This award will recognise non-managers working in a frontline role within a contact centre, who has been in post for a minimum of six months and a maximum of 12 months. The judges will be looking for evidence of exceptional vocational competence, achieving great results and making a difference within a short period of time, plus excellent interpersonal skills.

This category is open to non-managers employed in a support role within the contact centre in any function, for example: IT, Resource planning, administration, operations, logistics, facilities management, human resources, catering. When completing the entry consideration should be given to professionalism, performance, initiative and personal development. The support person of the year will be a shining example and entries will demonstrate how the contact centre would not the same without this person.

This category is for individuals working at advisor grade in a sales capacity. It is appropriate for agents/advisors who have demonstrated exceptional levels of sales and vocational competence, in either a full or part time capacity. Entrants must demonstrate consistently high performance as an agent/advisor, achieve consistently strong results and make a real difference to their organisation.

This category is for individuals working at advisor grade who have demonstrated exceptional levels of service and vocational competence, in either a full or part time capacity. The winner will be someone who goes above and beyond his or her day-to-day responsibilities to provide excellent customer service and support to their colleagues. Entrants must demonstrate consistently high performance as an adviser, achieve consistently strong results and make a real difference to their organisation.

This category is open to individuals who have been employed in the role for a minimum of six months and who demonstrate exceptional leadership, first-line management skills and vocational competence, in either a full or part time capacity. The Team Leader of the Year is a professional and inspirational person who leads by example and takes responsibility for the team. They ensure their colleagues’ experience of work is always a positive one. Entrants must demonstrate strong leadership, be results oriented, with a commitment to staff development, and have evidence of guiding their team to consistently high performance.

This category is seeking a professional trainer or coach who applies best practice in learning theory to deliver training and development that achieves organisational objectives. The winner will take their role extremely seriously, training is meticulously planned and learning theory is applied with precision in order to get the best out of the people. Activity is tailored to the individual’s needs but also helps achieve departmental group objectives. This person’s training programmes have made a difference not only to individuals’ career objectives and the organisation, but also the participants’ quality of life and outlook. The winner is not averse to trying innovative new techniques to train and coach employees in a controlled environment.

Open to individuals who have been managing a support team or function based in a contact centre (eg finance, marketing, HR, IT with the exception of Complaints as this is an individual category for 2022 ), for a minimum of six months, in either a full or part-time capacity. This award will recognise an individual who has shown exceptional leadership, innovation, broad management skills and vocational competence. The winner demonstrates consistently high performance of the support team, communicates and shares the company’s vision/mission, and combines a commitment to the delivery of organisational objectives with an efficient and effective service. The winner will have successfully implemented innovative strategies that impact positively on the team and have a commitment to the continuous improvement of staff and self.

Open to individuals who have been managing personnel within a contact centre for a minimum of six months, this category looks to reward exceptional leadership, innovation, broad management skills and vocational competence in either a full or part-time capacity. The winner demonstrates exceptional leadership, ensures consistently high performance of the centre, communicates and shares the company’s vision/mission, and combines a commitment to the delivery of organisational objectives with an efficient and effective service. The winner will have successfully implemented innovative strategies that impact positively on the wider organisation and have a commitment to the continuous improvement of centre, staff and self.

This award will recognise your shining star – someone who has gone over and above the call of duty to enhance the smooth running of the operation. Finalists in this category will not have to attend panel judging as the winner will be selected from the written entry.

This award will recognise companies that successfully address ongoing development needs for individuals, departments and whole organisations to see that business needs are met. The judges will be looking for examples of how people development affects the company ethos and how it is embedded in the company culture.

From a support function team based in a contact centre (eg finance, HR, IT), this award will recognise an initiative delivered by teams or departments. The entry needs to outline the process, the driver(s) for implementation, key performance indicators and provide evidence of positive outcomes. It must also include evidence of the impact of the initiative on the objectives and performance of the business.

This category applies to all ‘Frontline Teams’ who sit directly within the contact centre and whose primary role is to engage with customers (B2B or B2C) service or sales. This may include (but not exclusive to) a specialist team such as escalations or a team of advisors within a larger centre, a team looking after a specific account, product or service. Consideration should be given to team spirit, performance against targets and objectives, the team’s biggest achievements in the past 6-12 months, innovation and leadership.

This award recognises how you deliver exceptional levels of service to your customers and should include details of how you measure customer engagement – targets, performance against targets, KPIs, etc. Evidence can also include details of a multi-channel approach eg: via digital, social, voice and web.

This will be presented to a centre that puts its staff at the heart of the operation. The successful centre shows that front line people are the focus of the business. Your entry should include details of:

• Special initiatives to promote employee engagement
• Health and wellbeing practices
• Evidence should include photographs, KPIs on performance improvement through engagement, plus sickness and retention rates.

This award recognises how an organisation has embraced and delivered a transformation programme which covers all aspects of the business including managers who have led such transformation, IT programmes, people and processes. Evidence will be required of:

• The objectives behind the transformation
• How the transformation was planned, implemented and monitored
• Effective use of internal communication channels to inform staff about the transformation programme and its aims
• The positive impact on customers, staff and operational/business performance
• Overall results and how the transformation fits into the long-term future strategy of the business.

This new category is open to any contact centre who can demonstrate a commitment to supporting a diverse and inclusive workforce in attraction, engagement and retention. Our category is open for campaigns or initiatives that are clearly focused on improving diversity in the workplace and making the organisation accessible to people from a diverse range of backgrounds.

This award celebrates employers who commit to the health and wellbeing of their workforce, which is a fundamental driver of individual and organisational performance.

Award criteria

Organisations nominated for this award will be judged against criteria informed by the healthy workplace quality standards of the National Institute for Health and Social Care Excellence (NICE):

Criteria 1. Making health and wellbeing an organisational priority

Examples of best practice in this criteria include:

• Organisations have a named senior manager who makes employee health and wellbeing a core priority.
• Organisations have a health and wellbeing strategy and/or objectives.
• Organisations incorporate health and wellbeing in relevant policies and communications.
• Organisations have a named health and wellbeing lead and/or steering group who design and implement a health and wellbeing strategy or initiatives.

Criteria 2. Supporting and empowering line managers

Examples of best practice in this criteria include:

• Employees are managed by people who are given appropriate education and training to recognise and support them when they experience health and wellbeing problems. Support from managers can take many forms, including the ability to direct employees to available resources and other personnel.

Criteria 3. Involving employees

Examples of best practice in this criteria include:

• Organisations engage their employees to identify their health and wellbeing needs, stressors and priorities.
• Employees have the opportunity to participate in health and wellbeing decision making processes.

Criteria 4. Making positive change happen

Examples of best practice in this criteria include:

• Organisations adopting and implementing health and wellbeing initiatives that their employees engage with and benefit from.

This award recognises contact centres that best attract, select and retain talent. Centres that can show their recruitment and retention strategies give them an advantage in this highly competitive region whilst helping to uphold a career of choice status for contact centres. The judges will be looking for examples of how your centre’s strategy not only gives a great candidate and new starter experience but ensures that your company’s values, behaviours and visions are reinforced throughout the processes

This exciting category gives an opportunity to demonstrate what training packages are on offer within the contact centre teams. The award is open for any training initiatives offered in-house to any role e.g. Agents, Coaches, Team Leaders, Senior Management, support teams. The winning team must be able to illustrate how your training programme is enhancing a role for the individuals within your centre. The judges will be looking for examples of how the programme has assisted with engagement through the learning and development opportunities available, as well as a focus upon the return on investment to the organisation.

Open to both in house and outsource contact centres, this category embraces contact centres who have built hybrid working into the ‘main frame’ of their respective operation who are able to demonstrate that they have released the potential of hybrid working by creating a positive hybrid working culture within the business. The programme will reflect the provision of outstanding customer service through its hybrid teams with tangible results reflected in CSAT/NPS and how such teams have positively underpinned the business in terms of the Customer Journey and Customer Satisfaction despite often dealing with unpredictable demand. Of particular interest will be the Communications Plan or infrastructure which is in place to support both the Leaders managing their hybrid teams and the advisors for maximum inclusion, productivity and engagement. The programme should give tangible evidence of attracting or developing talent in the hybrid teams, reflecting how such talent has been attracted outside of the normal geographical recruitment area, showing evidence of how this has had a positive effect on the recruitment strategy within the business. Managing Hybrid Teams and what is in place to do so will be of particular interest, how the teams have been empowered to work in their hybrid capacity with the positive impact this has achieved on engagement and retention, releasing the potential of the teams. Key to any Hybrid Programmes is the Resilience build in terms of IT infrastructure, supporting Compliance and Data Protection as such these factors need to be demonstrated along with the successes achieved by the programme on all operational levels including any efficiency gains for the business.