Personnel Today Awards 2016: SABMiller takes home the top prize

SABMiller Europe gained the top trophy in last night’s Personnel Today Awards for an ambitious learning and development initiative that helped to improve profitable growth.

The brewing company, which produces iconic beer brands such as Peroni, Grolsch and Pilsner Urquell and has recently been acquired by AB InBev, beat the winners from 20 other categories to receive the coveted Overall Winner Award.

More than 900 HR professionals attended last night’s ceremony in the glamorous surroundings of the Great Room in the Grosvenor House Hotel on London’s Park Lane. The audience was entertained by National Lottery host Gaby Roslin and star of BBC series Asian Provocateur, comedian Romesh Ranganathan.

SABMiller won the Excellence in Learning and Development Award for an initiative called Profitable Revenue Growth Management (PRGM).

The initiative aimed to bring “PRGM thinking” into everyday routines through a blend of e-learning, coaching and live workshops, and has delivered more than $33 million in incremental profits since it launched.

SABMiller collect the 2016 Personnel Today Overall Winner trophy

The HR Team of the Year Award was won by Odeon & UCI Cinemas after successfully steering the two brands through a merger, helping employees to gain a greater sense of working together and increasing revenue by 20%.

One of the most sought-after awards of the evening, HR Director of the Year, was won this year by Sharon Bridgland-Gough of Cardtronics UK, the cash machine operator.

Bridgland-Gough was praised for the way she supported the company’s growth and her role in redefining and embedding its core values.

A potential future winner of this award was Anna Haines of real estate group CBRE Managed Services, who topped the HR Rising Star category.

Haines, who has been promoted to HR business partner this year, revamped the company’s reward system and supported it through a restructuring process.

Rob Moss, Personnel Today’s editor, said: “Congratulations to all our winners. This was a particularly good year for innovation in the Awards – entries showed just how capable the HR function is of dealing with major technological and people change.”