What we do - Philip Baxendale Awards 2011
On 9 November 2011, the ceremony was held for the 2011 Philip Baxendale Awards for excellence in mutual and employee ownership, co-sponsored by Baxi Partnership and the Employee Ownership Association (EOA).
Both EOA and Baxi Partnership want to express our gratitude for the hugely enthusiastic response to this year’s awards, with a record number of nominations received. Please find below a full list of the Winners and Highly Commended nominations in each award category.
2011 Award Winners and Highly Commended Nominees
Outstanding Leadership Award: To recognise the inspirational role played by an individual or executive team who have led by example, driven outstanding performance in their organisation and brought their employees with them at every stage of the journey.
Winner – Des Fitzgerald, Waitrose
Highly commended
- Executive Team, Central Surrey Health
- Lynne Woodcock, Anglian Community Enterprise
- Dick Philbrick, Clansman Dynamics
Employee Ownership Champion Award: To recognise the individual or team who have done the most to support and promote employee ownership within their organisation, particularly those operating at the frontline /shopfloor or junior/middle management levels.
Joint Winner – Partnership Council, Childbase
Joint Winner – Future Branch Structures Consultative Committee (FCC), Waitrose
Highly commended
- Nicola Ross, Stewartry Care
- Pilot Staff Council, Anglian Community Enterprise
People and Culture Award: To celebrate the organisation that boasts a true culture of employee ownership, including transparency and meaningful engagement with employees, and driving notable activity to strengthen a culture of productive partnership.
Winner – Suma
Highly commended
- OPM (Office for Public Management)
- Quality, Innovation and Change Team, Central Surrey Health
Employee Innovation Award: To showcase the most exciting and effective example of innovation within an employee owned organisation – in products or services, aimed at clients or fellow employees. It must be an idea that came from an individual or group of employees (i.e. not senior management) which was developed and subsequently adopted by the organisation.
Winner – Felicity Hill, Enuresis Service, Central Surrey Health
Highly commended
- Community Care Development Team, Highland Home Carers
- Specialist Palliative Care Clinic, City Health Care Partnership
Productivity and Performance Award: To showcase the most dramatic and powerful example of an employee owned organisation driving up levels of productivity to deliver improved performance, and leading to exemplary outcomes in a particular field.
Winner – Clansman Dynamics
Highly commended
- Sexual and Reproductive Health Care Services, City Health Care Partnership
- Partnership Council, Childbase
Employee Ownership Rising Star Award: To celebrate the impact of an organisation that has recently become employee owned and is already showing progress in creating a highly effective organisation with a strong culture of meaningful employee ownership.
Winner – Navigo Health and Social Care
Highly commended
- Sutcliffe Play
- TAS Partnership
Public Sector ELMO Award: To celebrate the most impressive group of employees to have spun out of the public sector into an Employee-Led Mutual Organisation (ELMO), and who are showing progress in transforming the service to improve outcomes for their users.
Winner – Navigo Health and Social Care
Highly commended
- City Health Care Partnership
- Social Adventures
The Voice of Employee Ownership Award: To recognise the individual who has raised their voice above the noise of the crowd to advocate employee ownership, in either the public or private sectors, and in so doing enhanced the reputation of the entire employee owned sector.
Winner – Hugh Facey, Gripple
Highly commended
- Andy Davies, Glide
The Philip Baxendale Fellowship Award
The recipient of this year’s inaugural Philip Baxendale Fellowship Award is Stephen May. This award is to celebrate the outstanding total contribution of a single individual to the cause of employee ownership, recognising a profound and enduring commitment to the sector.
Stephen May has been involved with employee ownership almost literally since birth, as his father, Paul May, was a close associate of John Spedan Lewis, the founder of the John Lewis Partnership.
Throughout a long career, particularly as Director of Personnel, Stephen was an unswerving proponent of the Partnership’s structures, ethos and behaviours.
Since his retirement from the Partnership he has drawn on his wisdom and experience to help the cause of employee ownership more widely, particularly with Scott Bader and on the Board of the Employee Ownership Association.
As a board member of EOA, Stephen has made an extraordinary contribution to the organisation’s development. He has spent countless, entirely unrewarded hours giving wise and frank advice to the EOA secretariat; helping steer the organisation’s fragile finances; acting as an ambassador for employee ownership within and beyond the Association’s growing network.
Stephen is the perfect first recipient of this Fellowship Award because – although he would dismiss the description – he is a hero of the employee ownership movement; unshakeable in his conviction about the value of employee ownership, unstinting in his efforts to promote it, yet resolute in his determination that the arguments in favour are always sharp, fresh and rigorous.
A message from Charlie Mayfield, Chairman of the John Lewis Partnership:
“Stephen May has been closely associated with employee ownership for most of his life, his father, Paul May, having worked closely with the founder of the John Lewis Partnership to establish the structure and ethos that is the bedrock of the business today. Stephen’s own distinguished contribution to the business covered a wide spectrum of roles, most notably that of Director of Personnel for almost 15 years and then General Inspector. For over 36 years he championed the benefits of employee ownership, not as a fusty concept but as a integral part of a modern successful business, and even now some years after his retirement I frequently meet people who speak warmly of his influence. On behalf of the Partnership I am delighted that Stephen has been nominated for this award.”
