Top culture awards for North East firms

A Newcastle hair and beauty salon has scooped an award for top workplace culture at a recent awards event.

At Sisters Hair and Beauty won the Special Award at the Service Network’s Culture for Success Awards and was highly commended in the Small Award category.

Now in its 10th year, the Culture for Success Awards gives credit to companies of all sizes based on their ability to achieve success and be innovative with the resources available.

The awards – open to any company irrespective of sector, specialism or size – showcases the expertise, talent and passion in the region over the last 12 months.

Family run At Sisters was praised for its ‘all-round successful culture’, which has afforded the business a very low staff turnover.

Judges said that “for the size of the organisation… (they were) blown away by the investment that is made in staff training and personal development with regional, national and international opportunities.”

The business was also highly commended for the Small Award as it “identified new revenue streams, and diversified the services they offer, to successfully generate new business.”

At Sisters was founded as The Hair Cabin by Margaret Emmonds in 1975 and many years later, it inspired her daughters Claire (36) and Joanne (33) to follow her into the trade, qualifying in hairdressing and beauty therapy respectively. With her daughters by her side Margaret’s salon became a family affair and At Sisters launched in 2007.

Margaret said: “We’re thrilled to have been recognised for valuing and developing our employees. There’s a lot of young creative talent in the salon and it can only improve when it’s nurtured. We have invested significantly in our staff, who have excelled this year, achieving significant personal growth thanks to the fantastic training opportunities they’ve had.

“Just this year two staff members secured places on L’Oreal ID artistic teams. It is the most sought after educational programme for talented and inspired hairdressers and having two of the team selected is unprecedented in the industry. It reflects the standard of our team and the effort invested in their development.

“It is a real joy to have Claire and Joanne run the salon and my other daughter Suzanne offering business and social media advice in her spare time. Awards like this just make it that extra special.”

Neil Warwick, chair of Service Network said: “The Culture for Success Awards are about the people who make companies work. The Awards recognise the impact that motivated engaged employees have on customer service and ultimately profitability. We should be extremely proud to have these innovative winning businesses based in the North East.”

Sponsors for this year’s Awards were Newcastle Business School at Northumbria University, Gateshead College, NCFE, Spark and Barclays.

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