3 tips for crafting a winning DWG award entry

Having an impressive digital workplace or modern intranet stands your organization in good stead for a win in DWG’s annual awards – however, it’s also important to make sure your award entry is just as good. 

Here are a few tips and tactics to help you ensure that your award entry does your digital workplace and/or intranet justice: 

Read the guidance notes carefully

The Digital Workplace of the Year and Modern Intranet of the Year awards are judged on six criteria covering strategy, rationale, governance, impressive features, user engagement and impact. We provide entrants with some guidance notes on the awards platform, on what the judging panel are looking for as regards each of these criteria – and it’s well worth studying these closely to make sure you cover off all these elements. 

For example, under user engagement, the guidance reads: “We want to find out about how you’ve engaged employees, not just at the outset or at launch, but right through the digital workplace lifecycle. Tell us about the research you conducted on user needs, the user testing you did on new tools and features, and the ways that you supported adoption.” If the entry only describes user testing pre-launch or just focuses on adoption activities at launch, it won’t be able to score so highly in this area. 

Be as precise and detailed as possible

The judges really like specifics, whether these are specific metrics, detailed descriptions or clear evidence. Where entries are vague or theoretical, filled with marketing speak, or lacking in specifics, they are harder for judges to assess and therefore tend to be marked down.  

While there’s nothing wrong with really going for it and ‘selling’ your digital workplace or intranet, make sure that the eye-catching headlines and snazzy straplines can be backed up by facts and figures! 

Show and tell

All of our judges are really into the digital workplace… but, with a lot of entries to fully consider, they really appreciate entries that make it easier to see and understand what makes yours stand out from the rest.  

Previous winners have done this by providing additional materials, such as short video clips that give an overview of the environment in a quick and engaging manner. Another approach is to submit a short slide deck of illustrative screenshots and materials with clear labelling explaining what you want the judges to look at.  

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Hopefully, these tips will help you to craft a winning entry for the 2023 season of the Digital Workplace Awards. An award entry can be an opportunity for the team to reflect on achievements, approaches, plans, gaps, etc. – so take your time, get the right people involved, and make the award entry count. 

The awards, now in their sixth year, celebrate those organizations and practitioners who have excelled at creating well-executed, high-performing digital workplace environments. 

They provide the perfect opportunity for you and your organization to share your digital workplace achievements with peers and to gain global industry recognition. 

For 2023 there are three categories: 

• Digital Workplace of the Year (awarded to an organization) – open to submission by any organization, with one overall winner and several track awards. 
• NEW! Digital Workplace Leader of the Team (awarded to a team) – learn more about this new category. 
• Modern Intranet of the Year (awarded to an organization) – open to submission by any organization, with one overall winner and several track awards.  

The deadline to submit your entry for any of the 2023 Awards is June 2, 2023 at midnight (BST). The winners will be announced in a Live Tour special on September 5, 2023 from 08.00 PDT / 11.00 EDT / 16.00 BST / 17.00 CEST. 

Categorised in: Digital Workplace of the Year Awards