Call for Entries Deadline:

This program is now closed.

Learn more about current programs here.

Does the challenge of internal communications excite you? Are you always seeking new ways to engage your staff and share information in an innovative manner? We can’t wait to see your work. One of our most popular award programs, Ragan’s Employee Communications Awards draws the finest internal communicators in the world. 

We want to see how your strategy attracted the newest generation of the work force. You told your brand’s story and put your organization on the map as one of the best employers in your industry—show us how you did it. Share with the world how your employee communications interact with a growing, changing workforce. 

You know you made a difference. Now we want to know how you made yourself the best in the industry. Show the world your daring plan, your bold execution, your astounding success.

This year’s program offers more than 25 categories covering digital and print publications, videos, intranet, employee communications and more. Enter more than one category to increase your chances of winning. 

Scroll down to read more about this year’s program and categories. Want to know how your ideas and execution stack up? See last year’s winners here.

CATEGORIES

CONTENT AND COMMUNICATIONS

 Benefits Communication

You were tired of delivering those dreaded benefits presentations that no one understood. How did you make them fun, entertaining and informative to employees who are more concerned with their busy schedules than learning about their coverage options? We want to see benefits communication strategies with personality. How do you use humor or your knowledge of the staff to make it relatable and fun? Do you use infographics? Video? Interactive news and updates? Tell us your goals and how you achieved them. Please include employee feedback.

 *NEW!* Digital Signage

Maybe you work at a large corporate campus or an open office space, or you want to message nondesk employees. Digital signage can be an effective tool for sharing information. What pain point did the addition of digital signage address for your organization? How did you implement signage throughout your workplace, and what information did you include? How did employees react?

 Executive Communication

Executives are often viewed as mysterious, intimidating and out of reach. How did you provide a channel for communication that felt accessible to employees? What did you do to make your executive videos, town halls, podcasts, blog posts and more feel relatable and human? Reveal your creative ideas and share employee and management feedback.

 Mobile App

With a largely remote or dispersed workforce, your organization wanted to find a way to keep everyone connected. A mobile app was the perfect solution to missed messages and a general lack of communication across teams. Walk us through the pain point your organization was experiencing and how an app was going to provide just what you needed. What kinds of content make the app informative and enjoyable? How customizable are the features? How essential was design and functionality to the creation of the app? Have push notifications and messaging features cut down on frequent emails? Share all of the details with us and include screenshots and creative assets unique to your app.

  Podcast

You have a lot of information to share with employees, and a podcast was the perfect medium for your message. Did your podcast feature your employees and share their career trajectories? Did you share news and announcements over the airwaves? Were executives and stakeholders part of the conversation? How did your podcast improve the effectiveness of your internal communications strategy? How did you get people excited about it? Share your plan, audio files and the metrics that prove its success.

 Rebranding Campaign

Your organization is evolving, and you have to put together a campaign to reflect the changing tide. How have you updated your image with a new mission, culture and aesthetic? What brought on this change? How did you announce it to your team? We want to see the solutions this rebranding effort brought to the forefront and the impact it has had. How did you engage frontline employees in this difficult job? What was the feedback? How was it successful?

 *NEW!* Recruitment Campaign

Finding the best and brightest candidates for open positions at your organization is hard work. We want to know how you put together a campaign to attract prospective employees. Tell us about the content of your campaign, who you were looking to attract, the channels you distributed it on and why it was effective.

 Use of Social Media

Creating connections in divided offices or among global workforces is a huge task. Thankfully, social media can make it easier. What platforms did you use to build connections and break down walls in your organization? How did you motivate employees to share more than what was required of them? Tell us how using social media in your workplace improved productivity and creativity. We want links, screenshots and feedback.

 *NEW!* Speechwriting

Did one of your executives deliver a powerful speech? We want to award communicators with impressive speechwriting abilities. Tell us why a speech was the right medium for your message. Share video or a written version of the speech. Don’t forget to include feedback and the impact the speech had on executive visibility, organizational transparency or employer branding.

EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE

 Corporate Social Responsibility Program

Socially responsible workplaces are held in high regard, especially among millennials. Everyone wants to work for an organization that takes care of its community or champions a cause. Tell us the strengths of your CSR program and how it’s succeeded in the last year. What was your CSR campaign? Is this program new? What were its goals? Is your organization known for its CSR program? What did you do to make it even better? We want to know how you communicated your goals to employees and got them excited about participating. How did it affect recruitment and retention? How did you present it to employees and stakeholders? What was their response?

 Brand Ambassador Program

The stability of your brand depends on your employees. When they feel supported and valued, they can be your greatest brand ambassadors. How did you develop an initiative that inspired your employees to advocate on behalf of your organization? Tell us how you encouraged employees to share their experience on social media or via other means. How did this affect perceptions of trust, reach and influence as an organization?

 Employee Education Program

A commitment to continuous learning is at the core of your organization. Knowledge is power, and you provided that to your employees in the form of extra training, employee development, higher education or certifications. What incentives did you create to encourage them to participate? How has this effected organizational culture and employee retention? Does your organization provide in-house training that allows employees to learn skills or lets them explore a new, different career path? We want to know how you were able to keep employees’ minds sharp.

 Employee Engagement

You want your culture to generate excitement in new hires and veterans alike. When your workforce is dedicated only from 9 to 5, it can be difficult to encourage people to stick around for after hours activities. How did you get your staff to participate in functions, volunteering opportunities or fundraising drives? Tell us about your organization’s efforts to engage your employees. What was your goal? Your strategy? Your success? Show us your engagement results—before and after your campaign.

 *NEW!* Internal Event Strategy

Town halls and organization-wide meetings don’t have to be boring. Tell us how you made meetings exciting and engaging for your employees. Did you add something special so your remote employees feel included? Tell us about the unique events you put together for employees, their purpose and how they’ve improved life at your organization.

 Wellness Program

The health and wellness of your employees is important to you. What was your strategy to promote healthier choices in the office? How did you make living a healthy lifestyle easier for your employees? Did you bring in a yoga instructor once a week? Start an interoffice fitness challenge? Set up social activities with healthy snacks? How did you creatively engage employees? What was the response? We want to see how you motivated employees to make important lifestyle changes.

INTRANET

 Design

Without functional and attractive design, your intranet will be a desolate digital wasteland. People want to see a beautifully designed, easy-to-navigate site. How was your design a hit with employees? What makes your layout so effective and popular? Did you consider employee usability and UX testing in your design? How do you use color and white space? How have you simplified your intranet design to get more click-thrus and longer average visit times? How does your design engage employees? How efficient is it?

 Social Intranet

How did you turn internal social media into a new workplace tool on your intranet? What was your strategy for attracting more employee social interaction? How did your employees respond? Did they share personal comments, pictures, and feedback, or was your internal social network used exclusively to talk business? We want to know why your organization moved to a social platform for your employees.

 Value to Employees

Intranets must be functional, but they have to do more than just work. They should add value to your staff’s day-to-day activities. What features make your intranet a priceless tool for your teams? We want to see how you combined practicality and usability to create a truly great intranet. We want to know how you persuaded employees to use your intranet to communicate, submit content, suggestions or feedback, or to get access to information about your organization. Be sure to include measurement results.

PUBLICATIONS (ELECTRONIC AND PRINT)

 Annual Report

How do you reveal the heart and soul of your organization while you impart information to stakeholders? How did you take your annual report beyond the numbers to tell a real story? Does your yearly report actually get read? Our judges will look for the personal, human touch, even in sections dealing with IT, legal and finance departments. Send us your digital or print versions. We’ll consider both.

 Article Series

You wanted to delve deep into an untold story. Just one article wouldn’t do. You put together a compelling series to tell the full story and deliver the news behind the news. What made your story so significant it merited several installments? What did employees think about the length of your series? How many people read every installment? We want to know how you were able to bring people back to read more of your story time and time again.

 Blog

You share news using many formats, but your blog is the most popular. What topics do you cover, and which ones are the most successful? How has the team responsible for your blog grown its readership? What role does design play? Do you feature executives or celebrate staff accomplishments on the blog? We’re also interested in active comment sections if you have them. Show us your results and how you measure the blog’s popularity.

 Feature Article

What story were you hoping to tell with this feature article? We want to see an impressive combination of a compelling headline, a magnificent lead, in-depth reporting and a creative vision. How did employees respond to the story? Share both metrics and comments.

 Interview or Profile

You conducted an interview that gave an inside look at the personal or career journey of one of your employees. We want to know all about it. Why were they selected for the interview and how did the story impress your readers? How did you pull the story together to throw light on someone’s life and enrich your organization’s culture? We want to know how you highlighted one of your employees to better connect with your entire organization.

 Magazine

Does your internal publication rival those on newsstands? Share it with us. We want to see magazines that combine visually arresting photography with fantastic storytelling. How do you decide which information is most useful for your employees? We want to know what successes you’ve achieved with your magazine. How do you measure your success?

 Most Improved Design

Did you give your publication a facelift? What was your strategy and goal for the new design? Did you make it more visually appealing with striking photography? Did you rebrand it with a new typeface, color scheme and layout? Don’t forget to show us your old design too. Show us what you changed, why you changed it and what feedback you received.

 Newsletter

How does your newsletter engage employees and deliver important information about your organization at the same time? What in your design makes employees want to read more? What information do you include? How do you communicate the most important information? Links, screenshots and feedback are essential.

 Visual Communication

Let’s face it: A cool font and great images make your work more interesting. How did you enhance narratives, illustrate ideas, or make themes clearer through photos, graphics or other visually alluring content? Show us how you made pictures tell the story on your website, on social media or in print. If you used digital graphics, did they lead to significant increases in shares, comments and likes? Did your in-office signage get lots of attention? How did you achieve your goals? Show us exactly how your message was beefed up by your photography or graphics.

VIDEO

 Humorous Video

Explain how you used video to create a lighter mood in the boardroom. We're looking for all types of videos that incorporate humor: regular installments, video news with a light touch, organization-wide lip dubs or your something even more unique. Tell us what the sober, no-nonsense goal of your video was, along with your strategy and success.

 Informational Video

Have you produced a video to train new employees, explain a new procedure, lay out a new vision or update the members of your organization? We want to see your clever ideas not solely in words, but in motion and action. Send us your goal, strategy and proof of success (and, of course, your video).

 *NEW!* Training or Orientation Video

Did you create a video to welcome new employees and share your organization’s history? Did your video train existing employees on a new process? Why was video the right medium for your message? We want to see more than talking heads and corporate jargon. Share your video with us and include metrics or feedback.

 Recruitment Video

Finding good talent that will fit your culture is difficult. If you aim to expand your talent pool, video is a must. Share with us the video storytelling that touched the hearts and minds of a demanding audience of potential new hires. A new generation in the workforce expects an ultra-intelligent but lighthearted and passionate picture of your organization and its doings. How did you achieve this?

GRAND PRIZE

 Employee Communication Campaign of the Year

Did you capture the attention of your entire organization? What channels did you use to share your message and create a comprehensive internal campaign? What was the story you were trying to tell? Our judges will look at everything—your mission and goals, your strategy and tactics—and, of course, your results.

HOW TO ENTER

On the entry form, be sure to include a thorough synopsis explaining the purpose and scope of your project. We ask that the synopsis be at least 1,000 words (max: 1,250 words) and include the following sub-headings (when applicable):

  • Goals
  • Strategy and tactics
  • Execution
  • Evaluation: success, results or ROI

Be sure to follow the guidelines laid out in the category descriptions, as the judges will look for those elements when they select the winners.

You will be able to upload up to five additional documents to your submission. We encourage you to include press releases, design concepts, videos, analytics, testimonials and anything else you feel will give us a better sense of your project. Proprietary or internal information can also be attached and will not be shared with the public.

Supporting documents that can’t be uploaded to the system should be mailed to:

Brendan Gannon
Ragan Communications
10 S. LaSalle St., Suite 310
Chicago, IL 60603

ELIGIBILITY REQUIREMENTS

These awards are open to in-house, agency and independent communication practitioners in the private, corporate, nonprofit and government sectors. Enter your work, the work of your organization or submit entries on behalf of your client.

Companies from around the world are welcome to enter as long as the entry is submitted in English.

Contact Brendan Gannon to find the perfect category for your campaign or project. You can reach him at 312-960-4407 or brendang@ragan.com.

This year’s program is open to any work executed between Jan. 1, 2017, and Aug. 1, 2018, inclusive.

ENTRY FEES

The fee for this program is $395 per entry.

Entry fee for the Grand Prize category is $495.

Early bird submissions must be received by 11:59 p.m. Central time on Aug. 30, 2018 to receive the $50 discount.

A late fee of $100 per entry will be added to all entries after 11:59 p.m. Central time, Sept. 21, 2018.

W-9 Form / Tax ID Number Request

Additional Questions

Additional Questions

If you have any questions about the program or problems submitting your entry, please call Brendan Gannon at 312-960-4407 or email him at brendang@ragan.com.

Sponsorship Opportunities

Sponsorship Opportunities

If you are interested in sponsoring one of Ragan Communications’ award programs, please contact on sponsorship team at sponsorship@ragan.com.