HR in Wales Awards 2026
Winning the Learning and Development Award at the HR in Wales Awards 2026 marks a significant milestone for Siderise. This insight shares how a values‑led approach to leadership development is strengthening capability, confidence, and culture across the business.
What did Siderise win at the HR in Wales Awards 2026?
Siderise won the Learning and Development Award, recognising the impact of its leadership development approach. We were also shortlisted for the Individual Impact and Rising Star categories, reflecting the wider strength of our people and culture strategy.
Why did Siderise enter the awards?
Leadership development is a core part of Siderise’s long‑term commitment to building organisational capability, succession, and cultural confidence. Operating in a specialist manufacturing and life-safety critical construction product environment, we depend on strong, consistent leadership to support technical excellence, safety, collaboration, and performance.
Entering the awards provided an opportunity to benchmark this work externally and demonstrate how a values‑led, structured approach to learning can deliver tangible cultural and commercial outcomes.
What challenge was Siderise addressing?
When the leadership development journey began, Siderise lacked a consistent leadership framework and clear development pathways. Employee feedback highlighted gaps in leadership capability, and learning was not well connected to onboarding, performance management, or progression.
The challenge was to build a scalable, effective solution with a small internal L&D function - while still delivering meaningful change across the organisation.
It’s helped me understand how different parts of a façade system interact, especially at junctions which are often complex. I’m naturally curious about how things go together, and that’s shaped my approach to fire safety. While specialists bring deep technical insight, I think being a generalist allows me to connect the dots and ask different questions seeing things from different perspectives and raising additional considerations.
What approach did Siderise take?
Instead of introducing isolated programmes, Siderise built a connected values‑led leadership development ecosystem aligned to not only how we operate day‑to‑day but which also supported future readiness and a consistent leadership culture across the organisation.
This included:
Clear leadership pathways linked to career progression.
Three core programmes: ASPIRE (aspiring leaders), RISE (operational leaders) and ELEVATE (senior leaders and executives).
Short, practical learning embedded into everyday work.
Coaching and mentoring
Integration with onboarding, performance reviews, and succession planning.
External partnerships and funding were used strategically to extend impact, while maintaining strong internal ownership and cultural alignment.
What were the outcomes and how has this impacted the business?
Learning is now clearly linked to real‑world application and by moving away from ad‑hoc, compliance‑led training to structured leadership pathways, Siderise has strengthened leadership capability.
The result is a complete, scalable development framework supporting leadership capability at every level of the organisation. Leaders report greater confidence, clearer communication, and stronger decision‑making.
Crucially, employee feedback now positions development as a cultural strength rather than a concern, with learning embedded as a visible and valued part of working at Siderise. In addition, the credibility of L&D investment decisions and accepting people development as a strategic enabler has been reinforced.
Why is winning a HR in Wales Award significant?
Alongside the CIPD, the HR in Wales Awards are among the most respected HR awards in the country. They are judged independently by experienced HR and business leaders across multiple sectors, providing external validation and confidence for customers, partners and regulators.
The awards focus on impact, not activity—recognising what has genuinely changed and why it matters. Winning confirms that Siderise’s leadership development approach delivers measurable improvements in capability, confidence, and culture, strengthening credibility with colleagues, customers, partners, and regulators.
What does this win mean to Siderise?
“This award reflects Siderise’s commitment to developing its people in a thoughtful, practical, and inclusive way. Our leaders wanted clearer expectations and support that genuinely helps them in their day‑to‑day roles—not training for training’s sake.
Winning shows that strong, scalable leadership capability can be built even with limited internal resource, as long as learning is well designed and embedded into how the business works. I’m incredibly proud of how our leaders have embraced development and turned it into a positive driver of culture, confidence, and performance.”
— Gemma Littlejohns, L&D Business Partner
“When we set out to create a more professional and strategically aligned approach to learning and development, I never imagined it would lead so quickly to recognition like this. It’s a testament to the impact the strategy is already having across our business globally—and this is just the beginning.”
— Mark Hendy, Chief HR Officer
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