A blockbuster achievement: UKG recognises 7 award-winning innovators at UKG Connect 25

UKG, a leading provider of HR, payroll, workforce management, and culture solutions, proudly announced the winners of the Customer Excellence Awards at UKG Connect 2025 last night. The awards recognise organisations that use UKG workplace technology and solutions across seven different categories to inspire employees, build outstanding workplaces, and drive exceptional business results.

The prestigious awards ceremony took place at BAFTA 195 Piccadilly in London, embracing the evening’s cinematic theme to honour organisations delivering BAFTA-worthy performances in workplace innovation.

This year’s winners include:

2 Sisters Food Group - ROI/Benefits: 2 Sisters Food Group has demonstrated significant quantifiable business benefits using UKG solutions. By implementing time and attendance across eight sites, they have achieved significant financial savings, as well as reducing non-clocking processing time by 600+ hours. The adoption of the UKG Pro mobile app has reached 95%, further streamlining their operations and improving employee availability and visibility.

Adidas - Building a Great Workplace: Adidas has been recognised for their efforts in building a strong workplace culture and strategy. Adidas conducted a comprehensive product review involving managers, HR admins, and store employees in their Spanish market.

Biomarin - Operational Excellence Award: Biomarin has achieved improved operational efficiency by integrating multiple systems with UKG solutions. Their comprehensive transformation of internal processes has resulted in significant improvements in payroll accuracy and efficiency. Biomarin’s proactive approach and collaboration with UKG has set a new benchmark for operational excellence.

Celonis - The Global Employee Excellence Award –: Celonis has been recognised for their outstanding achievement in improving the global employee experience using the UKG One View™ multi-country payroll suite. By unifying payroll delivery methods across 16 countries and integrating sophisticated reporting capabilities, Celonis has optimised payroll processes and enhanced decision-making.

Costa Coffee - Innovation Evangelist: Costa Coffee has leveraged UKG’s AI-powered recruitment recommendations to optimise their hiring processes. By adopting UKG’s AI Capacity Planning, Costa Coffee has improved recruitment efficiency, reduced costs, and enhanced labour requirement visibility. This use of UKG Strategic Workforce Planning has allowed them to hire the right number of staff at the right time and retain existing employees more effectively.

Greggs & Axsium - Best Ensemble Award: Greggs has been honoured for their standout implementation project in partnership with Axsium. By involving their teams in decision-making and holding listening sessions with colleagues, Greggs and Axsium together have successfully launched UKG solutions in their store operations. This collaborative approach between an outstanding customer and longstanding partner, has set the stage for long-term success and operational excellence.

Network Rail - Workplace Transformation: Network Rail chose UKG to revolutionise their workforce management, rostering, and fatigue practices. By onboarding over 23,000 employees into a unified workforce management platform, Network Rail has increased productivity and visibility across their operations. The integration of the UKG Pro^® Workforce Management suite has enabled Network Rail to manage fatigue proactively, improve payroll processes, and enhance overall operational efficiency, ultimately benefiting millions of passengers.

Commenting on this year’s awards, Russell Howe, Group Vice President EMEA Sales at UKG says: "Celebrating the incredible work our customers are doing to create better workplaces and drive tangible business results is important. This year’s winners go beyond using workforce management technology as a tactical tool – instead they’re cultivating cultures and workplace experiences that truly reflect their organisation’s core purpose. From enhancing operational efficiency to building stronger, more engaged teams, these organisations are leading the way in workplace innovation. We’re proud to support them on their journey to create workplaces that work for everyone."

About UKG

At UKG, our purpose is people. We are on a mission to inspire every organisation to become a great place to work through HCM technology built for all. More than 80,000 customers across all sizes, industries, and geographies trust UKG HR, payroll, workforce management, and culture cloud solutions to drive great workplace experiences and make better, more confident people and business decisions. With the world’s largest collection of people data, work data, and culture data combined with rich experience using artificial intelligence in the service of people, we connect culture insights with business outcomes to show what’s possible when organisations invest in their people.

To learn more, visit www.ukg.co.uk/