Leaders are invited from a range of sectors based on their knowledge, expertise and skills, giving assurance to all entrants their submission will be judged by the very best of our profession.
We pride ourselves on a fair and transparent judging process, which consists of 5 key stages:
- Nominations will be collected through the official nomination forms online.
- Nominations will be reviewed anonymously and ranked against criteria specific to each category.
- A shortlist of the highest scoring nominations will be announced for each category, and published on the CIPD website
- Finalists will be invited to participate in the second round of judging, which consists of a 35-minute virtual interview with the judging panel. They will be required to choose a spokesperson (or up to three) to conduct a 20-minute presentation about their initiative, with slides and focusing on measurable and quantifiable outputs, that will be followed by a 15-minute Q&A.
- Winners will be announced at the Awards Gala Dinner, taking place on 11 December 2025 in Dubai. All shortlisted candidates will be invited to attend and have the opportunity to purchase additional seats.
Across all categories, and in line with CIPD’ Profession Map, which sets the international benchmark for the people profession, the judges will be looking for you to demonstrate that the work you do is:
- Evidence-based: your work carries more weight when it’s supported by strong evidence,
- Outcomes-driven: your work should be driven by understanding of context and outcomes, focusing on work which creates long-term value for the people and the organisations.
- Principles-led: your decisions, actions and behaviours should be led by clear principles.
For team awards each entry must contain information under the following headings:
Summary
This is a 150 word summary of your submission. It should include the programme or project and the main results following the implementation and execution.
Innovation
Consider sharing information relating to any specific employee feedback and/or engagement, adoption rates, utilisation metrics, use of analytics tools, the impact on culture and overall business, and how the initiative has enhanced competitiveness, improved operational efficiency or impacted the bottom line.
Impact
Under this section you could share clear objectives, KPI’s, pre- and post-implementation metrics, examples of employee engagement, feedback from key stakeholders, quantitative metrics, impact of L&D initiatives, cost and ROI and behavioural change.
Alignment with the business
Here, it is recommended to demonstrate how the objectives aligned to the overall strategic business goals. Consider the level of leadership buy-in, cross-department collaboration, HR-specific metrics, performance metrics, and financial impact. How did you capture the continuous feedback loop, and improvement process and which business performance metrics were directly impacted by the success of the initiative.
Relevance
In this section judges are looking for examples of how relevant the initiative is to the current challenges of the people profession, the people needs within the organisation, and the overall organisation’s needs and strategic direction.
For individual awards entry must contain information under the following headings:
Summary
This is a 150-word summary of your submission. It should include highlights of the individual’s performance and impact.
Performance and achievements
Please list some initiatives, projects, activities or studies that stood out over the past 12 months. Indicate how the nominee drew support from others and worked collaboratively with other students / colleagues / managers.
Skills and behaviours
Please describe the specific knowledge, skills and behaviours that the nominee has exhibited in carrying out their work / studies. What challenges did the nominee overcome along the way, and how?
Impact and innovation
Please explain the impact of the nominee’s work in terms of its practical application, efficiencies, impact, innovation, new research or addressing a social concern.
Contribution to the business
How did the nominee achieve results? How did this contribute to the business?
Confidentiality
- All judges will be required to sign confidentiality agreements prior to receiving any entries.
- Organisations joining the judging panel can enter the awards, but they will not be involved in judging the categories that they have entered.
- All judges will be briefed with clear guidance on scoring the entries.
- The shortlist will be defined by the highest scoring entries.
- Access to the entries and judging system is limited to the judges and the Awards administration team only.
- CIPD reserves the right to publish submissions from the winners and shortlisted entrants.
- All entries will be checked that they have been entered into the correct category criteria and re-allocated into correct categories if necessary.