SLR is on the lookout for store superstars for the Above & Beyond Awards 2025 – so make sure you tell us about the unsung heroes in your business!
Launched last year, SLR’s Above & Beyond Awards are unlike any other awards programme because they focus exclusively on the real stars of the local retailing trade, the colleagues on the shop floor that make our sector so special.
The Awards were purposefully created to be a proud celebration of Scotland’s heroic convenience sector employees and a platform to reward and recognise the many astonishing acts that happen on a regular basis in our sector but which usually go almost entirely unnoticed.
The SLR Above & Beyond Awards 2025 will help ensure that these heroes are no longer overlooked, and we are delighted to announce The Scottish Sun as our official Media Partner for the Awards. This key partnership with Scotland’s biggest-selling newspaper will play a vital role in helping share the inspiring stories we unearth with a much wider audience of consumers.
Not only will this help remind consumers about the critical role that local retailers play at the heart of every community in Scotland, our hope is that it will also have a positive impact in helping to combat the scourge of retail crime and violence that retailers are facing every day.
The Scottish Sun joins as Media Partner
SLR is delighted to announce that The Scottish Sun, Scotland’s biggest-selling newspaper, has joined forces with the SLR Above & Beyond Awards 2025 as official Media Partner.
This important partnership will ensure that the inspirational stories we unearth through the Awards will be shared with a much larger audience, many of them shoppers in your store.
As well as highlighting the vital role that local stores play in their communities, it is also hoped that the media partnership can play a positive role encouraging shoppers to be more respectful, understanding and compassionate when visiting their local store.
Scottish Sun Editor-in-Chief Gill Smith said: “The Scottish Sun is delighted to be this year’s Media Partner for the SLR Above & Beyond Awards. It’s amazing to be able to honour the unsung work of people in the community who make a difference as well as recognise and support the vital role of convenience stores to our readers – and to communities as a whole. Local retailers are the beating heart of communities and, for some, they are a lifeline.
“We can’t wait to hear all the inspiring stories of those celebrated at the event.”
The winners and shortlisted entrants at the 2024 SLR Above & Beyond Awards demonstrated exactly why these awards are so necessary. From inspirational individual acts of kindness, compassion and selflessness to astonishing commitment to consistently going above and beyond the standard call of duty, every single colleague who attended the 2024 Awards ceremony in Glasgow was a genuine local hero.
We know that virtually every store in Scotland has an unsung hero or two and we are asking for your help in bringing them to our attention. It takes literally a minute or two to complete the nomination form – and it would be a minute or two well spent.
We can only recognise and reward those going Above & Beyond if we know about them. And as well as giving them some well-deserved recognition, it may also help inspire other colleagues across the country.
Our sector is a people sector, and our people are our biggest assets. Help us celebrate them in style and provide that vital platform showing just how special the local retailing industry is.
Whether it’s helping to raise in-store standards, turbo-charging community engagement, supporting customers in a time of need or being a superstar colleague who always has time to lend a hand or an ear – we want to hear about them.
All finalists will be invited free of charge to a celebratory lunch at the exclusive Corinthian Club in Glasgow on the 12 March 2025. Working with our generous sponsors, we will ensure that everyone joining us is treated to a magical day.
So please don’t delay, get your entries in before 15 January and give those hard-working industry colleagues the recognition they so thoroughly deserve.
- Entry deadline: 15 January 2025
- Celebratory Lunch: 12 March, The Corinthian Club, Glasgow
Award Categories
Independent Store Colleague
Sponsored by Mondelez International
Open to all colleagues working in independently owned local retailing stores in Scotland that are unaffiliated or members of any symbol group, fascia or franchise.
Company-Owned Store Colleague
Sponsored by CJ Lang/Spar Scotland
Open to all colleagues working in CJ Lang company-owned stores in Scotland.
Business Booster
Open to all colleagues who have materially improved their store’s performance by suggesting or introducing a new concept, product, service, communication method or a change in operational process.
Team Of The Year
Sponsored by Tennent’s
Open to all in-store teams which have pulled together to make a positive difference to their store’s performance and or to their community.
Up & Coming Star
Sponsored by CCEP
Open to all colleagues aged 25 or under working in any of the store formats detailed above who have shown themselves to be outstanding colleagues with a bright future in the sector ahead of them.
Long Service Award
Sponsored by Cadbury
Open to all colleagues working in any of the store formats detailed above who have worked in the sector, or a single store or chain, for an extended period of time.
Astonishing Act
Open to all colleagues working in any of the store formats detailed above who truly went Above & Beyond to perform an astonishing act that had a massive positive impact on a customer, colleague or the community.
