FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:
Brendan Gannon
Director of Marketing
Ragan Communications and PR Daily
Ragan Communications Opens Entries for 2026 HR Awards, Spotlighting the Strategies Behind Stronger Workplaces
Global program recognizes the HR campaigns, workplaces, teams and leaders delivering real results for employees and the business.
Entry Deadline: December 4, 2026
Late Deadline: December 11, 2026
CHICAGO, September 3, 2026 – Ragan Communications is now accepting entries for its 2026 HR Awards, a global recognition program for the campaigns, workplaces, teams and professionals behind the people work the rest of the profession ends up talking about.
Most HR teams can point to the project that changed their year. The onboarding redesign that cut early turnover. The pay transparency rollout that built trust instead of questions. The AI training effort that brought skeptical employees along. The internal mobility program that kept good people from walking out the door. The HR Awards exist to put credible recognition behind work like that, work that pairs a sharp strategy with results you can show.
Entries span employee engagement, talent recruitment and retention, learning and development, benefits and total rewards, leadership development, workforce planning, AI adoption, employee relations, wellbeing and culture, among other areas of the profession. Whether the work belongs to a global enterprise or a company with fewer than 100 employees, the program is built to recognize it.
“HR work is often at its best when nobody sees the machinery behind it: the manager who finally got the support they needed, the benefits change that actually landed, the new hire who felt at home by week two,” said Brendan Gannon, director of marketing at Ragan Communications and PR Daily. “These awards give that work a spotlight. If your team solved a problem and can show what changed, we want to hear the story.”
The entry deadline is December 4, 2026. Learn more and enter here.
The program includes categories for HR campaigns and initiatives, Top HR Workplaces by organization size and People & Teams honors for individual leaders and teams. Among this year’s categories are:
- AI in HR: Adoption, Governance & Workforce Readiness
- Change Management & Culture Transformation
- Employee Benefits
- Employee Engagement
- HR & Communications Collaboration
- HR Team of the Year
- Learning & Development
- Talent Recruitment & Retention
- Top HR Workplaces
- Total Rewards Program
View the full list of categories here.
Entries are open to organizations, in-house HR and people teams, agencies, consultants, independent practitioners, nonprofits and government organizations around the world. Entrants may submit their own work, enter a project on behalf of a client or recognize a colleague, leader or team whose contribution deserves attention. Self-nominations are welcome in applicable categories.
Entries tell the story in 350 to 900 words, covering the challenge or opportunity, the strategy, the execution and the results, and include at least two supporting materials. Strong submissions back the narrative with evidence such as engagement or retention data, hiring outcomes, participation rates, employee feedback or wellbeing measures. The same program may be entered in more than one category, and each entry is judged independently. This year’s program is open to work executed between Dec. 1, 2025, and Dec. 11, 2026, inclusive.
A win from Ragan gives HR work a bigger stage. Category winners will be featured across Ragan.com, PRDaily.com, newsletters and social channels, with editorial coverage that tells the story of the work and the results behind it. Winners also receive a trophy and a digital winner badge, plus a quote to use in their own press release and a post of their organization’s announcement on Ragan’s site, giving them a credible accomplishment to share with employees, executives, candidates, clients and the wider HR community.
The standard entry deadline is December 4, 2026. Late entries will be accepted through December 11, 2026, with additional late fees applying after December 4.
Explore the categories, eligibility requirements and entry kit, and submit entries here.
For entry questions, contact Barbara Kanady at [email protected].
For sponsorship opportunities, contact Morgan Einspanier at [email protected].
The awards program is presented by Ragan Communications and PR Daily, the leading authorities in PR and communications intelligence.
About Ragan Communications and PR Daily
Ragan Communications has been delivering trusted news, training and intelligence for more than 60 years to internal and external communicators, HR professionals and business leaders. Its daily news sites, PRDaily.com and Ragan.com, are read by more than 600,000 internal and external communicators monthly. Ragan’s Communications Leadership Council is one of the fastest-growing membership groups for communications executives, and its conferences, webinars and workshops are attended by more than 5,000 communicators a year. Ragan Training is the leading learning portal among communicators, offering more than 800 hours of training and development for communicators. Ragan is also the producer of Communications Week, which is held each November. Headquartered in Chicago, Ragan has team members spanning the country and loyal customers worldwide. Visit us at ragan.com.
