The benchmark of excellence
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The HR Excellence Awards celebrate the people, businesses and organisations doing exceptional work. Explore the categories and help recognise someone shaping the future through their achievement, leadership and impact.
HR Director of the Year Award
The people leader with a seat at the top table.
About this category
This award recognises an HR director, chief people officer or head of HR whose people strategy has shaped the direction and performance of their organisation. Judges look for influence at board level, the results of the strategy and the development of the HR function.
Eligibility
- Open to HR directors
- Chief people officers
- Heads of HR and equivalent senior HR leaders
Judging criteria
- Strategic influence
- Results of the people strategy
- Leadership of the HR function
- Change delivered
- Ethics
Qualitative criteria
Commercial judgement combined with care for people.
Metrics
- Engagement
- Retention
- Absence
- Capability
- Cost of HR and progress against the people strategy
Additional criteria
Entries should include a concise case study of the HR work, supporting figures such as engagement, retention, absence, capability or cost, and, where possible, comments from leaders, managers or employees. Never include names or any detail that could identify an individual employee, especially in employee relations, wellbeing or casework examples: describe cases in anonymised terms and give results as percentages or ranges. Nothing in an entry is shared beyond the judging panel. Judges consider the size of the organisation and the HR team, so a one person HR function competes on equal terms with a large people directorate.
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