Banbury Employee Of The Year Awards 2012

THE WINNERS ANNOUNCED

We are delighted to announce that after a very difficult judging process, we can now reveal our winners of the Banbury Employee of the Year Awards for 2012. Thank you to everyone who nominated their superstars into this year's awards as they were all excellent entries and all very worthy. However, we can only have one winning entry in each category and each of the jubilant winners was presented with their awards on Friday 27th January by Tony Baldry MP and the rest of the judging panel.

We very much look forward to next years' awards and who knows, maybe you could be one of our winners in 2013!

 

The award for the small business category went to Osei Mitchell, a Sales Executive at Petrospot Ltd, based in Adderbury Nr Banbury. Osei was nominated by Petrospot MD Llewellyn Bankes-Hughes, who cited Osei's many outstanding achievements for the company.

"Osei quickly identified in our business, that many of our potential customers in West Africa could not attend our events due to UK visa restrictions. He therefore took it upon himself to take our training to Africa instead and identified speakers, sponsors and delegates which culminated in our first African conference in Ghana. Following this success, Petrospot went on to open an office in South Africa, with Osei instrumental in getting this off the ground."

"Ever since joining the company, Osei has been a consummate professional. He has inspired his customers and pioneered new markets, developed new business streams and helped deliver bigger profits - he has become one of our most valued and respected members."

Medium business category award was won by Simon Tims, a Production Supervisor at Walraven Ltd in Banbury. Simon has been working for the company for 17 years, through good times and bad and was nominated by company Finance Director Nicola Luker.

Nicola was quoted as saying;

"Simon has worked tremendously hard during his entire career with Walraven. In what has been a very difficult year in the manufacturing sector, Simon has brought huge efficiencies to the company. Simon is an innovator, a motivator, a team player and an inspiring leader."

In addition to his nomination for Banbury Employee of the Year, in 2011 Simon also won an internal award at Walraven, where he was nominated by his fellow colleagues!

 

 

Large business category was actually won by a small team of people this year, rather than a single individual. The judges were so impressed by the nomination from Norbar Ltd, that we felt that it would only be fair to reward the whole team, rather than select just one person.

So, this year our large business employees of the year are Tracey Lucas, Alex Radini, James Durley and Sharon North from the company's goods-in department, who were all nominated by company Director Neill Brodey.

The team were nominated as in July 2011, the Team Coordinator died from cancer, leaving only one team member to cope in a busy and pressurised department. The company had to put together a new team, assembled from one experienced member and three rookies, who joined the department in October.

Neill said;

"The pressure felt by all concerned was huge and there were probably times when they all felt like giving up! In addition, the sudden loss of a close friend and colleague was an additional emotional pressure."

The judges unanimously agreed that given the circumstances faced by this exceptional team of people and the way that they had all pulled together to ensure that business continued, that they were all very worthy winners of this year's Large Business Employee of the Year award.

 

Nominations were judged by our panel of experts and the winners from each category were presented with a Banbury Employee of the Year trophy and certificate. All winners and their employers will be publicly featured by Plus One Personnel and our media partners The Banbury Guardian and 107.6FM Banbury Sound, giving them the recognition they deserve.

 

 

LAST YEAR'S WINNERS

THE 2011 BANBURY EMPLOYEE OF THE YEAR AWARDS

Due to the high calibre of entries for the 2011 awards, the judges had some extremely difficult decisions to make. After much debate, the judges decided upon the following winners in each category.

An ex-army man took the double honours with Banbury's first employee of the year competition. Darrin Langdon of logistics company DHL won both the Large Business Employee of the Year and the Overall Employee of the Year for his work with the company.

Darrin joined the company last year after a highly decorated career in the army and was nominated by Chris Adams, Freight Operations Manager at DHL. He said "Darrin is now an integral part of the team at Banbury and is displaying a tremendous determination to carry his life forward"

On winning his award, Darrin said "I had to sit down just to take it all in. It just shows that all the work that I have done since joining DHL has been recognised".

 

Winner of the Medium Business Employee of the Year was Verity Frangiamore of Brethertons Solicitors. Verity works in the company's debt management division and has been working for Brethertons for over 9 years. She said "I was actually surprised and did not expect it at all. It is great to be nominated and receive the award"

Deborah Atkins (HR), who made the nomination said "Verity has achieved so much in her nine-year career here and continues to develop her skills."

 

The award for the Small Business Employee of the Year went to Donna Adkin of Banbury's Fairway Fish Bar.

Mrs Adkin was nominated by Partner Martyn Elsmore who said "Donna is always ready to start work at least 15 minutes before her shift is due to start and never leaves anything undone until her shift finishes, even if it means staying late without extra pay. She has taken new employees under her wing without being asked to and is considered by our customers to be a most important and vital cog in our wheel."