South West College picked up another top accolade at the Irish News Workplace & Employment Awards in Titanic Belfast recently. The College was the overall winner of the Public Sector Work-Life, Health & Wellbeing category and the College was highly praised for its positive engagement with staff and its cross campus collaboration.
Two particular initiatives were highlighted for commendation; the Health & Well-being Programme and the Leadership and Learning Programme for their fresh approach to empowering employee relations.
The judges were looking for public sector organisations that demonstrated a planned approach to implementing work-life balance, health and wellbeing practices and showed exemplary initiatives to enable the workforce to continue to deliver results.
The award ceremony was attended by more than 550 people, including Dr Stephen Farry, Minister at the Department for Learning and Employment, a long-time supporter of the initiative.
They were among 20 main category and eight highly commended winners on a record-breaking night for the Irish News initiative.
"It's been another tremendous year not only for the numbers entering and attending the dinner, but for the range of sectors represented, and we're delighted that this year's Workplace & Employment Awards have been yet another runaway success," Irish News editor Noel Doran said.
DEL Minister Dr Farry said: "The aims of the Irish News Workplace & Employment Awards go hand in hand with the direction set out in my Department’s Skills Strategy for Northern Ireland, and I'm delighted to be continuing our long association with this initiative."
The awards were supported by Tughans Solicitors, the Department for Employment & Learning, PowerNI, Liberty IT, H3 Health Insurance, Ulster University and Titanic Belfast.
The ceremony was compered by BBC presented Karen Patterson, with input from Dundrum-born comedian Paddy Kielty, who later regaled the audience with an irreverent stand-up routine. The after-dinner speaker was Fintan Drury, chief executive of sports management business Platinum One, who has worked with a raft of internationally-known stars in the world of golf, rugby and football.