If you want to know a thing or two about the Silver Leaf Awards, look no further than Fraser Health’s Communications and Public Affairs Team. Together, they’ve won two merit awards and one award of excellence.
With the application deadline—July 5th—fast approaching, we asked the team to share what they’ve learned.
1. You don’t have to go it alone.
“For us, it really is a team effort. We rely on different colleagues to pull data and analytics from a variety of sources. [T]hen we usually have a few people buckle down and do the writing while others are putting together a nice looking work sample.”
2. Don’t procrastinate until the night before.
“Get started! It is a labour-intensive process and for some reason, no matter how early we begin, it always feels like we just barely squeak them in.
3. You’ll further your professional development whether you win or not.
“The awards submission process really helps crystalize the essential elements of good professional communication planning, and…is [an] excellent professional development [opportunity] for our team.”
And, if you win an award, it really reinforces the strength of your work.
“Measurement in health communications is sometimes really tricky so winning a measurement award was also awesome! It felt like we really advanced our measurement practice with this one and that was a great feeling.”
4. The feedback is worth its weight in gold.
“The feedback you receive from judged awards is really valuable. It’s worth the price of entry on its own!”
All submissions receive feedback from the evaluators, regardless of whether the entry is a winner or not. It’s a fantastic way to identify areas of improvement and understand what it takes to put together an award-winning entry.
5. It’s important to take time to recognize your achievements.
“A lot of excellent professional communications work goes unnoticed and uncelebrated because it takes time to set up projects well, evaluate them, and then finally articulate the results. Celebrating a job well done is important and this is a great way of doing that.”
There’s still time to submit an application for this year’s Silver Leaf Awards—click here to learn more.
