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Nineteen franchises and 26 franchisees are up for awards at this year’s workingmums.co.uk’s first Top Franchise Awards celebrating the best family friendly franchisors and franchisees.
The Awards, sponsored by HSBC and Encouraging Women into Franchising, recognise franchisors both big and small who have empowered women in business – not only by providing a successful flexible business model, but by giving franchisees the advice and support they need to succeed. There is also an award celebrating the achievements of franchisees which is voted for by the public. Voting is open until 1st April and so far around 4,000 people have voted.
The 2018 Top Franchise Awards winners will be announced in an online ceremony on 17th May 2018 and will be judged by Gillian Nissim, Founder of Workingmums.co.uk; David Kerrigan, Franchise Director at HSBC Bank plc; Amy Leite, Associate Solicitor at Aquabridge Law; and Helen Walbey, National Policy Chair for Health & Diversity at the Federation of Small Businesses.
The ceremony will include an awards presentation and a Q&A session with franchise experts. This event provides a great platform to celebrate passion and achievement within the franchise industry.
The six Award Categories are:
Supportive Franchisor Award – acknowledging franchises that offer the best advice and support to franchisees from the start of their journey and throughout. Shortlisted are: Bluebird Care, Bright & Beautiful, Pink Spaghetti, Creation Station, Little Squigglers, Kalma Baby, Artventurers, Rhythm Time, Dog First Aid Franchise Ltd, Kidslingo Ltd, Pyjama Drama and diddi dance.
Best Newcomer Award – recognising new flexible businesses that are growing fast, that are making themselves known in the marketplace and show great future potential. Shortlisted are: Kalma Baby, Mini Athletics, Little Movers, The Story Frog and Fun Fest Franchising (UK) Ltd.
Overall Top Franchise Award – which will be selected from all the above categories, and will take into account innovation, growth, support and the provision of a flexible business concept.
Franchisee of the Year Award – voted by the public to recognise franchisees for their achievements in the last 12 months. From exceptional customer service to overcoming challenges, the public will vote on the franchisee they feel deserves recognition.
Gillian Nissim, founder of Workingmums.co.uk, said: “We are delighted at the quality of entries to this our third year of the Top Franchise Awards. The Awards run in tandem with our Top Employer Awards, which were created to acknowledge the very best in flexible working and diversity and we believe that there is much that employers can learn from these flexible, family friendly business models. Our surveys show that self employment is an avenue that many women are interested in exploring in order to get more control over their work life balance and because they are interested in the challenge presenting by going it alone – and Workingmums.co.uk offers a lot of advice, information and case studies for those who do in recognition of those challenges. The best franchises offer both the benefits of self employment, but without some of the risks associated with striking out alone since franchisors have already demonstrated the viability of their business models.”
Andrew Brattesani, UK Head of Franchising at HSBC, said: “We are delighted to be sponsoring the Workingmums.co.uk Top Franchis
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