Learning and development awards

After decades of incremental innovation in learning and development, the pandemic brought about a short period of radical change. Previous assumptions about how certain types of learning should be delivered were replaced with the urgent need to provide effective learning across all topics without physical contact. Post-pandemic some of these methods and new models remain or continue to influence in-person training. 

From an awards perspective this has led to a change in the types of stories being entered, the categories award schemes offer, and what awards judges are expecting when they read entries.

But one thing has not changed – vendors and employers who have been business-aligned, learner-centric, ingenious and can deliver measurable results are receiving the recognition they deserve.

But which awards should you enter? And when you have made that decision, how do you maximise your chances of winning? Please read on for our comprehensive guide to entering training awards.

The benefits of entering learning and development awards

Entering and winning learning and development awards can be a great way to celebrate success, raise your profile and even secure funding for future projects. An assumption is that you only benefit if you win, but research by Boost Awards in partnership with Training Journal demonstrated that the #1 benefit of entering awards is actually raising standards in evaluation, which comes from simply making a concerted effort to win. It also showed that the initial benefits of shortlisting are more substantial than the incremental benefits of going on to win. So, literally, everyone can be a winner.

What a winning story looks like 

Before we explore the awards you could enter, let’s take a look at your story. When assessing a story there are certain qualities you should consider as essential to shortlist, and others that could take you from finalist to winner.

By ‘story’ we mean any number of things. For example: a learning and development strategy for the whole business,  a training vendor, a training project, your team, your partnership with a vendor, a new learning platform, an open course, maybe even the individuals within your team. There are no shortage of options – but ensure you focus on the most award-worthy (our story assessment service can help here).

When choosing which story to enter and how to present it, the most essential qualities are:

• Your story is aligned to something clearly important to the boardroom of a business or businesses.
• You have a wow factor that will literally make the judges unintentionally mouth the word “wow” while reading. Don’t worry, this doesn’t mean you invented something entirely new.
• You have done a thorough learning impact evaluation to ensure the results section leaves no doubt in the judges’ mind that you are worthy of the win (our Boost Evaluation team can help here).
• Crucially (and so often overlooked early on), all stakeholders have agreed to the entry, awards category, impact evaluation imperatives and angle.

Which training awards should we enter?

This is a surprisingly hard question to answer.

If you’re thinking about entering learning awards (which can be an expensive and time-intensive process), you need to develop a strategy for which schemes to enter. This will vary depending on the nature of your story, where its strengths and points of difference lie, and what your overall objective is for entering (attracting talent, encouraging retention by rewarding excellence, improving your credentials in a particular market to win more business etc).

To help you decide where to focus your energies, take a look at the following statements and see which most closely align with the L&D project you have in mind.

“We’ve got a company-wide multi-strand L&D strategy that is making the board sit up and listen…”

If this is you, we recommend you consider one of the following:

The benefits of winning “Best Training Programme” or “Training Team of the Year” are huge both internally and to your clients.

• The Stevie Awards for Great Employers (deadline end of July) has over 100 categories including awards for great employers in a host of sectors.Alternatively, it is worth looking at the L&D categories of the big HR award schemes. These include The HR Excellence Awards (deadline end of June), or CIPD People Management Awards (deadline end of April).

   

  You could enter training award schemes too but need to ensure you only focus on one specific “project”.

We don’t just win awards for clients – our team here at Boost won the ‘Learning Impact Award’ at the 2020 Learning Awards.

“We’d like to receive recognition as a training provider…”

If, as a vendor, you want to be recognised for your business as a whole, not just for one client deployment or product, then here are the awards which have categories for “training provider of the year” or equivalent:

• Chief Learning Officer Magazine Learning in Practice Awards (deadline late May). These credible US-based awards, run by the Chief Learning Officer magazine publishers, allow learning vendors to be entered into the ‘Provider Awards’.

• The Learning Awards (deadline late September). This UK-based International scheme has highly sought after categories for ‘Learning Provider’ of the Year and ‘Start Up Learning Provider of the Year’.
• TrainingIndustry.com Top Training Companies (various deadlines). This unique US-based scheme specifically ranks training companies.
• Learning Excellence Awards (deadline late October). This increasingly popular UK-based international scheme has a category for ‘Outstanding External Provider’
• The Stevie® Awards for Great Employers (deadline late July). This US-based International scheme has the most ‘solution provider’ categories of any HR scheme including one for “Leadership or Skills Development Solution Provider of the Year” for which there are multiple gold, silver and bronze winners.
• The Learning Technologies Awards (deadline late July). This highly sought after UK-based International scheme has a category for ‘Learning developer of the year’.

“We’ve got an excellent innovation or product (as opposed to a project)…”

If you’re a vendor and want your product or solution recognised in general, not just for one client deployment, then there are categories in other learning technologies awards to consider, but these two schemes are focused on this:

• The Brandon Hall Excellence in Technology Program (deadline early September). These US-based awards are great for technology-focused entries and have a vast array of categories to choose from.
• The Tech & Learning Awards of Excellence (mid August deadline) is a relatively new international scheme run from the UK with categories for hardware, software and enterprise solutions.

Any other recommended next steps?

Sign up for free monthly HR award deadline reminders

Fill in the form below and you will receive a free list of all the HR awards, L&D awards and training award deadlines coming up in the next two months. Yup completely free. Never miss a deadline again. Just choose your industry in the dropdown as ‘Human Resources’ or ‘Training’ and at the start of the next month your email will arrive.

(C) This article was written by Chris Robinson and all content is the intellectual property of award entry consultants Boost Awards

Learning and development awards

After decades of incremental innovation in learning and development, the pandemic brought about a short period of radical change. Previous assumptions about how certain types of learning should be delivered were replaced with the urgent need to provide effective learning across all topics without physical contact. Post-pandemic some of these methods and new models remain or continue to influence in-person training. 

From an awards perspective this has led to a change in the types of stories being entered, the categories award schemes offer, and what awards judges are expecting when they read entries.

But one thing has not changed – vendors and employers who have been business-aligned, learner-centric, ingenious and can deliver measurable results are receiving the recognition they deserve.

But which awards should you enter? And when you have made that decision, how do you maximise your chances of winning? Please read on for our comprehensive guide to entering training awards.

The benefits of entering learning and development awards

Entering and winning learning and development awards can be a great way to celebrate success, raise your profile and even secure funding for future projects. An assumption is that you only benefit if you win, but research by Boost Awards in partnership with Training Journal demonstrated that the #1 benefit of entering awards is actually raising standards in evaluation, which comes from simply making a concerted effort to win. It also showed that the initial benefits of shortlisting are more substantial than the incremental benefits of going on to win. So, literally, everyone can be a winner.

What a winning story looks like 

Before we explore the awards you could enter, let’s take a look at your story. When assessing a story there are certain qualities you should consider as essential to shortlist, and others that could take you from finalist to winner.

By ‘story’ we mean any number of things. For example: a learning and development strategy for the whole business,  a training vendor, a training project, your team, your partnership with a vendor, a new learning platform, an open course, maybe even the individuals within your team. There are no shortage of options – but ensure you focus on the most award-worthy (our story assessment service can help here).

When choosing which story to enter and how to present it, the most essential qualities are:

• Your story is aligned to something clearly important to the boardroom of a business or businesses.
• You have a wow factor that will literally make the judges unintentionally mouth the word “wow” while reading. Don’t worry, this doesn’t mean you invented something entirely new.
• You have done a thorough learning impact evaluation to ensure the results section leaves no doubt in the judges’ mind that you are worthy of the win (our Boost Evaluation team can help here).
• Crucially (and so often overlooked early on), all stakeholders have agreed to the entry, awards category, impact evaluation imperatives and angle.

Which training awards should we enter?

This is a surprisingly hard question to answer.

If you’re thinking about entering learning awards (which can be an expensive and time-intensive process), you need to develop a strategy for which schemes to enter. This will vary depending on the nature of your story, where its strengths and points of difference lie, and what your overall objective is for entering (attracting talent, encouraging retention by rewarding excellence, improving your credentials in a particular market to win more business etc).

To help you decide where to focus your energies, take a look at the following statements and see which most closely align with the L&D project you have in mind.

“We’ve got a company-wide multi-strand L&D strategy that is making the board sit up and listen…”

If this is you, we recommend you consider one of the following:

• The Princess Royal Training Awards (deadline end of March) is an extremely credible scheme for companies with a UK presence which has no categories as such, instead using a hallmarks approach, and involves a thorough assessment of your strategy and one flagship project. There is a second stage of a site visit here which requires extensive preparation for, but reinforces just how credible the scheme is. It also features an excellent alumni support network and is completely free to enter – a fantastic way to get Royal recognition for your training. 
• The Investors in People Awards (deadline early-September) is designed for precisely these sorts of stories. This is a written entry only scheme, but the calibre of the judges and level of competition ensures that only the most worthy win.

The benefits of winning “Best Training Programme” or “Training Team of the Year” are huge both internally and to your clients.

• The ATD BEST Awards, a US-based scheme (October deadline) run by the highly credible Association for Talent Development, doesn’t have categories as such, but just recognises “organizations that demonstrate enterprise-wide success as a result of employee talent development”.
• Learning Elite Award (deadline May). This US-based international scheme by Chief Learning Officer magazine publishers is essentially an audit of entire ‘workforce development strategies’. This is a peer-reviewed ranking and benchmarking program rather than a one-winner-per-category scheme.
• The Stevie Awards for Great Employers (deadline July) has over 100 categories including awards for great employers in a host of sectors. Alternatively, it is worth looking at the L&D categories of the big HR award schemes. These include The HR Excellence Awards (deadline end of August), or CIPD People Management Awards (deadline end of April).
  You could enter training award schemes too but need to ensure you only focus on one specific “project”.

We don’t just win awards for clients – our team here at Boost won the ‘Learning Impact Award’ at the 2020 Learning Awards.

“We’d like to receive recognition as a training provider…”

If, as a vendor, you want to be recognised for your business as a whole, not just for one client deployment or product, then here are the awards which have categories for “training provider of the year” or equivalent:

• Chief Learning Officer Magazine Learning in Practice Awards (deadline late June). These credible US-based awards, run by the Chief Learning Officer magazine publishers, allow learning vendors to be entered into the ‘Provider Awards’.

• The Learning Awards (deadline early October). This UK based International scheme has highly sought after categories for ‘Learning Provider’ of the Year and ‘Start Up Learning Provider of the Year’.
• TrainingIndustry.com Top Training Companies (various deadlines). This unique US-based scheme specifically ranks training companies.
• Learning Excellence Awards (deadline early November). This increasingly popular UK based international scheme has a category for ‘Outstanding External Provider’
• The Stevie® Awards for Great Employers (deadline late June). This US-based International scheme has the most ‘solution provider’ categories of any HR scheme including one for “Leadership or Skills Development Solution Provider of the Year” for which there are multiple gold, silver and bronze winners.
• The Learning Technologies Awards (deadline late July). This highly sought after UK-based International scheme has a category for ‘Learning developer of the year’.

“We’ve got an excellent innovation or product (as opposed to a project)…”

If you’re a vendor and want your product or solution recognised in general, not just for one client deployment, then there are categories in other learning technologies awards to consider, but these two schemes are focused on this:

• The Brandon Hall Excellence in Technology Program (deadline early September). These US-based awards are great for technology-focused entries and have a vast array of categories to choose from.
• The Tech & Learning Awards of Excellence (mid August deadline) is a relatively new international scheme run from the UK with categories for hardware, software and enterprise solutions.

Any other recommended next steps?

Sign up for free monthly HR award deadline reminders

Fill in the form below and you will receive a free list of all the HR awards, L&D awards and training award deadlines coming up in the next two months. Yup completely free. Never miss a deadline again. Just choose your industry in the dropdown as ‘Human Resources’ or ‘Training’ and at the start of the next month your email will arrive.

(C) This article was written by Chris Robinson and all content is the intellectual property of award entry consultants Boost Awards