As proud co-sponsors of the Best Employer category at the Norfolk Business Awards, we would like to share our congratulations with the overall winner The Maids Head Hotel and all three of the extremely worthy finalists.

Alongside Birketts, we were delighted to present the Best Employer award as part of our ongoing purpose of celebrating and promoting the fantastic places to work in our region. This award recognises the companies which are achieving success by engaging, inspiring, motivating and developing their employees.

The Maids Head Hotel, situated in Norwich, and renowned for being the oldest hotel in the UK, was presented with this well-deserved accolade at the black-tie awards ceremony on Thursday. It was one of four businesses to be shortlisted in this category alongside Flagship Group, The Holden Group and Morgan Sindall. As part of the judging panel, we can honestly say that the decision on which of these inspiring companies should be crowned the overall winner was extremely difficult. All four businesses really stood out and shone as inspiring examples of organisations putting people first.

As the winners, The Maids Head Hotel was praised for how its purpose, vision and corporate values have all been fully integrated into the everyday operations of the hotel and are visible in all aspects of the business, including recruitment, appraisals and reward and recognition. The hotel employs 90 people and its workforce is very diverse, both in terms of backgrounds and nationalities. Significant efforts have been made to develop staff by working with local colleges to enhance skills.

All four organisations will benefit from an enhanced employer brand as a result of being recognised in this category. It highlights all of them as fantastic examples of businesses which are committed to developing innovative employee engagement strategies with a long-term growth vision in mind.  

As part of the judging process, all entrants also completed the Best Employers Eastern Region confidential employee engagement survey. Having scored in the top 25% of this, and submitted further evidence for judging, Flagship Group and Morgan Sindall were also presented with the Best Employers Eastern Region Platinum Accreditation last month and The Holden Group was presented with the Best Employers Eastern Region Gold Accreditation.

We would like to congratulate all of the winners and finalists on the night. It was a huge privilege to once again be a part these awards, organised by the Eastern Daily Press. This year was the biggest celebration in the awards nearly 30-year history and this is a testament to the many inspiring organisations within Norfolk’s deep and diverse business community.

For more information about The Maids Head Hotel as winners read the EDP 24 article.