The 2014 Utility Week Achievement Awards are now open for entries. The awards are recognised as the hallmark of success in the energy and water industries, and competition is always fierce. As last year’s winners testify (see right), winning a Utility Week Achievement Award is a wonderful morale boost and celebration of the hard work that goes into the business of utilities day in, day out.
This year, we look forward to hearing your success stories once again, and know our expert panel of judges will have some difficult decisions ahead.
The categories are:
• Capital Project Management Award. This award aims to identify best practice through the effective management of a utility capital project that was completed during 2013/14.
• Community Initiative Award. This award aims to recognise the significant effort and care that goes into this often unpublicised work, which benefits the recipients far more than the image of the company.
• Customer Care Award. Judges will be looking for evidence of something more than “business as usual” or mere compliance with industry codes of practice.
• Environment Award. This award is for a company or a specific project that demonstrates a clear and conscious commitment to good environmental management, going further than legal or regulatory compliance.
• IT Initiative of the Year. Entries to the IT Initiative award should demonstrate the use of modern – not necessarily cutting edge – IT systems to help the business achieve its aims.
• Marketing Initiative of the Year. This award will be judged on strategy, targeting, creativity and most importantly: the results of a marketing initiative completed or continuing in 2013/14.
• Staff Development Award. Entries should demonstrate a sound, thoughtful approach to staff development that meets the organisation’s skills requirements and provides long-term career development.
• Supply Chain Excellence. This award is for the utility company that can demonstrate making step-changes in managing the supply chain, or creating a partnership that is more than the sum of its members.
• Team of the Year. Any utility is only as good as its people, and this award is for the team that went the extra mile in 2013/14 to deliver a defined project for the company or one of its stakeholders.
• Digital Utilities Award. This award seeks companies large or small that have embraced the digital revolution and used it to achieve genuine and demonstrable business transformation.
• Utility of the Year. Our Utility of the Year will have been successful in all aspects of utility business. It will be rewarded especially for demonstrating outperformance.
Entries close on 5 September. The winners will be announced at the industry’s Christmas party, the Utility Week Achievement Awards, on 8 December at the Grosvenor House Hotel on London’s Park Lane. You’ve got to be in it to win it, so enter now at: www.utilityweekawards.co.uk
Utility of the Year
Heidi Mottram, NWL chief executive
One utility eclipsed the proceedings on the night at a packed London Grosvenor Hotel on 9 December 2013.
Northumbrian Water (NWL) stormed to success, scooping five awards as well as the coveted Utility of the Year accolade, after judges said it had “consistently outperformed its peers”.
“We were all on a high for weeks afterwards – I wish you could bottle that feeling,” says Heidi Mottram NWL chief executive.
Capital Project Management Award:
Fulcrum
Utility Week Achievement Award debutantes Fulcrum made a flying start last year, winning the Capital project management award for its gas works at the London 2012 Olympics.
The award recognition of the company’s gas utility works serving the London 2012 Olympic venues and arena, including the Olympic cauldron and the famous petals of gas flame seen on TVs around the world.
The project was delivered in conditions of absolute secrecy with high levels of security and involved “some exceptional engineering and design challenges, according to Martin Donnachie, Fulcrum chief executive.
Winning the award, he says, was “a little Olympic triumph of our own”.
Community Initiative of the Year:
Oliver Rogers and Jane Morland, Northumbrian Water
Winning the award for Community Initiative of the Year will “live long in the memory” due to the “huge” nature of the event and the large number of people watching, according to Northumbrian Water’s communications adviser, Oliver Rogers.
“It highlights the achievement of getting 54 per cent of our employees engaged and active in our Just an Hour campaign,” he says.
Jane Morland, corporate responsibility team leader, says “I felt honoured to accept the award on behalf of over 1,600 employees who have made a difference in their local communities through our programme.”
Environment Award:
Paul Grimwood, Northumbrian Water
Northumbrian Water’s innovative sludge treatment reed bed system, winner of the Environment award, “proves that taking risks can pay off”.
According to project manager Paul Grimwood, it would have been “far easier” to adopt the tried and tested methods of treating sludge.
However, Northumbrian Water came up with a different solution at its Hanningheld reservoir, near Chelmsford, which will save 70 tonnes of CO2 emissions a year, compared with the traditional system.
Grimwood says the award was “recognition for the leap of faith they had taken to develop and deliver this world first, innovative project”.
Marketing Initiative of the Year:
Francesca Willumsen and Leanne Stronach, Northumbrian Water
The iconic Love your Drain public awareness campaign led to Northumbrian Water cutting blockages by nearly a fifth by educating customers not to throw non-flushable items down the toilet. It also bagged the company the Marketing Initiative of the Year award.
“Our campaign was created to help reduce blockages in the Northumbrian Water supply area, which cost significant amounts of money to clear,” says marketing and PR’s Francesca Willumsen.
Their advice for this year’s entrants: “Put robust evaluation plans in place and be sure to evidence all your great activity. Most of all, just enter! The awards are a great opportunity and a fab celebration event.”
Team of the Year:
Npower
Jaws dropped among the Npower team when it was announced it had won the highest accolade in utility teamwork for its graduate initiative.
Susan Taylor, marketing executive at Npower, says: “It was a complete surprise to win the award. So much so, that when the winner was announced the team looked around at each other, with pure shock on all of our faces. We hadn’t even discussed who would go on stage if we won.”
Taylor says new entrants for this year’s awards should not be afraid of applying.
“If a project is a great achievement to you, then the Utility Week judges will be able to appreciate the hard work you put in.”
Staff Development Award:
United Utilities
United Utilities was “delighted” at bagging the Staff Development Award for its work in developing science, engineering, technology and maths skills throughout its staff base.
Louise Beardmore, head of organisational development and change at the water company, collected the award alongside business services director Sally Cabrini.
“The learning and development function have worked really hard in developing and improving the services and capabilities of our people,” says Beardmore,” so it was great to get recognition externally too.”
United’s secret for success was in scrupulously logging and demonstrating tangible benefits its programme was having over the three years it had been up and running.