If you’re thinking you have a colleague who might be worthy of a New Zealand Security Award, nominate them, writes chief editor Nicholas Dynon, but make sure your nomination is a compliant and competitive one.
Nominations for the 2025 New Zealand Security Industry Awards are due to close Friday 15 August. This year will culminate in a gala awards dinner at the Grand Millennium, Auckland, on Friday 26 September.
For the past few years now I’ve published an article in the August issues of NZSM to provide advice – from my perspective – on how to make your nomination count, and with this year’s nomination deadline looming it makes sense to again reiterate the tips and tricks. If you’re planning to nominate, you should continue reading!
When I sat on the judging panel some years ago, I tended to find myself on the one-hand inspired by the many impressive nominations I saw, yet frustrated by the abundance of pretty ordinary ones.
In the vast majority of cases it wasn’t that the nominee wasn’t up to scratch, but rather that the nomination itself was either non-compliant, poorly put together, or inadequately evidenced.
Read the article in the e-magazine…
Nominating a colleague for an award is a good thing – for two reasons. Firstly, excellence should be recognised, and outstanding individuals within the industry should be celebrated. Secondly, quite simply, the more nominations submitted in a particular category the more competitive the pool and the more worthy the winner. That’s a good thing for the industry.
In this article, I offer my perspectives on what makes a competitive nomination, including some tips on how to ensure you’ve given your nominee an even chance of being among the finalists.
Ensure your nomination is compliant
If you’ve taken the effort to identify a colleague for nomination, then it’s important that you make that nomination count. A good place to start is to ensure that your nomination is fully compliant with the Conditions of Entry (Terms and Conditions). If you don’t know what these are, it’s worthwhile acquainting yourself with them.
Golden rule. Make sure your nomination is prepared and submitted well in advance of the close off date (5.00pm on Friday 15 August 2025). Late entries are not accepted, and you don’t want to take the time to prepare a nomination only for it to be disqualified at the starting blocks.
“I’ve seen too many nominations that failed to follow the required format. Worse still, I’ve seen too many where the nomination was nothing more than a short paragraph two or three sentences in length.”
The other key dates to keep in mind are April 2024 to June 2025. Nominations must relate to work, employment or activity carried out within this 15-month period. By all means mention relevant pre-April 2024 milestones for backstory and context, but avoid going too far down that rabbit hole. The judges are required to assess work and achievements that fall specifically within the past 15 months.
Each nomination must contain a fully completed nomination form in the format provided, including a testimonial not exceeding 1,200 characters describing why “the nominee has the attributes and professional experience that would make them a deserving recipient of the award”. Supporting information may be uploaded with each nomination but limited to two files per nomination with a maximum file size of 2MB per file.
I’ve seen too many nominations that failed to follow the required format. Worse still, I’ve seen too many where the nomination was nothing more than a short paragraph two or three sentences in length. Something like this gives the judges nothing to assess. It’s an immediate fail.
The most disappointing example of this I’ve seen was in relation to a nominee who I believe would likely have won their category if their nominator had gone to the effort of writing more than just a sentence or two. In the interests of fairness, the judges can only consider information in the papers before them even if they are otherwise aware of the exploits of the nominee.
Put in the effort; aim for excellence
The New Zealand Security Awards are all about recognising and celebrating excellence. If you don’t aim for and achieve excellence in your preparation of a nomination, then it logically follows that the judges will struggle to see excellence in your nominee.
I recommend that you read the tips on the NZSA website’s Nomination Information and Conditions of Entry pages. They contain useful tips.
“Take care to avoid getting side-tracked with superfluous or unnecessary information and detail. None of the categories require the nominee to enjoy footy or boating in their spare time.”
One of these is to directly address each of the ‘recognition requirements’ specified in the category criteria in a clear and concise manner. For example, in the Guarding Sector Trainee of the Year category, the category criteria require the individual to demonstrate that:
This award recognises an individual who has made outstanding progress in professional development and training for their role in the guarding sector of the security industry. They will have displayed commitment towards training and achieving results though the NZQA national qualification framework. The recipient will be a person who is self-motivated, sets goals and aspires to progress their security career.
The NZSA recommends that responses to each of the recognition requirements be addressed individually, in the order listed within the Category Criteria (with the use of headings or bullet points to ensure they are easy to follow), and as clearly and concisely as possible.
If we were to split the above example into its individual recognition requirements, I’d suggest that this results in:
- Progress in professional development and training,
- Achieving results through the NZQA framework, and
- Self-motivated, and career goaloriented.
Read the category criteria carefully. The two trainee categories, for example, require that the nominee has “displayed commitment towards training and achieving results through the NZQA national qualification framework.” If you’re thinking of nominating someone for this category, confirm that they are indeed displaying commitment towards NZQA training rather than forms of training not relevant to that framework.
In order to systematically and fairly assess nominations, the judges award points in relation to each of the specified recognition requirements. It is therefore very important that each one is responded to.
It’s also important to demonstrate exactly how a nominee meets each of the recognition requirements by way of specific examples, stories and references. These can be supported by attachments to the nomination. Note that the Testimonial field on the online nomination form allows for a maximum of only 1,200 characters, so make the most of attachments (two documents with a maximum file size of 2MB).
If this sounds like a whole lot of effort, that’s because it is! The judges do not want to be reading War and Peace, but putting a nomination together does require you to get a reasonable amount of information across in a convincing way. Don’t underestimate the task.
Be prepared to write, but stay on message. Take care to avoid getting side-tracked with superfluous or unnecessary information and detail. None of the categories require the nominee to enjoy footy or boating in their spare time.
Don’t undersell your nominee, but be careful to avoid making hyperbolic statements about them without associated evidence. Overuse of superlatives and hyperbole cheapens a nomination and calls into question its credibility.
For example, if your customer champion nominee is indeed “viewed as providing a substantial and quantifiable benefit to the customers business operations”, then how so? What are some specific examples of the quantifiable benefits your nominee has provided?
Think about the type of evidence you should be submitting to back up your claims. The evidence should be as objective as possible. Relevant metrics/statistics and external stakeholder testimonials can constitute compelling evidence, but they can take time to collect – so don’t leave your nomination to the last minute.
I concur with the NZSA’s recommendation that you get your nomination proof read by a third party prior to it being submitted, ensuring that it reads well, addresses all of the category criteria and effectively ‘sells’ the merits of the nominee. This is critically important – a second pair of eyes can make all the difference.
Also, be aware that there may have been some slight changes to the assessment descriptors in some of the categories since the last time you put together a nomination. Make sure you’re nominating your nominee against the current criteria!
A word about categories
There are 18 categories to choose from, which seems like a lot. But given the diversity of sectors and roles within the industry, it’s not a long list. Take care to select the most appropriate category for your nominee.
That being said, sometimes a nominee might – in your opinion – be a potential contender across more than one category. There’s no harm in submitting separate nominations for the one individual across multiple categories, but if you do just make sure that each of the nominations are tailored to the specific category criteria.
For the NZSA, getting the categories right is a perennial challenge, and in recent years there’s been plenty of tweaking in this regard. Categories such as ‘Cash Services Professional of the Year’ and ‘Visionary Leadership’, for example, were jettisoned a couple of years back in favour of the newer categories of ‘Customer Champion of the Year’ and ‘Security Specialist of the Year’.
“There’s no harm in submitting separate nominations for the one individual across multiple categories, but if you do just make sure that each of the nominations are tailored to the specific category criteria.”
Last year’s “Outstanding MSD Placement Candidate of the Year” category, which had replaced 2023’s “Outstanding Skills for Industry Employee of the Year” category, has been axed this year. This has resulted in there being one less category this year compared to last.
Such changes occur for any number of reasons, including changes to industry programmes, evolutionary changes in practices, feedback from the industry and whether or not the category attracts a sufficient number of nominations. Change is the natural order of things, so don’t assume a category you’ve previously nominated someone in is either unchanged or still there at all.
If in doubt, have a go!
There can be a lot of preconceived ideas when it comes to the awards. Some people see them though a tall poppy syndrome lens, while others see them as little more than a marketing exercise. Such perceptions are unreasonably cynical and wrong.
Some employers don’t nominate their people for awards because they think that an award-winning employee is more likely to be poached by competitors. If that’s their fear, they’re clearly doing something wrong.
Disappointingly, there are some conspiracy theorists in the industry who peddle the fiction that awards sponsors are somehow more likely to end up winning an award. If you look at the list of 2023 or 2024 sponsors, you’ll see that many of them didn’t actually field any nominees or record a win. Such baseless speculation is dumb, and it does a disservice to the industry and, in particular, to the volunteer judging panel.
There also exists a misperception that only nominees who are ‘super heroes’ win awards. This is false. In the main, finalists and winners are really just people who meet the category criteria really well through their commitment and hard work.
For the Patrol Officer and Security Officer of the Year categories specifically, the criteria do state that the award recognises excellence, commitment and professionalism “including service to customers and outstanding acts.” And here we do often find amazing stories of bravery, compassion, and heroism, although they are not a prerequisite.
“Disappointingly, there are some conspiracy theorists in the industry who peddle the fiction that awards sponsors are somehow more likely to end up winning an award.”
Results in recent years do seem to indicate that “outstanding acts” tend to trump “service to customers”, and the measure of “outstanding” is often pegged to the level of danger faced by the nominee during the act in question.
In Australia, such acts are covered by the Australian Security Valour Medal (ASVM), a category within the Australian Security Medals Foundation (ASMF) Awards, which, in turn, is part of the annual Australian Security Industry Awards. In my opinion, acts of valour or heroism are indeed worthy of a medal, and – as I wrote last year – I believe there is a case for a similar annual medals-based award in Aotearoa New Zealand in accordance with a framework similar to the ASMF.
It’s worthwhile noting, however, that recipients of the NZSA’s Saved a Life Medal (which are awarded at times during the year) will be honoured with a roll call at the New Zealand Security Awards night and automatically included as a nominee under the appropriate award category.
Lastly, if you haven’t nominated someone for an award previously, have a go. The New Zealand Security Awards is an important annual event not just because it’s a stage upon which to acknowledge high performing colleagues. It’s a showcase of our industry to the broader community, and an enduring record of the wonderful stories of excellence expressed in the nominations you submit.
Make this the year you get nominating. If you’re thinking about nominating a colleague but you’re a little unsure whether to do so, just do it!
