Tips to write a winning nomination

Following are some tips to help you write a successful nomination:

Really talk about how the individual’s or team’s specific contribution(s) moved IIa toward its vision or helped the company meet its daily vision.  If you can write about specific achievements, that is a stronger submission than talking about the general traits of a person.  The committee really needs to be able to see something measurable…something that moved the company toward being the benchmark of excellence. 

Don’t just talk about how well a person achieves their daily job.  Because we are a high-performance company, people achieving their daily jobs very well are numerous.  Think about how to write the nomination to show how your nominee goes above and beyond daily, high-performance requirements.

Section 2.  “In accomplishing this, the nominee demonstrated the following IIa values (one or more):”

A. The more values you can write about, the stronger the nomination.  Think about it.  If someone’s demonstrated eight of the values in accomplishing what you are nominating them for, that is stronger than if they only demonstrated two or three of the values.

B. Be sure that what you write about each value actually corresponds with what IIa says the value means to the company (see the values web pages for clarification).  For instance, don’t say that someone was told to do something and then they did it and that shows empowerment.  It doesn’t.   Instead, talk about how the nominee either empowers others by giving them the freedom to do their job, or how the person demonstrates empowerment by being willing to take a task and run with it.

C. If nominating an individual, review the values recognitions for that person on the IIa website (http://www.iiaweb.com/about/values.shtml).  Those can provide some starter text or some ideas.  Just be sure that what you include in the nomination form is clearly related to the contribution for which you are nominating the person.

D. Be sure that you talk about any recognition the employee(s) received from both internal and external customers throughout the year.

The annual deadline for nominations is August 1st.  You can find the award nomination form at www2.iiaweb.com/nominate/index.html.