Small Company of the Year Award

The Small Company of the Year Award, in association with the Institute of Directors – is for SMEs that are improving their business and their overall impact on society – in the marketplace, the workplace, the environment and the community – through leadership and integration of responsible business practices.

This award is only open to independent trading organisations with no parent company, employing less than 250 (or full time equivalent).

The closing date for this category has now passed.

Why we run an award celebrating responsible business practice for small companies:

Behaving responsibly is as important and relevant for small businesses as it is for large companies, and simply means achieving commercial success in ways that respect people, communities and the environment.

Regardless of size, all businesses are increasingly facing similar issues – the need to recruit, retain and motivate good staff; the need to build trust with customers and provide customers and large clients with information on environmental or community issues; and a desire to ‘do the right thing’.

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) together accounted for 99.9 per cent of all enterprises, 59.4 per cent of private sector employment and 50.1 per cent of private sector turnover. In light of the considerable size and contribution of the SME sector, it is vital that we engage with SME’s and provide them with inspiring examples of responsible business practice to mobilise this sector.

Aims of the category:

This category is designed to recognise SMEs with a broad approach to responsible business – companies that are having a positive impact in all four of these areas;

• Marketplace – how a company develops it’s products, works with its suppliers, markets to customers,
• Workplace – how a company invests in the diversity, skills and well-being of employees,
• Environment – how a company seeks to reduce its environmental impacts,
• Community – how a company supports, recruits from, trades with and engages with local areas of social need.

When completing the application, you should demonstrate how your approach to responsible business and the impact you are having is touching on these four areas.

If your company’s approach and impacts do not include all four areas, you may want to consider entering one of the more specific award categories.

For example, if you have a strong community engagement programme but no evidence to support your approach to the environment, you may be better suited to one of the categories looking at business impact in the community.