So many past winners of the very prestigious Queen’s Award uniformly talked about the Award’s effect on their organisations’ staff morale, quite aside from the more obvious wider credentials and publicity benefits.
The Queen's Award
Tony Attard, MD of North West-based upholstery specialists Panaz Ltd., who won in the Queen’s Award’s Innovation category in 2004, said a couple of years later that one of the main advantages of winning was that “it’s someone telling your workforce they’re doing a great job” and that the Award really helped Panas motivate its workforce for sustained growth. In 2006, 79% of the Queen’s Awards winners across the UK said that it represented a welcome boost to staff morale.
Amongst SMEs, it seems it’s often the case that managers are eager to raise their company’s profile amongst customers, other businesses and competitors … with the company’s own staff sometimes coming last on the list. Internal communications seem to be the lost realm of public relations sometimes.
Entering awards are a great place to start – staff love their hard work being recognised outside the office or factory, and into their local communities.
At the Forum, we encourage small business owner-managers to think about staff morale, now more than ever during these difficult recessionary times.
Awards, good-news internal newsletters or even a positive announcements message board in the staff kitchen can all help – and all of them show a business that cares how its staff feels about working there.
