Sodexo shines a light on its stars at glittering awards ceremony
Sodexo UK & Ireland welcomed 600 colleagues to a glittering awards ceremony at the ACC Liverpool last night to celebrate excellence at its annual Spirit of Sodexo Awards 2022 and tonight will be celebrating an amazing 4,320 years with 191 of its long service recipients.
The Spirit of Sodexo Awards, the first in-person awards dinner since 2019, was held at the ACC Liverpool, with guests served a delicious three-course meal by the venue’s catering and hospitality team Sodexo Live!
Guest host, Sue Perkins, was joined on stage by Sodexo’s Region CEO, Sean Haley and Sodexo ambassador, broadcaster and rugby world cup winner, Matt Dawson, to present the awards. Three special awards were handed out on the night these were:
- Employee of the Year: John McAllister. John, store manager for Sodexo’s energy & resources business. John is responsible for the warehousing, stores and logistics for Sodexo’s offshore teams, he ensures everything the teams need offshore get to them and has a rapidly changing environment to contend with as transportation is reliant on the tides, weather, hauliers, vessels and helicopters.
- Manager of the Year: Lorraine Thomas. Lorraine is deputy business director for Sodexo Health & Care at Queen's Hospital Romford, she joined the team in December 2020. The hospital was one of the busiest covid hospitals at the time. Lorraine, who joined from Sodexo’s corporate services business, has impacted on all areas of the business, she has greatly impressed the client and cemented Sodexo’s high employee engagement score at the hospital.
- Region CEO special award: Steve Jones, deputy security and car-parking manager at Queen's Hospital Romford and the security team at the hospital. Over the last couple of years, Steve and the security team have ensured the health, safety and wellbeing of the staff and patients at one of the busiest covid hospitals. The Trust has commended their collaborative approach and ability to challenge when needed.
What an amazing night, and so great to be able to do this in person again.
We had over 1,000 nominations for this year’s awards and the judges had a tough job choosing our winners.
I am exceptionally proud of all our nominees, finalists and winners.
At Sodexo we have three core values: team spirit, service spirit and spirit of progress – this is the essence of who we are.
It is not just about what we do, it’s how we do it, and these awards enable us to recognise and celebrate our people and to say thank you for all they do, every day for our clients, our colleagues and for the communities in which we live and work.
The 15 other Spirit of Sodexo award winners were:
- Team of the year: Colchester Garrison, government
- Lifetime achievement: Andy Bamford, energy & resources
- Rising star: Jake Hayman, service operations
- Positive impact: Sodexo Live! Blackburn Rovers team
- Spirit of inclusion: Lynne Gilchrist, client retention team
- Quality of life: Jean Emralino, The Good Care Group
- Spirit of progress: Paul Hughes, brand & communications
- Excellence in health and safety: Aiden Chambers, energy & resources
- Excellence in food services: Lizzie Arber, Sodexo Live!
- Excellence in FM: 1HQ team from corporate services
- Excellence in Customer service: Samantha Holden. schools & universities
- Excellence in Operational efficiency: UCL team, schools & universities
- Nurturing talent; Lea Eastman-Thompson, schools & universities
- Growth & retention: Matthew Gawthrop, government
- Living our values: Julie Whitelock, schools & universities
Sodexo’s annual Long Service Awards (10 Nov) was also held at the ACC Liverpool. 151 colleagues celebrating 20 years’ service, 31, 30 years, 8, 40 years and one colleague celebrating an amazing 50 years’ long service are set to enjoy a fun-filled day marking the occasion includes a special lunch followed by an activity of their choice at either the Tate Liverpool, Beatles Story tour, Maritime Museum or Junkyard Golf, followed by dinner and evening entertainment at the ACC Liverpool.
We are humbled to have so many colleagues who have chosen to stay with us for so many years.
Our annual long service awards event gives us the chance to say thank you for their hard work, loyalty and commitment.
This year we are celebrating colleagues who have been with us 20, 30 and 40 years and we even have a colleague celebrating an amazing 50 years’ service.
Our teams work every day to deliver excellent services for our clients and are the heart of our business.
Each has their own Sodexo story to tell and I look forward every year to meeting with them and hearing these stories.