The Employee Benefits Awards celebrates UK employers’ reward and benefits strategies. We would like to congratulate our worthy finalists and winners!
Download a PDF of the Employee Benefits Award Winners 2012†
(Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4)
Click on each category below to view winners and finalists.
Employee benefits professional of the year
Employee benefits specialist of the year
Most effective motivation or incentive strategy
Most effective benefits communications strategy for employers with fewer than 5,000 staff
Most effective benefits communications strategy for employers with more than 5,000 staff
Most effective reward or benefits strategy for staff based outside the UK
Most effective healthcare and wellbeing strategy for employers with fewer than 1,000 staff
Most effective healthcare and wellbeing strategy for employers with more than 1,000 staff
Most effective absence management and rehabilitation strategy
Most effective all-employee share scheme strategy
Most effective pensions change strategy
Most effective pensions communications strategy
Most effective strategy to encourage workplace savings
Most effective benefits strategy in a public or voluntary sector organisation
Most effective use of total reward statements
Most effective total reward strategy
Most effective use of a flexible benefits plan
Most effective use of a voluntary benefits plan and staff deals
Most effective benefits strategy for working parents and/or carers
Most effective travel strategy for business and perk car drivers
Editor’s comment
Just before the country settled down to a rain-sodden weekend of Diamond Jubilee celebrations, all involved in benefits enjoyed a (drier) celebration of our own: to recognise employers with the best benefits strategies in the land. The Employee Benefits Awards 2012 took place on 31 May at The HAC, in the City of London, where the gongs were handed out by comedian Jason Byrne over a lovely lunch, followed by networking summer drinks and a chance to play on the fairground.
Each year I try to give a flavour of the trends emerging from the awards judging. A key aspect this year was an increase in the use of face-to-face communications with staff, as opposed to relying on technology, emails or social media. Clearly, when important messages need to be given, nothing beats doing it when you can see the whites of each other’s eyes.
I also want to mention how good so many entries were in providing robust metrics to support their case. Even when it was provided in confidence and we cannot publish it, it helped to show the growing professionalism of this industry. Benefits and HR managers are using ever more data to justify their decisions, from strategy and buying to implementation and gauging effectiveness.
More than 100 finalists emerged from our deluge of entrants. The judges then had to whittle these down to just 24 winners. So a big thank-you to our expert, independent judging panels. Their dedication to the task and integrity in decisions help make these awards influence-free.
After days of reading through myriad entries, we gathered the 31 judges into five different panels in various rooms over two days to delve into the details of each entry. This year there was much broad consensus and our biggest problem was trying to come up with only one winner in each category. You will be able to spot where the long debates happened where we have also awarded a Highly Commended gong. So hearty congratulations to all our winners, highly commendeds, and our finalists.
Each year, entrants have the opportunity to make a donation to our official charity, Samaritans. We choose this charity because of the work it does among people (including your staff) when times are tough. Although many employers do try to help with employee stress, sometimes outside organisations are better placed to step into the breach. Thank you all for your generous donations.
Debi O’Donovan, Editor, Employee Benefits
