Royal Mail scoops top prize at Personnel Today Awards 2006

More than 1,200 of HR's finest gathered last night for the prestigious Personnel Today Awards 2006 at the Grosvenor House Hotel in London's Park Lane.

Royal Mail, scooped the Overall Winner title, having bagged the Fujitsu/Baxter Neumann Award for Excellence in Outsourcing and Shared Services.

Dermot Toberty, director of people and organisational development for Royal Mail said the award was "the culmination of three and a half years of hard graft".

"Change doesn't come easy, but we've achieved what we set out to do," he said. The methods and processes we put in place are sustainable so the team aren't affected if there are any staff changes, which can sometimes cause disruption. Our employees remain motivated as a result," he said.

Wendy Dean, HR director at ANC Express delivery service, was thrilled to win the Ceridian HR Director of the Year Award.

"I'm completely overwhelmed. I think it was essentially about putting our people at the heart of our company strategy and this shows that we've done something right."

Barclays Bank picked up the Cap Gemini Employer Branding Award.

Barclay's head of HR shared services, Kathryn Cleverley, said: "the highlight of my evening, apart from kissing Julian Clary, was winning the award. We recognise these awards as the best in the industry and it not only gains us industry recognition, but shows we are at top of our game."

Other winners:

• Addleshaw Goddard HR Impact award: AA
• BlessingWhite Award for Talent Management: Network Rail
• Computers in Personnel Award for HR Collaboration: First Choice Airways
• Hays Award for Innovation in Recruitment and Retention: Metropolitan Police Service
• Northgate HR Award for Best HR Strategy in Line with Business: AA
• Personnel Today Jobs Award for Excellence in Graduate Recruitment: Deloitte
• PMI Health Group Award for Managing Health at Work: Comet Group
• Skills for Business Award for Excellence in Training - BT Global Services
• Vizual Business Tools Award for Excellence in HR through Technology: BSkyB.