It is always a good day when we launch the UHR Awards! We love hearing your success stories and trying to capture your innovative new approaches and inspiring ideas so that we can share them across the UHR community. A couple of changes this year, including the option to have your award presented live to the team on your home campus. So read on for all the news you’ll need ahead of the nominations deadline of 5pm on Friday 8 March.
So the nominations period is now open! This year there are 7 awards categories for you to consider.
Every year the UHR Awards are a great opportunity to encourage and motivate the HR team, and even the act of preparing an entry can embed learnings and create an opportunity to think about successful projects, and perhaps how to replicate that success. But it’s also great to have peer recognition for the work you’ve done, and in a specialism where much of what we do is by its very nature ‘behind the scenes’, a small pat on the back and a sincere ‘Well done!’ via a UHR Award can only be a good thing. It is a key aim for our organisation that we can learn from each other, and build our professional skills base, and the leadership that is demonstrated by our awards nominees is one way for us to do this. We want to showcase the cutting edge practices the very best teams deliver every day.
Can we give you some hints on what we think makes a winning nomination?
Our top tips. Think about…
We look forward to hearing about all your hard work and the difference it has made within your universities. We’ll be announcing the winners on day one of the UHR Conference 2024 (14 to 16 May) - its theme is Future Imperfect: Thinking Ahead. How will your entry stand out? Thinking caps on, and remember the deadline date of 8 March. We are hugely grateful for the support of all our partner organisations for conference and the awards, including this year our Premium Partners NTT Data Business Solutions and Shakespeare Martineau.
On-campus presentation of awards
There will be an opportunity for winning teams to have their trophy and certificate presented in person by a member of the UHR Executive or senior staff on either 21 or 23 May. You may want to invite your VC to the presentation or make a small and positive fuss about the achievement! It's always good to share great news via internal communications routes. You may want to discuss this opportunity with comms colleagues, considering options for local PR, photography or filming. If this kind of informal presentation works for you then let us know as part of your application response.
Please note there are two nominations forms, one for the first six awards categories listed above, and one for the HR Star Award where there are different criteria for you and our judges to note. As in past years the form is a simple Word document - easy to use, to save and return to once more when inspiration strikes!
We look forward to hearing from you, and good luck with your nominations!
Download the nominations forms here
UHR Awards 2024 nominations form
UHR HR Star Award 2024 nominations form
Learn more about the winning projects and teams from the UHR Awards 2023.
Our 2022 Award winners included an inspiring set of projects and teams and just as every year there was much for the UHR community to learn.
The winners of the UHR Awards for Excellence in HR 2021 were announced at UHR’s 2021 Conference, themed ‘Refreshing HR’, on Wednesday 12 May 2021.
It is part of our role to identify and share good practice in HR teams across HE and there is much to learn from all of our shortlisted teams. To our winners, congratulations, and to everyone who took part, our thanks and very best wishes
Older awards information
