship enquiries please contact Carole Bruce
t. 07799 545753
e. carole.bruce@dcthomson.co.uk
For event enquiries please contact Sharon Methven
e. smethven@dcthomson.co.uk