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The Australian HR Awards 2024 honour standout HR professionals amid challenges, transformation
As we celebrate the achievements of this year’s HR Awards recipients, it’s important to take a moment to reflect on the broader landscape of human resources in Australia. The past year has been one of significant transformation, driven by evolving workplace trends and emerging technologies.
One of the most defining trends has been the growing discussion around hybrid and flexible work models. This shift has placed new pressures on HR teams, from developing policies that balance business needs with employee preferences to fostering collaboration and culture across dispersed teams.
Talent acquisition and retention remain ongoing challenges for HR leaders, with many industries facing critical skill shortages. In response, there’s been a growing emphasis on skills-based hiring as companies shift their focus from traditional qualifications to specific competencies and experience. Upskilling and reskilling initiatives have also gained momentum as organisations strive to develop their workforces from within.
Technology – especially the role of artificial intelligence in HR processes – has been another game changer. While AI is transforming recruitment, performance management and employee engagement, HR leaders are tasked with balancing technological innovation with ethical considerations, ensuring transparency, fairness and a human touch in all processes. Amid these trends and challenges, Australian HR professionals continue to rise to the occasion, driving innovation in the workplace while keeping employee wellbeing at the core.
And once again, the 2024 Australian HR Awards recognised the hard work and achievements of individuals and teams across the nation’s human resources industry over the past year.
Held in Sydney for the 11th year, the awards covered 20 categories, including HR Director of the Year, HR Rising Star of the Year, HR Champion of the Year (CEO), as well as several team and program awards.
“This is HR’s night. They deserve recognition. It’s a beautiful thing, very powerful,” said Anwar Khalil, the CEO of headline awards sponsor and HR technology provider Martian Logic. “Professionals like the ones recognised tonight at these awards provide solutions and benefit companies. This is a huge task.”
Janani D’Silva, who heads the HR team at Capgemini Australia and New Zealand, won HR Manager of the Year for 2024.
“HR is a team sport,” she said. “There is no one person who stands out. It’s nice to be propped up by a huge group of colleagues.”
Sue Stone of the Australian Financial Complaints Authority accepted the award for HR Team of the Year for an organisation with more than 1,000 employees.
“We have an incredible, hard-working team that really care about our employees,” she said, pointing to DEI, health and wellbeing and leave-enhancement programs. “Our people really respect and appreciate that.”
People and culture are at the heart of what Midnight Health does, according to the award sponsor’s CEO and founder, Nic Blair.
“Recognising the people who look after people is at the core of what we like to do as a business and why we support the awards.”
We would like to thank everyone who submitted a nomination, along with acknowledging our esteemed panel of judges for lending their time and expertise to the endeavour.
After another great year, we look forward to presenting another successful awards show in 2025!
Thank you, Australian HR, for welcoming us into your industry, and we’re honoured to be the main sponsor of this event.
We sponsored this event because our mission at Martian Logic is to see every HR team in Australia taking their rightful place on the decision table and making strategic differences for their organisations. We believe that organisations could never reach their full potential if their HR was not part of their overall strategy. Leaders have to invite HR to the management team and invest in technology in order to put their money where their mouth is and send the right message: “We value our HR team, and we want them and expect them to do strategic HR work”.
Our mission is to empower HR teams by making sure their ‘operational HR is humming’ so they’re freed to focus on their strategic work and ultimately win at it and make a significant impact on their organisations’ future success. How do we do it? Well, the first thing that we do is create the best-in-the-world Manager-Self-Service tools to reduce the bottleneck from HR!
Anwar Khalil
CEO
Martian Logic
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Nominations
A nationwide call for nominations was conducted from 15 April to 17 May 2024 using HRD Australia's online channels.
Research and selection of Excellence Awardees
The Australian HR Awards team reviewed the submissions and drew on industry knowledge and information gained through HRD Australia’s connections to the HR profession to identify the outstanding teams and individuals in each category who would receive an Excellence Award.
Confirmation of Excellence Awardees
Once the research was completed, Excellence Awardees were selected in each category and notified by email. Excellence Awardees were also announced on HRD’s website.
Judging
The Australian HR Awards team provided full details of each Excellence Awardee to an independent panel of judges, comprising HR industry leaders and senior representatives. The judges are well known and well respected in the industry, and their judgement is impartial, balanced, incisive and fair. Any judge with a conflict of interest in a particular category recused themselves from judging that category. Judges reviewed the Excellence Awardee submissions and allocated a score to each Excellence Awardee. The Excellence Awardee with the highest score in each category once the judging process was completed was named the winner of that category.
Awards ceremony
The winners in each category were announced at the Australian HR Awards official gala event and awards ceremony on 13 September 2024 at The Fullerton Hotel Sydney. Winners were also published on HRD Australia’s website.
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