
The cHeRries Awards
The Press and Journal is delighted to present The cHeRries Awards in association with Mattioli Woods.
The awards recognise excellence in the fields of human resources, training and recruitment.
The awards originally launched in January 2020, but were unfortunately put on hold due to coronavirus.
We are delighted to re-launch the 2020 awards, where we will be accepting new entries from Wednesday 4th November, with entries closing on Wednesday 25th November.
Now in their 13th year, The cHeRries Awards will take place virtually on Thursday 4th March 2021 at 6pm. The virtual award ceremony is free to attend, please click here to register.
For all event enquiries please contact Laura Adam e. laadam@dctmedia.co.uk t. 07976 702707
For all sponsorship enquiries please contact Carole Bruce e. carole.bruce@ajl.co.uk t. 07799 545753
Key Dates
4 Nov 2020 | Entries Open |
25 Nov 2020 | Entries Close |
4 Mar 2021 | Virtual Award Ceremony |
2019 Award Ceremony
Categories
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Excellent HR Manager
This award will be presented to an Excellent HR Manager who, in the past 12 months, has made a clear and measurable impact on the organisation as part of the HR Team or as the sole HR professional.
Nominees should be able to evidence impact by providing measurable and quantifiable results. This is likely to have been achieved through a programme of development, implementation and integration of policies and practices which clearly support organisational objectives and which have made a significant impact on the organisation’s success.
Judges will be looking for evidence of:
- The individual’s contribution to the leadership & development of the HR team or the workforce as a whole
- Impact on organisational objectives and organisational culture
- Commercial awareness
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Exceptional Wellbeing in the Workplace
This award will be presented to an individual or team who have developed, implemented and sustained a wellbeing strategy within their workplace over the last 12 months. The strategy 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, and how this aligns to their core values, company culture or key objectives.
Judges will be looking for evidence of:
- Visible leaders who put wellbeing at the heart of their workplace and lead by example
- How a psychologically safe and supportive environment has promoted a positive wellbeing culture
- How the strategy has been developed, implemented and communicated throughout the organisation and evaluation of their outcomes
- What resources were used whether internal or external
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Exemplary Employer of Choice
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 is inclusive, is true to the values and culture of the business and has the commitment of the whole organisation.
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:
- Excellent staff communication and engagement practices
- Personal and professional development opportunities offered to staff to further their growth within the organisation
- Creative initiatives proven to enhance employee engagement, retention and staff recognition
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Fantastic HR Advisor
This award will be presented to an HR Advisor 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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Rising Star Award
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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Terrific Team of the Year
This award will be presented to a team, either an established HR team or a team which has been formed to complete a specific HR project.
Nominees should be able to demonstrate how the team have excelled and how this has been recognised across the organisation.
Judges will be looking for evidence of:
- 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 success of the company
- Sustainable teamwork and continuous improvement plans
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Tremendous Learning and Development
This award will be presented to either an individual or team who in the last 12 months have demonstrated a strong commitment to designing and delivering innovative and 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 that there was measurable improvement between the business’ training and development and the performance of organisation, teams and/or individuals.
Judges will be looking for evidence of:
- Innovative learning and development progress or implementation of learning from best practice with evidence of costs and value for money/ return on investment.
- 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.
- How the programme(s) will be undertaken going forward or otherwise be sustainable
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The Top cHeRry
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.
Event Sponsors
Mattioli Woods is one of the UK’s leading providers of employee benefits and wealth management services, employing over 600 staff across offices nationwide and taking care of £9.3bn of clients’ assets. 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 is one of the UK’s leading providers of employee benefits and wealth management services, employing over 600 staff across offices nationwide and taking care of £9.3bn of clients’ assets. 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 website
activpayroll is a leading global professional service organisation, offering integrated global payroll solutions, expatriate taxation services and online HR people management tools to over 1,000 customers operating in more than 140 countries worldwide. The company was founded in 2001 by CEO Alison Sellar in Aberdeen and is an SSAE 16 & ISAE 3402 Type II approved organisation holding the highest level of BACS accreditation available. Over the past 16 years, activpayroll has gone from a small local firm to an award-winning international leader servicing some of the world’s leading brands, growing organically through recommendation and without a sales team.
Visit Activpayroll website
The CIPD team in Scotland works closely with our network of members, volunteers and stakeholders to develop the profession and build our policy relevance and reach. Our mission is to establish the voice of CIPD in Scotland.
With more than 11,000 CIPD members across Scotland, we sit at the heart of a proud, growing community of practitioners, members, partners, policymakers and thought leaders in the world of work. Through our collaborative efforts we’ll take big steps towards championing better work and working lives.
Visit CIPD website
CNOOC International, the international division of CNOOC Limited, is a global energy company with operations in Asia, Africa, the Americas and Europe. Our successful growth as an upstream oil and gas producer has been achieved by consistently finding and developing world-class assets.
Our business is focused on safely exploring and producing from conventional offshore, unconventional and oil sands assets. As part of the CNOOC Group of companies, which span the entire energy supply chain, our size and capability create a competitive advantage that ensures we deliver long-term value. Our growth strategy is to safely and sustainably develop our high-quality portfolio to deliver energy for all.
Visit CNOOC International website
Lindsay & Lang are a people-focused consultancy concentrating on Whole Person Management. We support businesses to deliver a positive culture in the workplace. We create this by looking at Development, Wellbeing and Communication within the organisation. This includes resilience, self-awareness, mental health, and behaviours to improve the employee experience and the organisation’s productivity and profitability.
Whole Person Management is centred around Wellbeing and Mental Health. Our Wellbeing programmes combine emotional and physical support to encourage organisations to foster an open company culture when it comes to mental health issues.
Whole person management provides the catalyst for a meaningful conversation within the workforce that connects and underpins leadership, people and wellbeing within an organisation. This is even more important in our current challenging climate.
Visit Lindsay and Lang website
Orion Group is an international leader in the provision of personnel and specialist manpower to a number of industry sectors. Today Orion Group manages the recruitment and supplementary services of thousands of contractors and permanent personnel every year throughout our worldwide network of offices. Our footprint spans Europe, the Americas, the Middle East, Asia Pacific and Africa. Orion Group has the market intelligence and vital project experience that ensures a holistic approach to project delivery for our all our clients manpower requirements, from start to finish.
Visit Orion Group website

Aberdeen Business School (ABS) comprises 3 departments, Management, Accounting and Finance and People, Organisations and Practice.
At undergraduate level students study can study BA and BA (Hons) in various Management related areas, or BSc Accounting.
At Postgraduate level prospective students have the choice of studying a variety of Degree courses including an AMBA accredited MBA which also has various specialist routes. A range of specialist MSc courses is offered including International Business, Finance, Project Management, Human Resource Management and Purchasing and Supply Chain Management.
A feature of study at the Aberdeen Business School is that the majority of our Degree courses carry Professional Practitioner Accreditation, for example, the HRM course is accredited by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD).
Prospective students interested in undertaking a Postgraduate Degree, but who may not have a previous degree, may achieve entry to their selected course by completing the Graduate Certificate in Management Studies. The Aberdeen Business School is also developing its business in the delivery of Corporate Programmes and has a growing reputation in Research.
Visit Robert Gordon University website
Listed on the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange (ADX), TAQA is an international energy and water company operating in 11 countries across four continents.
TAQA’s operations in Europe are based in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands and focus on the full cycle of oil and gas operations, from exploration and production through to decommissioning, as well as gas storage and energy innovations.
In the UK TAQA operates eight platforms, which produce from several fields spread across the northern North Sea and the central North Sea. TAQA is also the operator of the Brent System Pipeline which transports oil from some 14 northern North Sea fields to the Sullom Voe Terminal in Shetland, of which it also has a 24% non-operated interest.
TAQA continues to ensure a relentless focus on ensuring excellence across all areas of late-life operational management. This includes safely and efficiently maximising economic recovery and life extension; driving operational excellence; effectively managing integrity, while at the same time taking ownership of and planning for decommissioning.
For more information please visit www.eu.taqa.com
Visit TAQA website
Founded in 1495, The University of Aberdeen is the third oldest University in Scotland. With a community of 120 nationalities and 14,500 students the University is ranked consistently among the world’s top universities.
Our Business School is internationally recognised for its excellence in world-leading research, and was ranked as a top three UK University for impact in Business and Management Studies as ranked by Times Higher Education based on REF 2014 GPA scores. REF assesses the quality of research in UK higher education institutions. Our strength in research means that Masters students benefit from the expertise of staff who are pioneers in their discipline, and the personalised nature of the study experience ensures a high degree of individual contact with leading academics.
The University’s location in Aberdeen – an internationally recognised business centre that boasts the offices of 20 FTSE 100 companies – means that our curriculum is strongly geared towards the needs of industry. Many of our academics began their careers in the business world, and our courses benefit from strong engagement with industry meaning that students are ready to hit the ground running in the workplace.
Another strength of the Business School is the flexibility that we offer to students. There are a number of part-time and distance learning study options, plus we offer all students the chance to break into the business world by converting their undergraduate degree from any discipline, in any background, into a highly valuable Masters degree in accounting, finance, economics, marketing, or real estate.
With academics at the forefront of research and teaching, and a curriculum that is relevant to the needs of industry, the University of Aberdeen Business School is a place where students can benefit from a highly personalised and flexible study experience that will considerably enhance their job prospects and set them on a path to a brilliant career.
Visit University of Aberdeen Business School websiteJudges
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John Booth
Deputy Chief Executive, Voluntary Services Aberdeen (VSA)
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Lee Ann Panglea
Head of CIPD Scotland and Northern Ireland
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Margaret Gibson
Consultant
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Norman Hutchison
Director of External Engagement, University of Aberdeen Business School
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Paul Matthews
Head of Employability and Professional Enrichment, Robert Gordon University
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Sylvia Halkerston
Consultant & Non-Executive Director
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Wendy Atkinson
Business Development Manager, Mattioli Woods
Contact Us
For event enquiries please contact Laura Adam
t. 01382 575308
e. laadam@dctmedia.co.uk
For sponsorship enquiries please contact Carole Bruce
t. 07799 545753
e. carole.bruce@ajl.co.uk