Employee of the year: criteria, nominations and announcing the winner

In short

• An employee of the year award is only worth having if staff believe the right person won, so publish the criteria and the process before anyone is nominated.
• Use four or five criteria that cover the whole year, mix hard results with judgement, and check that part-time, hybrid and returning staff can meet them.
• Ask for nominations against those criteria, then let a small mixed panel score every entry the same way.
• A prize given as a reward for performance is not a tax-free trivial benefit, so talk to payroll before you buy it.
• Save the reveal for the end of the night, keep the citation to a few sentences, and make sure every name is pronounced properly.

Employee of the year is the award everyone in the room has an opinion about. Get it right and the whole company sees what good looks like. Get it wrong and people go home talking about the manager’s favourite.

Most of the work happens months before the ceremony: the criteria, the nominations and the judging. Then it all comes down to a couple of minutes on stage. I host award ceremonies, so I’ll cover both halves, starting with the bit nobody sees.

What is an employee of the year award?

An employee of the year award is the headline staff award: one person, chosen from the whole organisation, for their contribution across the full year. It usually closes the evening and gets the biggest round of applause.

Employee of the month rewards a moment. This one rewards a year, which is why most employee of the year awards need firmer rules than the other categories. (Choosing the rest of your categories is a separate job, with its own guide on this site.)

It’s worth doing properly. Gallup and Workhuman found well-recognised employees were 45% less likely to have changed organisations two years later (US data, published September 2024).

What criteria should you use for employee of the year?

Use four or five criteria that the whole company can see, that cover the full year and that any role could meet. A good starting set:

Criterion	What the judges look for
Results	Measurable outcomes, with before and after figures
Consistency	Strong work across the whole year, not one big month
Helping others	Training, covering, sharing what works
Values	Behaviour that matches what the company says it stands for
Improvement	A new idea, a fixed process, a problem solved

The University of Colorado’s staff award asks for exactly this kind of spread, and makes the point that the nominee need not be a manager to show leadership. Say that in your own criteria too, or every winner will have a team.

Mix measured results with judgement. A CIPD evidence review found staff see heavy reliance on subjective views as unfair, but also distrust schemes that ignore them, so a balanced approach works best. The same review found recognition does more good when the process is seen to be fair.

How do you keep the criteria fair and inclusive?

You keep them fair by testing every criterion against the people least likely to be noticed: part-time staff, hybrid workers, people on leave and disabled colleagues. If a criterion quietly rewards long hours or being seen in the office, rewrite it.

Acas lists nine protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010 and points out that treatment can still be discrimination even when nobody meant it. Some practical checks:

• Part-time staff. Acas says part-time workers should be no worse off than a full-time comparator on career development and promotion. Judge impact, not hours.
• Hybrid workers. Someone who’s in the office three days a week gets noticed more. Ask for evidence, so visibility doesn’t win by default.
• Maternity and other leave. Employers must tell staff on maternity leave about important changes such as promotions and job opportunities. Send them the nomination call too, and judge the months they worked on their merits.
• Disabled colleagues. Acas defines reasonable adjustments as changes that remove or reduce a disadvantage linked to disability, and says they can cover any area of work. That includes how you nominate, and how the winner gets to the stage.

Running nominations that give the judges something to work with

Open nominations to everyone, not just managers. Give people a form with one box per criterion and a word limit, and a clear deadline. Colleagues often see things a manager misses.

Ask for evidence, not adjectives. Colorado’s award asks for a main letter plus two supporting letters, with at least one from the nominee’s own unit. For a company award, one nomination with a quote from a second colleague is usually enough.

Send nominators the guide on how to write an award nomination. Better entries make the judging quicker and the citation on the night much stronger.

An employee of the year nomination letter example

Here’s a short template. Fill in the brackets with facts you can back up.

I’d like to nominate [name], [role] in [team], for employee of the year. In [month], [the problem: for example, the team lost two people and had a backlog of 300 orders]. [Name] [what they did, in one or two actions]. By [month], [the result, with numbers]. [Colleague] said: “[short quote].” Across the rest of the year, [one example of helping others or improving how the team works].

How do you choose employee of the year?

You choose employee of the year with a small panel that scores every nomination against the same published criteria, then discusses the top few before agreeing a winner. The University of Maryland’s committee assesses every nominee against the criteria for that reason: fairness and consistency.

What makes a panel work:

1. Mix it. Three to five people from different teams and levels, ideally including someone from HR.
2. Declare interests. If a judge manages a nominee or works closely with them, they sit out that score.
3. Score separately first. Each judge marks each criterion out of five before any discussion. The CIPD review found staff see ratings with more categories, such as five, as fairer.
4. Read the whole year. A big win in November is easier to remember than steady work since January, so ask for evidence from the whole year.
5. Set a repeat rule. Colorado lets someone win once in five years. Even a softer rule stops the same name every year.
6. Write down why. Two lines on why the winner won. That becomes the citation, and it’s your answer if anyone asks.

Is an employee of the year prize taxable?

Usually, yes. As of October 2026, HMRC’s trivial benefits exemption only covers something costing £50 or less that is not cash or a cash voucher, and is not a reward for work or performance. An employee of the year prize is a reward for performance by definition.

Keep the prize. Just talk to whoever runs payroll before you announce a voucher, a weekend away or extra leave, so the winner doesn’t get a surprise later.

The trophy and the moment on stage are what people remember anyway.

What should an employee of the year certificate say?

An employee of the year certificate should say the company name, the award, the winner’s full name, the year, one line on why they won and a signature. Keep it short enough to read across a room in a photo.

Sample wording, line by line:

• [Company name]
• Employee of the Year [year]
• Presented to [full name]
• For [one line: for example, keeping the team running through a hard year and making everyone around them better at their jobs]
• Signed [name, role], [date]

Check the spelling of the name with the winner’s manager. It’s the one thing on the certificate people will read twice.

Announcing employee of the year on the night

This is the part I look after. Employee of the year normally goes last, because it’s the award the whole room has been waiting for.

My preparation for any award ceremony includes a briefing on all the nominees, a pronunciation check on every name and a run-through of the script with the organising team. For this award, I want three things from you in the briefing: the shortlist, a sentence on each finalist and the panel’s two lines on the winner. The night is won in the briefing, not on the stage.

On the night it runs like this. A short line on why the award exists. Each finalist named, with one specific achievement, so nobody leaves feeling like a name on a list. A pause. The winner. Then the walk to the stage, the handshake, the photo. If the winner uses a wheelchair or would find the stage hard, plan the route or bring the award to them. That’s what reasonable adjustments look like on the night.

Finalist lists do change late. I’ve handled one that changed at the last minute. It’s manageable when the script is clean and the organiser knows exactly what I’ll say.

The employee of the year speech

If a senior leader is presenting, their speech should be under two minutes: why the award matters, the shortlist, the citation, the name. There’s more on presenting an award without fumbling the envelope. For the winner, a short thank you is plenty. Nobody expects a prepared speech.

One host, the whole evening

Employee of the year comes at the end of the night, so the room has to still be listening when it arrives. Your winners will remember getting on stage. Everyone else remembers whether the room stayed alive.

On a long list I sometimes break the presentations into blocks with game-show rounds between them, which is how one client’s entertaining awards evening ran. Everyone stayed to the end. If you’re still planning, start with the guide to planning an award ceremony. If you’d rather hand the whole evening to one person, I work as an award host across the UK and Europe, from the first briefing to the final name.

More awards guides

• Employee award categories: 30 ideas for a staff awards night.
• Acceptance speech tips for when you win.
• Funny office awards for a Christmas party or team night.

Tell me about your shortlist. Call 07596 851647.