This is my first time as a judge of these Awards and it was an honour to chair the judging process. My thanks therefore go to the all the companies who submitted entries this year and to all my fellow judges for making the judging day such a fascinating and worthwhile experience.
A significant increase in the number of entries across most categories made judging a challenging process. The judges were pleased to see increasing standards due to the benchmarks set in previous years, as exhibited by presentations at Celebrating Excellence, and a focus in the Award entries on demonstrating clearly the award-winning characteristics of employee share ownership programmes.
These Awards are designed to highlight best practice, thereby raising the quality of share plans and there were distinctive themes and trends emerging from this year’s winning submissions:
A key feature in the Best New Plan and Communications categories is a properly planned strategy, both to present and reinforce the corporate message – this is achieved by increased used of segmentation and of new media.
There was a strong shortlist in the Financial Education category but the disappointing number of entries overall suggests that this is still a blind spot for many companies. This category is all about helping employees plan their personal finances for the future, including eventually paying for their retirement. We know that responsibility for this often falls between departments but there are strong reasons for companies both to provide this benefit and also to promote the role that share plans can play within it.
To be shortlisted for the Best Overall category requires companies to demonstrate first, why their company has all employee plans and/or the role discretionary share plans play in their pay policies; secondly how these plans are marketed to employees and finally how maturity is handled in terms of long term employee share ownership and lifetime financial planning.
The best practice bar has been set high and if you want some tips for adopting best practice in your company you will be able to hear insights from the winning companies at Celebrating Excellence on 7 February 2008.
I hope you enjoy the Awards Dinner and that you and your company will be inspired to enter next year.
Paul Jackson became Head of Compensation, HSBC Insurance in April 2007 and concentrates on insurance businesses in six regions (the US, Mexico, Brazil, the UK, France and Hong Kong). His key objective is to focus performance related pay on driving the corporate strategy of increasing the contribution of Insurance to 20% of the HSBC Group profits.
He was Senior Reward Manager with the HSBC Group between 2001 and 2007 specialising in the Group's international share plans. During this time, he played a key part in reviewing the role of discretionary share plans within the Group and changed the international savings related option plan away from the UK model into a plan more appropriate for employees around the world.
Prior to 2001, he was Investor Relations Manager of HSBC during a period when the HSBC Group expanded considerably both by organic growth and acquisition
Stuart Bailey joined the Financial Services Authority (FSA) earlier this year as part of the Financial Capability team. Stuart is responsible for a "Workplace" Team whose aim is to provide general financial education to employees in their place of work through accessible resources, and seminars delivered by trained professionals. The Workplace programme has ambitious targets aiming to reach 4 million employees by 2011.
Prior to joining the FSA, Stuart headed up "Abbey at Work", the workplace distribution and employee share plan arm of Abbey.
Stuart has over 15 years' experience in the employee share plan industry having worked with diverse range of employers introducing all-employee share plans that have operated in over 80 countries."
Julia Goldsworthy grew up in Cornwall, where she attended Truro School. She went on to read history at Cambridge University, followed by a year at Daiichi University of Economics in Japan. In 2003, whilst a researcher for Matthew Taylor MP, Julia completed a postgraduate course in economics at Birkbeck College, London.
Following her work for Matthew Taylor, MP for Truro and St Austell, Julia was a Liberal Democrat policy advisor, focusing on education and the economy. However, at the 2005 General Election, Julia became an MP herself at the age of 26, with a swing of 9.5% from Labour, giving a majority of 1886. Her success means that the Liberal Democrats now hold all five of the Cornish seats.
As an MP, Julia has continued to fight for her constituency, bringing to the fore the issues that most affect her constituents. She has been vocal in the Party’s Axe the Tax (Council Tax) campaign, and has campaigned actively for a fairer funding deal for Cornwall. The troublesome issue of housing is close to Julia’s heart, and she is currently working with local companies to create more affordable housing in an area where this is hard to come by.
At a more national level, having been appointed Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury earlier this year, Julia has been working with Treasury colleagues on the new Liberal Democrat tax proposals, as successfully adopted at the recent Party Conference. She is now leading the Party’s comprehensive review of departmental spending, which will report this summer.
Jackson held a variety of managerial positions in the Manufacturing Division of Procter & Gamble Limited over 20 years, followed by positions as Senior Consultant and Partner in PA Consulting Group for 15 years. He retired to research "Participation in Sharesave Schemes" for his PhD at Warwick University Business School and is now a part time lecturer in Business and Management at Middlesex University Business School.
Amanda was made editor of Employee Benefits magazine in November 2005. Before joining the magazine, she worked at Marketing Week as deputy editor and prior to that on the Hackney Gazette as a reporter.
