Categories and classes

All campaigns should include a variety of messages/media rather than a single means of delivery. 

Best Change/Transformation Communication
This is for campaigns that have supported a specific change/transformation initiative. This may include cultural shifts, operating-model redesign, policy changes, workplace modernisation, AI adoption, technology rollouts, mergers and acquisitions, leadership transitions, or responses to specific events or crises. We want to understand how you worked across the organisation to anticipate impacts, align stakeholders, and equip people with the clarity, confidence, and support needed to navigate change.

Best Employee Experience Programme
This class is for a campaign that shows how internal communication has supported the organisation in creating a great employee experience.  Show us how you have collaborated with key partners such as HR to deliver IC programmes and channels to create and embed an Employer Value Proposition (EVP). How does internal communication support them throughout the employee lifecycle? How does IC contribute to a workplace where colleagues enjoy working and feel able to give their best?  How does IC contribute to a sense of wellbeing and connection?

Best Engagement Programme
Here you should be able to demonstrate not only how you have communicated the subject to colleagues, but how you have engaged them through a variety of means. Measurement of changes seen as a result of the programme are critical in this category.

Best Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Campaign
This class is for campaigns with equality, diversity and inclusion at their heart. We are looking for examples of great internal communication which has played a role in creating a more diverse and inclusive organisation and is able to demonstrate its impact in shaping and driving equality, diversity and inclusion through conversation, behaviour change, alignment to organisational goals and company values.

Best Global Communications Campaign
This class is for those campaigns that cross borders, literally. We’re looking for examples of fantastic internal communication with one message across an international or global reach. The campaign needs to have been executed well, taking into account the cultural differences of different workforces, potential issues with time zones, and language barriers. We are keen to see the collaboration across countries, this could be with internal communications counterparts (if you have them) or leadership, to show the success of the campaign across all countries.

Best Internal and External Communication Alignment
An organisation’s reputation is delivered and enhanced by partners across the organisation. Internal Communication, working with departments such as external comms and marketing, is critical in ensuring that employees see the organisation’s brand values in all of the comms they see. This class looks at campaigns focusing on alignment between communications wherever it originates from – it could be a planned campaign or the response to a crisis/media issue. We’re looking for tangible examples of how internal communications partnered with other areas such as corporate affairs or PR, how did the internal communications demonstrate authenticity and promote trust? What were the measurable outcomes for the organisation and employees?

Best Leadership Communication Programme - Updated for 2026
This category recognises campaigns that strengthen leadership communication. We want to understand how you supported leaders to become more visible, craft clearer messages, and use channels that bring leaders and employees closer together to build a more human-centred organisation. Show what you delivered, how you equipped and guided leaders, and how you improved leaders’ confidence, clarity, and connection with their people. Demonstrate how your work fostered stronger leadership trust - whether through transparency, authenticity, consistent messaging, or improved responsiveness. Highlight the impact this had on leaders, employees, and the organisation overall, including measurable shifts in trust, engagement, understanding, or belief in leadership direction.

Best Listening Programme – Updated for 2026
A truly engaged workforce is built through genuine connection and shared voice. This category celebrates programmes that bring people together, strengthen community, and ensure employees actively shape the organisation’s future. Whether through forums, co-creation, innovative listening, or ongoing feedback loops, show how you involved employees, why their input mattered, and the outcomes it delivered. Demonstrate the changes achieved and how your programme builds a more connected, human-centred organisation - one where employee involvement continues to guide future decisions. While your programme may have begun as a one-off need/campaign, we also want to see plans for ongoing involvement.

Best Ongoing Campaign
This class is primarily for entries which don’t have an ‘end’ date and may reflect business-as-usual activity.. It may be more difficult to measure the success of an on-going campaign, but you must demonstrate as clearly as possible the effort you are making to measure effectiveness.

Best Single Campaign
This class is primarily for entries which had an ‘end’ date within the awards year. You should be able to demonstrate what you were aiming to achieve with the campaign and show measurement of the results.

Best Strategic Alignment & Strategy Communication – Updated for 2026
This category recognises how you developed and delivered communication that enabled strategic alignment across your organisation. Explain your role in translating the organisational strategy into a clear, compelling narrative that built understanding, belief, and a sense of contribution among employees. Show how you clarified priorities, set measurable outcomes, and ensured relevance for different audiences. Demonstrate how you engaged leaders and stakeholders to create consistency and used research, insight, and feedback to refine messages and channels. Outline the barriers you faced and how you adapted. Most importantly, show how your work led to measurable impact, including improved strategic understanding, confidence in the direction, or behaviours aligned with organisational goals.  

Best Sustainability Campaign
More than ever employees will align themselves with an organisation that shares their values. For this class we are looking for examples of where internal communications have helped the organisation to demonstrate what it believes in with regard to sustainability in its various forms which may include climate action or employee wellbeing.  We are not looking for a one-time fix but examples of how the way the organisation operates has become embedded in the culture.

In this category we are looking for examples of work which highlight excellence in key areas which are the foundation of great internal communication.

Best Design/Imagery
We define good design as the combination of imagination with fit-for-purpose, so it’s important that you tell us about that purpose and show how the design was developed to deliver it. The design could be a specific image, or an approach to the overall look and feel of a specific channel. You can enter either a single image or a small portfolio of images and it could also include AI generated material (which must be disclosed as such). We appreciate that few organisations are likely to have evaluated the specific impact of design in the success of a channel, but we would like to see any anecdotal evidence of the effectiveness of the design as well as evidence that the overall channel has been successful.

Best Feature/Writing
This can be a feature in print or digital format but must be inspirational and creative as a standalone piece of work or writing, without the context of other content alongside it.  We define a good feature or piece of writing as the combination of creativity with fit-for-purpose, so it’s important that you tell us about that purpose and show how the feature/writing delivered it. It could be taking something complex, busting the jargon and making it easier for the audience to understand. It could be an emotive piece designed to make the audience feel. This could include AI generated material (which must be disclosed as such).

If you are entering a piece of writing for Best Feature, please ensure you submit the writing as a separate piece of evidence, not just within the submission itself.

Best Storytelling
This class is for the demonstration of where great stories have contributed to the overall effectiveness of the communication. These could be in any format – written, video, podcasts – as long as they are by/supported by internal communication for the internal audience.

New for 2026

Best AI Skills in Internal Communication
This category recognises excellence in developing and applying AI skills to strengthen internal communication strategy. We want to understand how you built the capability to assess where AI can add value, experimented with tools, and integrated AI thoughtfully into communication planning and delivery. Show how you used AI to enhance messaging, insight, personalisation, or efficiency -while maintaining clarity, accuracy, and a human-centred approach. Explain how you ensured ethical and responsible use, supported colleagues and leaders to build confidence with AI, and embedded new ways of working. Demonstrate the impact your skills delivered for communication outcomes, employee experience, and the organisation’s overall ability to adapt and innovate.

We have an increasing array of channels at our disposal – both traditional and new and emerging. This category is an opportunity to show us how you are using channels to deliver the aims and objectives of your organisation. Please do include examples of how these channels have considered accessibility requirement, ensuring they meet the needs of every audience.

Best Event
We want to hear about the overall objective and how the event was planned to meet it. Tell us also about the audience, whether that is an employee audience or for members/stakeholders, what you did, how well it worked and the impact it had. This event can be virtual, in person or hybrid. We recognise that event planning will be influenced by the number of participants, therefore when entering, please specify the audience size.

Best Community Management
This class is all about how internal communication has fostered a thriving, engaged community within your organisation. We’re looking for what the goals and purpose of the community are - enhancing collaboration, supporting knowledge sharing, or building culture. You’ll highlight the strategies used to encourage participation, as well as how you managed challenges, maintained momentum, and cultivated inclusivity and dialogue. We’ll want to see metrics like engagement rates, user feedback, and other tangible outcomes that reflect the community’s success, as well as the lasting impact on connection and communication across the organisation.

Best Intranet
Tell us what’s special about your intranet. You’ll need to show us how it has helped enhance organisational performance, or solved a problem in your organisation, or perhaps enabled new ways of working. You will need to provide some imagery of what your intranet looks like.  If you want to show the interactive elements of the intranet please ensure you include a video (could be on a mobile phone, it doesn’t have to be professionally produced) so the judges can see the intranet in action.

Best Magazine
We define a magazine as any regular publication where most of the content is taken up by feature material (of course it may also contain some news stories).  It can be any medium – print or digital. You should demonstrate how you have used this channel to further organisational objectives.

Best New or Relaunched Channel
This class is for an internal or stakeholder channel that was launched or underwent a relaunch during 2024. Give an idea of the thought process which led to the idea of a relaunch and how you went about deciding on the process. It can be any medium – print or digital. (With relaunched publications please remember to include an example of the publication before the relaunch).

Best News Channel
This channel/publication will consist mainly of news material - shorter and very topical – though of course it may also contain some longer feature stories. It can be any medium – print or digital and may also be a newspaper or newsletter. You should demonstrate how you have used this channel to further organisational objectives.

Best Podcast
In this class we are looking for excellent approaches to communicating using podcasts. We want to know why you chose this method, the format, what makes the podcast popular and how it has helped deliver the organisational objectives.

Best Video/Animation
This class is for any form of video communication, from one-off films to regular briefings. We’ll want to know why you chose the tool and how you measured its success. Please be sure to include a copy of the video/animation for the judges to see.
 

In this category we want to champion the fresh thinking in how different communication tools work together. The judging is weighted towards fresh thinking, but we still want to see how your innovation has emerged from an organisational or corporate priority, and how it has supported that priority.

Game Changer 
Entries should demonstrate a 'new' way of communicating - this may only be new to the organisation rather than the industry, but the entry should detail why it is innovative for the organisation. Show how it has changed the way your organisation communicates and engages its people.

Innovative Use of Media/Technology
Show us how you’ve responded to an organisational or corporate need with fresh thinking about the communication tools already available to you. This may also incorporate the ‘back-end’ of a system, how you built it, it could the early adoption of AI. We’ll be particularly looking for how the solution has brought the communication idea alive for your audience and deepened its impact. 

Most Innovative Content Creation

This class celebrates innovative approaches to internal communication content. It recognises work where fresh ideas and creative thinking shaped how key messages or campaigns were delivered to engage audiences. Explain the concept behind your approach and how you used new formats, technologies, or techniques to enhance impact. Judges seek examples of originality in design, tone, style, interactivity, or personalisation that set your content apart. Show why your approach was innovative for your organisation and how it could inspire future practice. Include evidence of engagement and results. AI-generated material is welcome but must be disclosed.

As part of the innovation category, we allow video submissions of no more than 3 minutes for these classes. A video on your phone is perfectly acceptable – what we really want is for you to bring the changes made to life.

Take this chance to commend your colleagues or your team by telling us why they demonstrate great IC practice. We recognise that the challenges are different for teams depending on the type of organisation they work in.

For the in-house and public sector team categories, submissions should be based on the number in the team: 1-5, 6-10 and 10+ Be sure enter the correct class and you will be asked to include a team structure.

Best In-House Team
This class is for internal comms teams working in house within an organisation. Show us how your great work has contributed to the success of the organisation. Give us an introduction to the team, how the team has worked in the past year, what has been done to deliver excellent results and how the achievement has been measured.

Best Public Sector or Not for Profit Team 
This class is for internal comms teams working in the Public or not for profit sector, where we recognise the challenges are different from those in corporate teams. Show us how your great work has contributed to the success of the organisation. Give us an introduction to the team, how the team has worked in the past year, what they have done to deliver excellent results and how the achievement has been measured.

Best Agency
For the Best Agency category, submissions should be based on the number in the agency:
Best Small Agency (1-10 people); Best Medium Agency (11-30 people); Best Large Agency (30+)

Agencies work closely with internal communication teams and are often an extension of that team. Show us how your great work has contributed to the success of those teams. Give us a short introduction to the agency, how the team has worked in the past year, what has been done to deliver excellent results and how the achievement has been measured. 
 

Entries in this category should include a brief outline of the individual’s career to date and share an outline of a project you best think represents their work and why it deserves to win.  Remember these awards are about the people and you should make sure the judges know why that individual deserves to win.

You can nominate a colleague – or enter yourself.

Best Internal Communication Newcomer
This award is for anyone new to IC (less than 3 years) who is forging a great career in internal communication. The winner of this award will demonstrate their passion for Internal Comms and commitment to shaping the future of the profession.

Internal Communication Manager of the Year
This is someone who manages internal communication within an organisation (they don’t necessarily need to manage a team of people). They know how and what to do when it comes to ensuring successful internal communication is embedded throughout an organisation. Nominate someone who can demonstrate where their work has made a difference, putting internal communication at the top of the agenda.

Internal Communication Leader of the Year
This is someone who lives and breathes internal communication. They are a complete advocate, they embody the IoIC profession map and they are excellent at collaboration. They may be an exceptional leader, influencer or technical specialist but they must demonstrate how they have made a real impact and transformed the internal communication function.