Competition for the best talent has never been more intense, and the Employer of the Year Award celebrates the organisations that win it. The link between people and performance is one of the most robust in business research: Gallup’s global analysis finds the most engaged teams deliver around 23% higher profitability and 21% higher productivity than the least engaged. This award rewards employers who turn culture into commercial results.
This guide explains what the judges look for and how to build a winning Employer of the Year entry.
About the award
This award celebrates the organisations that go the extra mile through every stage of the employee lifecycle, from recruitment to career progression. Judges look for evidence of how you invest in people and their development, how employees are engaged in your values and purpose, and the impact this has had on commercial performance.
Who can enter?
The award is open to any business. Judges look for excellence in recruitment, retention and development, communication and feedback, leadership, innovation, diversity and inclusion, customer service, an embedded ethical culture, and community impact. Read the full criteria on the Employer of the Year category page before you start.
How the award is judged
Entries are scored against four weighted criteria. The weightings tell you where to concentrate your entry, so plan your word count to match them:
|
Criterion |
Weighting |
|
Employee & Customer Engagement |
30% |
|
Leadership & Innovation |
25% |
|
Financial Performance & Growth |
25% |
|
Purpose Beyond Profit |
20% |
How to win, criterion by criterion
Employee & customer engagement (30%)
This is the highest-weighted area, so lead with it. Provide evidence of the programmes you use to develop staff, with case studies showing their impact on retention, development and progression. Explain how your employment strategy delivers your customer service strategy, how that grew your customer base over the last 18 months, and what it did for financial performance. Highlight the incentives and policies that mark you out as an employer of choice. The CIPD’s evidence review on employee engagement is a useful reference for the outcomes engagement drives.
Leadership & innovation (25%)
Give examples of how effective leadership has got the best out of your talent, who owns your HR strategy and their profile, and how innovative your people strategy is. Show how investment in people has enabled innovation, and how that improved engagement, productivity and commercial success.
Financial performance & growth (25%)
Connect people to the bottom line. Provide a case study of how your HR policies improved engagement and delivered commercial objectives or efficiency, the financial return on investment in your people, and how your people strategy supports your growth strategy. Benchmark against peers on profitability, sales growth or market share.
Purpose beyond profit (20%)
Give a talent-related example of putting purpose before profit, what you are doing on ESG and how it aligns with your talent strategy, and how diversity and inclusion improved retention and performance and differentiated you as an employer of choice.
Evidence beats adjectives
Across every criterion, the same principle decides the score: judges reward proof and ignore assertion. Phrases like “market-leading” or “world-class” carry no marks on their own, while a number, a trend and an independent voice carry all of them. For each claim you make, attach a figure, show the journey with a starting point and an end point, and corroborate it with customer quotes, testimonials or third-party data. A good test is to read each sentence and ask: would a judge who knows nothing about us be able to score this? If not, add the evidence.
The finalist presentation
Judging happens in two stages. Your written entry is scored first, and if you are shortlisted you will be invited to London to present to a panel of four judges, with around 20 minutes to present and add colour to your entry and about 25 minutes of questions and answers. Prepare for both: the written entry gets you into the room, and the presentation wins the award. Build the presentation around your highest-weighted criteria rather than repeating the entry, bring people who can answer detailed questions, and rehearse for the toughest questions on your numbers. See our guide on how to write a winning awards entry for the full method.
Common mistakes to avoid
- Listing perks instead of evidencing impact on retention, productivity and performance.
- Failing to connect your people strategy to commercial results.
- Making engagement claims with no data or independent benchmarks.
- Treating diversity and inclusion as a tick-box rather than a performance driver.
- Leaving the entry to the last minute rather than drafting and reviewing properly.
Your quick pre-submission checklist
- Have I mapped my word count to the weightings, with the most on the highest-weighted criteria?
- Is every important claim backed by a number, a trend or an independent voice?
- Have I answered every part of every question in the category criteria?
- Have I shown both my track record and a credible plan for sustained growth?
- Has someone outside the team read it and understood it without explanation?
Ready to enter?
The Employer of the Year Award rewards employers who can prove that investing in people drives performance. Build your entry around the weightings, evidence the impact, and prepare to present. For eligibility and process, see the entry FAQ.
Entries for the 2026 Lloyds British Business Excellence Awards close at midnight on Friday 3 July. Start your Employer of the Year entry today.
