Brandon Hall Group Excellence Awards 

What does a winning entry look like?

The stories entered have to come across as some sort of “advance in…” and have the following qualities:

• Client-side support: The HCM Awards need to focus on single projects, so whether it is the organization using the client entering solo, or the vendor entering a case study, the project needs to name the organization and ideally share meaningful data and a senior endorsement.
• Evidence of robust evaluation and impact data: These are ultimately effectiveness awards, so the HCM awards need evidence of one implementation being effective, and the Technology awards need evidence of the product or service being effective in general. A few testimonials and happy sheet scores are not enough here. It must be impact on behavior, culture and business performance.
• Alignment: The project must be important to the client or clients cited, and there must be evidence of there being a rigorous process of listening to the business and learner needs followed by an alignment of the design to these.
• A great story: Your journey needs to tell a story, ideally with passion and clarity. Creating an entry by copy/pasting stuff together might appear to tick the boxes, but just will not impress these seasoned professionals. The entry form and scoring lend themselves to you evidencing best practice at every stage from concept testing and alignment, to evaluation and sharing lessons learned.
• Uniqueness: Most categories are for some sort of advance, so you need to help the judges get what this advance is. In the Technology program this must be outlined in the innovation section and illustrated with a demo, and in the HCM awards this needs to be spelt out in the design and delivery section. Do not expect the judges to be able to work out the uniqueness themselves unaided – you need to make it clear and show evidence to support your statement. Simply saying “this was an innovative product/project” unqualified is not enough. But don’t worry, you don’t have to have invented something new, uniqueness can take the form of speed, sector leadership, creativity or overcoming adversity.

What are the rules?

As with all awards, you need to read the instructions carefully and follow them to the letter. It would be terrible to deserve an award, create a great entry, then lose out on a technicality…. So… here are the main rules you should bear in mind:

• Your entry should be written into a Microsoft Word template and submitted in this format.
• You can add images as well as text into this template, but you must stick to the fonts and formatting styles within the form.
• The final entry should be approximately 15 pages, font size Calibri 12, not including the instructions.
• If you have additional supporting information, you may include it in the appropriate sections of the entry form or in an appendix at the end of the document.
• Write using the third person. Do not use “we, our, us,” etc.
• If applicable, you are allowed to provide supporting reports, video, and links to courses. But don’t assume the judges will happily endure tons of content or many minutes of videos.
• The entry might be published, but you can keep content confidential by marking these sections in the form in red.
• You upload the final entry through the award application site. Not via email.

What are the categories?

With hundreds of categories spread over both programs, click below to see the full list of categories and sub-categories available to enter. 

How much does it cost?

The entry fees for these awards are comparable to other US-based schemes:

• Brandon Hall Human Capital Management Excellence Awards: $575 USD
• Brandon Hall Excellence in Technology Awards: $795 USD

Any other options?

This year sees the launch of a new awards program to the BHG lineup called the Employee Voice Edition. This year round program shines a spotlight on organizations that prioritize the voices of their employees. To participate, organizations launch a 10-question survey, specially crafted by Brandon Hall Group, and gather insights directly from their workforce. 

Additionally, Brandon Hall Group also run the Excellence in Education Technology Awards Program (which is at the same time as the Fall Excellence in Technology Program) but is focused on  K-12, Universities, Business Schools, Professional Development and Education Associations, Non-For-Profit, and Government Agencies.

What stories should you enter?

The two programs differ in who they attract and the sorts of stories they are looking for. The first – The Excellence in Human Capital Management Spring Program – focus squarely on projects and programs which have been implemented within single named organizations. A vendor (solution provider or consultant) can be named on the application for sure, but what they are not looking for is submissions about general offerings, courses, products or services (“helping organizations cannot enter alone”) – these should be entered into the other program.

The second award – The Brandon Hall Excellence in Technology Fall Program – is very different. This is particularly appealing to vendors and suppliers of technology solutions for learning, talent management, HR and workforce management. This is because the categories largely focus on products and services. They can enter case studies to illustrate their entries, but these will not be the focus.

What does a winning entry look like?

The stories entered have to come across as some sort of “advance in…” and have the following qualities:

• Client-side support: The HCM Awards need to focus on single projects, so whether it is the organization using the client entering solo, or the vendor entering a case study, the project needs to name the organization and ideally share meaningful data and a senior endorsement.
• Evidence of robust evaluation and impact data: These are ultimately effectiveness awards, so the HCM awards need evidence of one implementation being effective, and the Technology awards need evidence of the product or service being effective in general. A few testimonials and happy sheet scores are not enough here. It must be impact on behavior, culture and business performance.
• Alignment: The project must be important to the client or clients cited, and there must be evidence of there being a rigorous process of listening to the business and learner needs followed by an alignment of the design to these.
• A great story: Your journey needs to tell a story, ideally with passion and clarity. Creating an entry by copy/pasting stuff together might appear to tick the boxes, but just will not impress these seasoned professionals. The entry form and scoring lend themselves to you evidencing best practice at every stage from concept testing and alignment, to evaluation and sharing lessons learned.
• Uniqueness: Most categories are for some sort of advance, so you need to help the judges get what this advance is. In the Technology program this must be outlined in the innovation section and illustrated with a demo, and in the HCM awards this needs to be spelt out in the design and delivery section. Do not expect the judges to be able to work out the uniqueness themselves unaided – you need to make it clear and show evidence to support your statement. Simply saying “this was an innovative product/project” unqualified is not enough. But don’t worry, you don’t have to have invented something new, uniqueness can take the form of speed, sector leadership, creativity or overcoming adversity.

How are the entries scored?

The awards feature a single stage only, so winning is entirely based on the content of your written application.  The way the entries are scored reflects what we have outlined so far, and is as follows:

The Human Capital Management Spring Program judges score entries on a scale of 1-6 on each of these criteria:

• ONE: Fit to the Needs
• TWO: Design and Delivery of the Program
• THREE: Adoption of the Program
• FOUR: Measurable Benefits
• FIVE: Overall

The Excellence In Technology Fall Program judges score entries on a scale of 1-6 on each of these criteria:

• ONE: Value Proposition
• TWO: Innovation
• THREE: Unique Differentiators
• FOUR: Demo
• FIVE: Measurable Results

What are the rules?

As with all awards, you need to read the instructions carefully and follow them to the letter. It would be terrible to deserve an award, create a great entry, then lose out on a technicality…. So… here are the main rules you should bear in mind:

• Your entry should be written into a Microsoft Word template and submitted in this format.
• You can add images as well as text into this template, but you must stick to the fonts and formatting styles within the form.
• The final entry should be approximately 15 pages, font size Calibri 12, not including the instructions.
• If you have additional supporting information, you may include it in the appropriate sections of the entry form or in an appendix at the end of the document.
• Write using the third person. Do not use “we, our, us,” etc.
• If applicable, you are allowed to provide supporting reports, video, and links to courses. But don’t assume the judges will happily endure tons of content or many minutes of videos.
• The entry might be published, but you can keep content confidential by marking these sections in the form in red.
• You upload the final entry through the award application site. Not via email.

Is there a ceremony?

These awards unusually don’t have an in-person ceremony,  but they do hold two separate online events where the winners are announced. The Spring HCM Excellence Awards are announced online at the end of August, while the Fall Excellence in Technology Awards winners are announced at the start of December each year. The Brand Hall Group YouTube channel is another valuable resource for following announcements about the awards launching and celebrating the winners.

After the online events, all winners are warmly invited to attend the annual HCM Excellence Conference held at the end of January each year, which features a huge program focussed on the future of people operations (aka Human Resources), innovations and technology. From our experience with our clients, this model of online events combined with optional attendance at the conference has proved attractive, as many are international, but even amongst our US clients the lack of expense for flights, travel and accommodation is appealing.

What are the categories?

With hundreds of categories spread over both programs, click below to see the full list of categories and sub-categories available to enter. 

How much does it cost?

The entry fees for these awards are comparable to other US-based schemes:

• Brandon Hall Human Capital Management Excellence Awards: $575 USD
• Brandon Hall Excellence in Technology Awards: $795 USD

Any other options?

This year sees the launch of a new awards program to the BHG lineup called the Employee Voice Edition. This year round program shines a spotlight on organizations that prioritize the voices of their employees. To participate, organizations launch a 10-question survey, specially crafted by Brandon Hall Group, and gather insights directly from their workforce. 

Additionally, Brandon Hall Group also run the Excellence in Education Technology Awards Program (which is at the same time as the Fall Excellence in Technology Program) but is focused on  K-12, Universities, Business Schools, Professional Development and Education Associations, Non-For-Profit, and Government Agencies.