Healthcare Consultancy Group (HCG) is a global leader in medical communications, comprising eight interconnected agencies with distinct personalities and complementary skills.

Incorporated in 1987, their agencies craft scientific evidence into medical stories that shape decisions and drive medicine. They aim to accelerate the understanding and acceptance of pharmaceutical clients’ medicines, getting the medicines closer to the patients who need them.

In their 30+ years of experience, they have helped bring transformational medicines to billions of patients worldwide in areas such as COVID-19, oncology, and CAR-T therapy. 

Their company culture is designed to generate a “thought arena,” driving future thinking, collaboration, and communication excellence. Since 1987, the company has grown to 900+ in global staff, now supporting over 70 pharma and biotech companies.

Employee Value Proposition
The HCG employee value proposition is “Come for the work. Stay for the culture. Have an impact.” With the advent of what many call “The Great Resignation,”  2021 presented a new challenge: How to become an agency everyone wants to work for? 

HCG engaged their staff consultants to gather insights that could translate into actionable change to strengthen the employee value proposition:

Come for the work — Placing talent at the heart of their business strategy meant overhauling their website to host a new talent campaign “The Wonderland of Medical Communications,” which reintroduces their fusion working model and highlights all available resources. 

Stay for the culture — HCG sought to create more value for existing employees by developing The Employee Engagement Council; building talent retention programs like the Personal Discovery program; and creating innovation initiatives like SWARM profilers to uncover the “inner innovator” in all employees.

They strengthened their commitment to Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI), driven by a DEI Council through education initiatives like the DEI University, which includes three training modules and discussion points on inclusive mindset, unconscious bias, and antiracism; sponsorship programs: an initiative to elevate 25 midlevel diverse employees through intentional mentorship and action planning; and partnerships with five DEI- certified recruitment firms.

Have an impact — They continue to empower staff through industry-leading “Collective Intelligence” thought leadership initiatives. They recently started the HCG Disparities and Inequities Council to ensure a more equitable distribution of healthcare. They also restarted the Work with a Purpose initiative, allowing staff to directly engage with patients who have had access to transformational medicines.

Since Winning Their Stevie Awards
HCG continues to foster a healthy work culture through the expansion of successful employee-focused initiatives and the introduction of new or refreshed programs.

With their talent campaign “The Wonderland of Medical Communications,” HCG increased their global footprint that now spans the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, the Philippines, Pakistan, and Australia.

Since submission, a brand-new companywide intranet, consciously designed and organized to align with the three distinct categories determined by the employee value proposition was launched. The intranet, entitled “StartHere,” houses over 900 assets that are fully available to all staff. Planned expansion upon StartHere is planned to focus on the connectivity of staff.

HCG has built a now annual workshop, known as FUTURUM, is a forward-looking think-tank initiative, bringing together the collective intelligence of HCG leadership expertise to research, prioritize, and take action against key trends in the coming year spanning pharma, medicine, technology, and society, which impact HCG and medical communications.

In addition to the SWARM Innovation Profiler, which aids individuals in gaining insight into their own strengths as an innovator, they have deployed the SWARM Innovation Culture Assessment. This assessment measures the degree to which your organization supports the eight innovation talents in its people and the maturity of your innovation system. 

They also re-introduced HCG’s LEAD (Learn, Engage, Act, Develop) program, which provides a forum for emerging leaders to interact with and learn from current leaders across the broader HCG organization, gain valuable insight from those leaders and guest speakers, engage in addressing relevant HCG challenges, and create connections with colleagues from across all the HCG companies. The program was held in person and allowed attendees to dedicate two full days to their development.

Healthcare Consultancy Group won a Bronze Stevie Award for Employer of the Year – Advertising, Marketing, & Public Relations in the 2022 Stevie® Awards for Great Employers.

Interested in entering the 2023 Stevie® Awards for Great Employers?

Stevie-winner Adani Group is an Indian multinational conglomerate headquartered in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India, founded by Shri Gautam Adani in 1988.

Adani envisions training the youth of India and making them capable enough to earn their daily bread with self-respect and pride, resulting in the establishment of their Gold Stevie^® Award-winning Adani Skill Development Centre (ASDC).

The ASDC was registered on May 16, 2016, as a section 8 not-for-profit company to focus on skill development activities to contribute toward nation-building by bridging the skill gap demand & supply, in line with the Government of India’s Skill India Mission.

Adani Skill Development Center 
ASDC started its operations pan-India in 2016 with the project “SAKSHAM,” which has reached more than 100,000 beneficiaries. The program helps to teach parents, communities, and employers about gender equality, equal opportunities, and economic empowerment for females, as gender equality is embedded in all the courses. 

“SAKSHAM” means “capable” and is an ideology of the ASDC to enable the youth of India to become more capable of achieving their goals by becoming skilled professionals. This ideology has no borders and boundaries. SAKSHAM is working to bring world-class skills development training to India through partnerships with various corporations and other organizations.

The environment is designed to encourage young girls and boys to take up training and employment opportunities to build a well-trained, skilled workforce. ASDC aims to help India's youth achieve their goals by turning them into skilled professionals.

It is an initiative to provide disadvantaged youth, especially those who have been deprived of mainstream education, with essential life and market-oriented vocational skills. This not only helps them to access decent employment but also gives them the independence to be themselves.

Project Impact and Expansion
Thus far, the program has impacted over 100,000 young adults by equipping them with livelihood skills, thereby making ASDC the fastest-growing skill development company in India. Interestingly, 60% of the total trained youth are females.

ASDC has since launched additional programs, including:

• Special Project for FISHERMEN community in Kutch district of Gujarat state, which provides assured placement in nearby industry after training to the highly isolated community of the area.

• Special Project for Prisoners of Jail in Gujarat State, which provides basic digital literacy training to soon-to-be-released prisoners to help them integrate into the digital world after release.
• Training offerings for technological advancement in Welding, Crane Operation, Electrical Wiring & Heavy Motor Vehicle programs by introducing Mixed reality (Augmented + Virtual) -based simulator training.
• Four new training centers in India created the presence of Saksham in 11 states, enabling an overall annual training capacity of 30,000+.

ASDC is one of the biggest non-government-funded training partners in India to provide training in employable skill domains and providing livelihood opportunities to the upskilled youth of the Nation. 

They have now started to offer diplomas, postgraduate diplomas, and certificate programs affiliated with State Government recognized universities in skill development. They also provide experience-based learning opportunities through On Job Training (OJT), Exposure Visits, and Project work in almost all the courses to ensure that the Skill Gap is appropriately addressed. 

Adani Skill Development Centre won a Gold Stevie Award for Organization of the Year among Medium-sized Non-Profit or Government Organizations in The 2022 International Business Awards®.

Interested in entering The 2023 International Business Awards?

HIVE by Income (HIVE), an Insurance-as-a-Service (IaaS) platform by one of Singapore’s leading composite insurers, Income Insurance, enables insurers and digital platforms to launch innovative embedded insurance propositions with speed and agility. 

With pre-built InsurTech integrations and seamless customer journeys, HIVE brings innovative product offerings to new segments of digital-first customer segments across the region, empowering greater financial well-being for all.

Recently, HIVE collaborated with Vietnam's leading housekeeping service, JupViec.vn, and third largest non-life insurer, Post and Telecommunication Joint Stock Corporation (PTI), to launch a pay-as-you-earn microinsurance product that addresses the needs of vulnerable gig economy workers - domestic helpers.

Empowering Lives Through Stackable Microinsurance: Protecting The Underserved, One Policy At A Time
JupViec.vn is a mobile app that connects domestic workers with customers for on-demand housekeeping services. Known as the “Uber for maids,” its objective is to provide regular jobs and skills upgrading necessary for these women to earn a higher income and improve their lives and social status.

HIVE launched “JupViec Care” with the gig platform and PTI to provide a pay-as-you-earn personal accident microinsurance product that is embedded into every successful job completed. Designed to be simple and flexible even for tech illiterates, premiums are adjustable starting from as low as S$0.12. These domestic helpers can stay protected against death and disability, with a sum assured of up to SGD6K.

“Helpers are at high risk of getting injured while working such as climbing as they are cleaning. In the event of injuries, treatments would mean a financial loss which could take away their humble income. JupViec Care cleverly fits as a perfect solution, by allowing the helpers to purchase insurance with an amazingly small, affordable amount and making coverage stackable, giving them extra confidence and protection as they carry out their shifts.” —Mr. Phan Minh, Founder & CEO of JupViec.vn

The availability of this innovative microinsurance model allows informal gig economy workers access to relevant financial services, putting them on a path toward greater financial security and social mobility. HIVE's approach to financial inclusion prioritizes customer-centric partnerships and allows for flexibility and customization to address the specific needs of different communities.

HIVE InsurTech offerings, which are compatible with any insurance core system and adaptable to multiple customer channels, allow new embedded insurance propositions to be launched in as short as 3 months. HIVE integrated with PTI and JupViec wallet within 3 months to serve the needs of the domestic helper segment.

Together with like-minded partners, HIVE aspires to transform the insurance industry and create a fairer and more sustainable economy, embedding insurance into our lifestyle activities, one activity at a time.

HIVE By Income won a Gold Stevie Award for Innovation in Business-to-Business Services in the 2023 Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards. 

View the full list of 2023 winners.

Over 50 years ago, the founders of Pharmavite sought to improve health and wellness by focusing on complete nutrition through essential nutrients and minerals. Since that day, they have been a leader in the health and wellness industry, earning the trust of consumers, healthcare professionals, and retailers.

Pharmavite’s purpose is to bring the gift of health to life. As a pioneer in the health and wellness industry and makers of Nature Made^® vitamins—the leading national vitamin and supplement broad-line brand that’s ranked the #1 Pharmacist Recommended vitamin and supplement brand—this purpose starts with its employees.

Their employee wellness program, PharmaFit, brings their company's purpose to life by offering a holistic approach to support employees’ health and well-being. This program earned them a Gold Stevie Award for Achievement in Workplace Health & Well-being in the 2022 Stevie® Awards for Great Employers. This was Pharmavite’s fifth HR-related award in 2022.

The PharmaFit Employee Wellness Program
Pharmavite offers wellness challenges and onsite activities including massage, yoga, vaccine clinics, nutrition & financial wellness education, and meditation. They also partner with Virgin Pulse, a digital platform to support workplace culture change and provide easy access to wellness resources. 

The PharmaFit Program is grounded in its unique wellness strategy. The program launched in 2017 and has grown to a strategic company-wide wellness program with 95% employee enrollment, a full-time Manager of Wellness, an innovative digital platform, and a generous medical premium reduction.

When the pandemic hit in 2020, Pharmavite redesigned its wellness program to also be delivered virtually and to offer bi-weekly themed wellness guides; monthly wellness challenges to promote engagement on a variety of topics and keep employees connected; virtual yoga and meditation (still offered today), and webinars focused on stress, anxiety, and burnout in partnership with the company’s EAP.

As mental wellness needs grew, the company curated special programs to support employees and families. Yearly, they sent “self-care” wellness gifts to each employee to remind them of mental health support along with wellness items to promote good sleep and relaxation. When they returned to the office in 2022, an EAP therapist was on site to help employees adjust.

Drive-through flu shot clinics opened in the Fall of 2020 with outdoor COVID-19 vaccine clinics at all Pharmavite locations for employees and family members; booster shot clinics continue to be offered.

Pharmavite also broadened its wellness benefits to support the changing needs of employees, including:

• Free digital memberships to ClassPass@Home and Peloton with discounts on bikes and treadmills so employees could stay active in the safety of their own homes
• Care.com to support caregivers
• Free tutoring for the children of employees
• Zoom fitness classes for kids at home, giving parents a much-needed break 
• Lyra Health to provide free emotional support for employees and families
• Onsite wellness rooms including a Peloton bike and space for yoga and meditation 

In Pharmavite’s 2020 employee engagement survey, 72% of employees responded favorably to “I feel supported with Pharmavite-provided programs, tools, and resources to help me effectively manage my health and well-being during the pandemic.” In the 2021 survey, 81% responded favorably to “I feel my benefits are competitive,” which is 16% higher than external benchmarks.

Pharmavite won a Gold Stevie Award for Achievement in Workplace Health & Wellbeing in the 2022 Stevie® Awards for Great Employers.

Interested in entering the 2023 Stevie® Awards for Great Employers? 

ValueLabs is a global technology company specializing in software product engineering, data technology, design, and consulting.

The multinational corporation delivers success to its clients by designing and implementing digital transformation tailored to their needs. ValueLabs believes that a prosperous digital journey is ensured by prioritizing the business strategy & business model, tools & technologies, and people & processes.

One of the frameworks that ValueLabs developed and employs is the “The Digital Flywheel™”, a solution design playbook to drive digital transformation for companies with varied business needs. Focused on business strategy at the core, “The Digital Flywheel™” uses cross-functional elements such as User Experience, Analytics, Automation, and Product Development to tailor solutions to the clients' unique business needs. Their client NPS stands at an industry-high of 90, a testament to their commitment to delivering value to clients.

They had humble beginnings in 1997, starting with a philanthropic act of building free-of-cost, computer-based learning programs for school students, and have since expanded to a global operation spanning 26 locations, 7,000 associates, and 300 clients worldwide.

Combining their expertise with the ability to take risks on clients’ behalf as strategic partners, they successfully create tangible value for all things technology and design.

Core Values & Employee Benefits
The company’s leaders have succinctly captured their founding principles and purpose within the statement, “Doing the Right Thing, Always.” – emphasizing their unwavering commitment to ethical conduct and moral integrity. ValueLabs’ commitment to improvement and evolution has led to their employee NPS rising to 80 since 2020 (compared to the industry benchmark of 50).

The company fosters a merit-based culture by identifying and promoting high-potential individuals to leadership positions, regardless of factors such as gender, age, or ethnicity. Employees have the freedom to explore areas they enjoy working on as they accord equal importance to talent, experience, and education. Additionally, the company endeavors to provide accelerated career paths for promising young graduates.

ValueLabs’ commitment to the well-being of their employees and their families is exemplified through their Employee Assistance Program. This program provides a range of support services, including vaccination drives and wellness activities to address social anxiety, work-life balance, and depression. They have made significant strides in enhancing their medical insurance benefits, increasing coverage by up to five times over the past two years. They also proactively introduced COVID-19 insurance at no additional cost to employees and created financial trusts for the families of employees who passed away in an untimely manner. 

Moreover, ValueLabs demonstrates its commitment to investing in the future of its employees and their families by sponsoring top-rated international tutors through its “ImagineEd” program. This program has been designed to help children develop a well-rounded education and establish a strong foundation for their academic and personal growth.

To encourage continued innovation, they created the “Ideathon” framework to solve client and internal business problems. They implement this through their “ThinkTank CoE” to provide a structure for regular brainstorming on novel, out-of-the-box ideas. Additionally, through its "Imagine" entity, the company encourages its employees to explore their technological interests and bring their ideas to life in the form of real-world projects.

Since Winning Their Stevie Award
ValueLabs is focused on building trust with businesses and continues to prioritize its two key stakeholders: Customers and employees and has achieved industry-leading employee and client NPS.

They have also extended the “ImagineEd” program to various areas such as education, culture, and art. To ensure the best quality of learning, the program carefully selects some of the best teachers globally who bring insights, questions, and methods that strengthen fundamental knowledge.

ValueLabs won a Gold Stevie Award for Employer of the Year in Computer Software among Companies with More than 300 employees in the 2022 Stevie® Awards for Great Employers.

Interested in entering the 2023 Stevie® Awards for Great Employers?

Friska Wirya is the powerhouse behind Stevie-winner Fresh by Friska, a change management consulting, facilitation, and personal development service for executives, teams, and large businesses.

Friska guides complex organizations through the people side of change; she has helped industry-leading organizations shift tribulation into transformation.

Friska is the former Head of Change at the biggest gold miner in the Southern Hemisphere, leading digital transformation changes to achieve US$170m annual savings, skyrocket innovation and improve safety. She infiltrated a digital-first culture across four countries to create a solid foundation to drive the adoption of new and emerging technologies, achieving recognition such as the Most Innovative Hard Hat Company from Apple and various industry awards.

Before this, she was the Global Change Lead for multi-million dollar projects spanning technology, structure, process, and people, impacting +23,000 at Tier 1 engineering firm Worley. She brought the digital future of policing to life for the world’s single-largest policing jurisdiction.

Friska started her own business after leaving her corporate job in the mining, oil & gas, and engineering industries on the precipice of the global pandemic. As COVID-19 spread, restrictions came out fast, borders closed, and Friska’s pipeline was eliminated in the blink of an eye – organizations were not investing in change management, ironically when they needed it the most. Friska invested time in the online space to develop her virtual brand.

In response to the COVID curveball, Friska offered workshops to the public she’d previously only offered in-house and even welcomed big brands like Salesforce and Microsoft on board as clients. She spoke at Microsoft’s first D&I event in Asia and at conferences such as The Future of Mining, Female Influencers in Tech, and Women in Construction and Engineering.

Friska was then engaged by the #1 university in Australia, The University of Melbourne, to pivot rapidly to a fully remote campus, impacting 65,000 students and 15,000 staff while maintaining operational efficiency and blitz-scaling programs to aid student financial and mental health during the global pandemic.

With a speedy turnaround, Friska’s team created a country-first digital portal for students to remain connected to their lecturers, lesson materials, access COVID-19 safety information, financial support information, and mental health resources. This portal also connected university departments and had them working together in ways they had never done before. The results were astounding:

• Transitioned to a fully remote campus in five business days
• Built a one-of-a-kind connection portal where everyone may have been physically distanced - but in heart and mind closer than ever
• Held virtual open days—the University of Melbourne had a two-week Open Day event. The first visual open day saw more than 40,000 people registering from around the world. People could take a virtual tour, join a sample lecture, ask questions, and network with other students.
• 300+ live events over six separate days
• ~45k event registrations and ~14k platform registrations

Friska’s work made students feel supported and empowered the university to adapt and continue to operate. The scale and speed at which the COVID response was executed make it noteworthy. During this process, there was zero downtime. 

The open days, and the positive feedback from these virtual events, were phenomenal. This program was the most comprehensive of its kind and a fully immersive experience. In numbers, this initiative impacted 65,000 students, 16,000 staff, and 250 vendors/consultants. It received exceptional media coverage in major newspapers. The marketing data for the virtual open days indicated that, over two weeks, over 45,000 visitors joined events from around the world, which suggests that a virtual event opened the university to more people.

Aside from keeping current students supported and extending the university’s credibility during a pandemic, this work also gave Friska’s business a chance to demonstrate her commitment to excellence and exceptional capabilities, seeing her pull off many incredible “firsts'' under challenging circumstances.

Friska has created a blueprint for change that is relevant for large workforces with central hubs where the workplace is more than just an office. Since then, she has gone on to consult for the world’s largest family-owned business in the automotive industry headquartered in the USA and enable a large Australian engineering company to implement sustainability principles across APAC.

Friska Wirya’s Fresh by Friska won a Bronze Stevie Award for Company of the Year among Small Advertising, Marketing, & Public Relations Organizations in The 2022 International Business Awards®.

Interested in entering The 2023 International Business Awards? 

Stevie-winner Glass of Learning, Inc. is a Toronto-based leadership development and design firm focused on changing businesses. Chief Experience Officer, Nancy Priest says, “to change results you must change behavior. At Glass, we’re learning strategists and behavior-change specialists.” 

During COVID, Glass revolutionized its well-known Leadership Road™ training virtually via VirtualGlass™ and applied it to great success. This platform is now available for facilitators to access and run virtual learning. 

The VirtualGlass program earned Glass of Learning both a Silver and Gold Stevie Award in the 2022 edition of the StevieⓇ Awards for Great Employers, for Most Innovative Leadership Program and for Achievement in Leadership Development, respectively.

VirtualGlass™ Program
Approximately 95% of organizations invest in leadership training, an investment that equates to a whopping $366 billion globally. However, most leaders are still not trained on how to properly step up to the plate—leadership training rarely if ever “sticks.”

After 25 years of training Fortune 500 leaders, Priest quit in 2014 to start Glass. She wanted to customize programs (versus templates), develop programs quickly (in days instead of months), and for training to be effective in practice. Priest decided to take on the challenge of working with large manufacturers and specializing in training frontline leaders and plant management—nearly all men.

In early 2018, Priest launched her revolutionary global leadership training program, Leadership Road™ for frontline Supervisors, a groundbreaking 27-week “journey,” with the timeframe chosen as it is thought to be the required time for training to “stick” psychologically. The journey begins with in-depth “discovery” aimed at finding the “burning issue” at hand. The Program is based on the premise that adults learn through play as children do. 

In 2019 Priest launched the Manager version of Leadership Road™. Then as COVID ravaged the globe, the 27-week program went virtual and was called VirtualGlass™, fully customizable because one size never fits all.

For example, Glass had a large international manufacturer whose managers were increasingly overwhelmed and disenfranchised during COVID. The Glass team created virtual activities to teach them how to move forward in their thinking vs engaging in perceptions and paradigms that block progress; how to transition easily in challenging situations; and how to avoid assumptions that can disrupt teams.

As more and more managers and staff became ill, missing out on entire skill sets, Glass customized VirtualGlass™ to teach emotional intelligence as well. Teaching empathy increased problem-solving and professional coaching skills.

Next, complementary videos taught teams how to work and manage remotely. Glass released the “Leadership to Life” program, customized for graduates of Leadership Road™. This program took the Journey’s leadership principles and extended them to daily and family life and activities. Many participants have since reported being better partners and parents.

Finally, Glass was asked to create an innovative Supervisor Peer Mentoring program, enabling graduates now working off the floor to continue learning and growing by taking on the role of coach and mentor to new participants moving through the 27-week program. This program was designed to increase confidence in the Supervisor graduates and enable new participants to quickly take on the learning role with a mentor to help escalate the learning process.

As of mid-2021, the VirtualGlass™ became available for facilitators to purchase subscriptions and access ready-made content.

Glass of Learning won a Gold Stevie Award for Achievement in Leadership Development and a Silver Stevie for Most Innovative Leadership Program and in the 2022 Stevie® Awards for Great Employers.

Interested in entering the 2023 Stevie® Awards for Great Employers?

Founded in 2020 at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Covax Australia is a Queensland-based company that provides professional staffing solutions and high-quality workplace management strategies.

Seeing the unmet needs in the community due to lockdown restrictions and nationwide delays, co-founders Mannu Kala and Dr. Anuj Gupta decided to combine their shared expertise to help innovate pandemic solutions and manage the pandemic alongside public health officials on the local, state, and federal levels.

Covax worked with leaders to support the vaccination rollout, operationalizing a major distribution hub, and offering end-to-end COVID-19-related testing services. They also provided staffing for hard-hit residential aged care facilities and partnered with community outreach clinics at schools and parks.

In response to surging infections, Covax built pop-up testing clinics on short notice and before major holidays. They implemented solutions to clear backlogs at other testing centers and coordinated with networks of pathology testing providers. 

Throughout the pandemic, as they responded to emerging community needs, Covax Australia leaders were also managing the company’s own growth. To keep up with demand for services, they recruited and trained over 800 employees. 

As lockdown restrictions impacted small businesses and commerce, Covax Australia was able to create jobs for their community. They proactively reached out to universities to give graduates real-world experience and assisted those making career changes with transferring their skills to a new industry.

Frontline Medical Hero of the Year
Of special note, Founder & Director of Covax Australia, Dr. Anuj Gupta, was honored at The 2022 International Business Awards® with a Gold Stevie Award for Frontline Medical Hero of the Year in the COVID-19 Response Categories. 

Dr. Gupta began his medical career as an international medical student in 2005 in Townsville, Queensland, Australia. Finishing his medical training in 2019, Dr. Gupta has already established multiple practices and enterprises, some of which are among the most successful general practices in Queensland and Australia. He has since gone on to open a vaccine clinic, respiratory clinics, and drive-through clinics in Brisbane and Gold Coast.

When the COVID-19 pandemic started, Dr. Gupta served as a frontline responder in Brisbane and consistently rose to the challenge whenever the city needed him in terms of surge and pandemic response. He is also responsible for setting up the first GP Respiratory clinic in Brisbane.

In December 2020, Dr. Gupta founded Covax Australia, a staffing agency with a focus solely on pandemic management, including developing and implementing strategies to help manage aspects of the COVID-19 crisis. In coordination with the Department of Health and Queensland Health, Dr. Gupta worked tirelessly to establish frontline clinics and to organize the COVID-19 response in Australia and Queensland in particular.

Evolving for the Future
Covax Australia now provides innovative staffing solutions to diverse industry settings to suit their changing needs, in sectors including but not limited to the healthcare, hospitality, security, human resources and environmental services sectors.

They support private clients as well as state and federal governments developing and providing end-to-end solutions, supply of equipment, and surge workforce assistance. The agency endeavors to build life-long partnerships with clients, adapting and customizing their services to meet the changing needs of all businesses. 

Covax Australia won a Bronze Stevie Award for Company of the Year among Medium-size Health Products & Services Organizations, and a Bronze Stevie Award for Startup of the Year among Business Services Industries.

Dr. Anuj Gupta won a Gold Stevie Award for Frontline Medical Hero of the Year within the COVID-19 Response Categories in The 2022 International Business Awards®.

Interested in entering The 2023 International Business Awards?

If you're in business, you can't help but notice that it’s awards season! There are SO many business awards happening right now and loads to enter for sure – they range from broad, international programs like the Stevie® Awards offers, to smaller, more niched ones like the Australian Rural Business Awards, for example.

Why Entering Awards Programs and Showcasing Your Wins Are Important
Business leaders constantly leverage awards to get more brand awareness and build creditability—and to then (hopefully) get more sales. Awards from established organizations demonstrate credibility, and awards have a long shelf life, so your win has a long shelf life too.

One big pro tip – if applying for awards isn't in your marketing strategy, then try to make it part of your marketing strategy! Seriously, if you want due credit in your space, if you want to become the “go-to person” in your industry, or if you simply want to “up” your competitors and stand out from the crowd, then entering awards is 100% the way to go!

Not only do you get leverage, but honestly, a huge benefit you get from applying for awards can be found in the process of crafting and preparing the submission applications themselves.

By taking time to look back at what you have achieved, where you have come from, and where you are now, you'll gain a better appreciation of your achievements. In business, we rarely take time to reflect and look back at how far we have come, so if you get nothing else from applying for awards, you will 200% get that!

So how do you leverage achievement awards—whether you're a winner or only a finalist?
Below, I'll detail all the ways you can make the most of your participation in awards programs.

Note, you don't need to do all these things immediately (although many you should)—you can milk the award and its honors for months and even beyond if you frame its future use as a “remember when” mention or posting. Here is a list to get you started:

1. Use the winner logos and graphics provided by the awards organization everywhere, especially on social media.
   Award hosts typically create and provide a variety of graphics for winners to use to promote their win. This is your license to add those image everywhere, including:

• Your LinkedIn profile – in the banner, in the awards section
• On Facebook – again in the banner/cover and in the About section
• Instagram – in your bio
• Twitter – in your profile
• Pinterest – in your profile
• In your email signature or at the foot of your emails – how many do you send a day!
• Your website – in the about section, on the front page, in the footer
  

2. Update your physical and digital company information and storefronts with “Award Winning” or “Multi Award Winning” business, depending on if you won more than one award. Update your bios and website pages. If you have a place of business, put it on the front window, at reception, on your door, in your “out of office” notice – if you can manage to add those words in, do it!
   
   
3. Update all business directories, websites, and partner websites that list your business. Use the words “Award Winning” or use the graphic/tile/image mentioned above. You might need to google yourself or google your business name to find all the places that need to be updated.
   
   
4. Create a new default photo for social media that includes the words “Award Winner,” or the name of the award you won, under your bio photo. After you or your art team creates a new image, use that photo to update all professional bios across social media platforms too. You should be able to easily do this using programs like Canva, but if you need a hand, you can easily find reasonable assistance on freelance websites like Fiver or Upwork.
   
   
5. Don’t forget to tag and congratulate other winners, finalists, and people in your category on social media. Not only is it good to be humble, but it’s good for brand awareness to be tagging other businesses (Okay, it may not exactly be humble, but it’s business, and we want the most out of this win!).
   
   
6. Consider adding the win to your business cards and brochures. If these items are electronic, then do it straight away. If they are printed, do it for the next round of printing.
   
   
7. If you do presentations, webinars, or your work requires you to introduce yourself, make sure you add “award winner” to that introduction. Not only just after you’ve won the award, but at least for a few years.
   
   
8. If the award hosts don't supply you with a press release, write one yourself! Getting your win into the media is a fabulous idea and isn’t going to be that hard. If you need help with a press release, sing out, happy to share what I have (jenn@jenndonovan.com.au), but most awards will supply one. Simply sending an email to your local newspaper, local radio station, or local news station will probably result in some media attention—written or spoken (radio). Even if you feel nervous, do it anyway! The people who think you are “full of it” or “talking about it too much” are likely jealous of the honor.
   
   
9. Sit down and write a blog for your website about your win. Use parts of your award-winning application to construct a blog about your business—the ups, the downs, the highs, the lows—and share it with your community. Not only will you increase your brand and customer reach, but you will also inspire others with your own successes and practical lessons learned.
   
   
10. Write an email to your customer/client list telling them the good news and thanking them for supporting your now award-winning business!
    
    
11. Go live on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, or whichever platform you perform best on or do them all! Share about your win and say thank you to your community who have helped you and your business thus far. You can spread these live streams out of over a few days and post on a different platform, different days. 
    
    

12. Use this award-winning application to gain recognition for more awards! Use the win as a fabulous excuse to pitch yourself for podcast interviews, guest blogs, articles, and so on.
    
    All this might seem a little too much self-promotion to some. But you honestly need to leave that feeling behind and permit yourself to feel proud of the fact that you won or were a finalist. You took the time to fill out the application, the judges reviewed your work and successes, and felt you deserved recognition. Your network, community, audience, and followers will ALL want to hear about it and congratulate you.
    
    And remember winning isn't everything – even being a finalist needs to have the heck leveraged out of it! Push down the imposter syndrome, get over the “what will they think” and sing loud and proud about your win and how amazing your business is. Because it is!

    About the Author:
    Jenn Donovan of Social Media & Marketing Australia. Jenn's an expert marketing coach and mentor from rural NSW. She is all about empowering business owners to earn what they're worth so they can make a bigger difference in the world. The Founder of Buy From a Bush Business, Co-Founder of Spend With Us – Buy From a Bush Business Marketplace and host of the very popular podcast Small Business Made Simple, Jenn is all about community and humans interacting with humans! H2H Marketing – human to human marketing. Jenn talks the talk but importantly walks the walk! Jenn's online community is over 370,000 with her famous Facebook Group currently at almost 365,000 members and still growing every day. She's the mayor of her own little online city! 

Stevie-winner Hooked On Code (HOC) is a women-owned, simplicity-focused WordPress website agency, working with businesses and organizations globally. 

The HOC mission is to eliminate the convoluted and inefficient nature of building websites for B2B enterprises. Their refined “no-bull process” has been delivering results efficiently since 2014. They assert that their proven process and specific toolset helps them combat negative experiences such as missed deadlines, poor communication, and hard-to-edit websites.

In mid-2019, HOC launched the maintenance branch of their agency, offering monthly website “Care Plans” to assist with website updates and whatever changes their customers may need.

Maintaining the Customer Experience Throughout the Pandemic
In 2020, HOC saw project work almost disappear with the COVID crisis. They decided to dedicate themselves to the happiness of their current client-base, which would, if retained, support the agency through the decline in new projects. 

Next, they launched a Customer Appreciation Program, including Client Appreciation Week, when clients were publicly recognized on social media and each client was personally called by team members.

They also refreshed training for the support team, compiled a new manual for working on client tickets, and started tracking client compliments and complaints in order to address potential issues preemptively.

Over time, what began as a boot-strapped company with no marketing budget saw significant organic growth year over year, completely from referrals.

In a survey sent to clients during Client Appreciation Week, 100% of participants responded 5/5 rating our work quality, timely delivery, responsiveness, satisfaction, and willingness to refer.

Hooked On Code went from being unranked in all categories to ranking between #1 and #4 out of tens of thousands of web design agencies across multiple high-value categories on Clutch, a third-party review platform for B2B service providers.

Since Winning Their Stevie Award
The HOC team has added Elementor to their agency arsenal, which has allowed them to adopt maintenance retainers for websites built by other agencies, often for global-sized corporations that demand faster and more reliable service than their previous agency offered. 

They have also  since launched their first Shopify and Squarespace projects. The decision to venture outside of the WordPress/Divi toolset and into select closed-source platforms was made in response to the growing need for a lower cost product that could be easily managed by clients in-house. This allows their team to service clients who would otherwise be dependent on a maintenance plan that their business model doesn’t financially justify.

With many notable accolades and statistics to report, HOC notes that the statistic they are most proud of is that they have never missed a project launch date—ever.

Hooked On Code won a Silver Stevie Award for Achievement in Customer Satisfaction in both the 2022 and the 2023 editions of The American Business Awards®. 

Interested in entering The American Business Awards?