UK WORKER OF THE YEAR RETURNS FOR 2011 – BIGGER AND BETTER THAN EVER!

Dickies UK is delighted to announce the return of the UK Worker Of the Year Competition for 2011, which launches today, May 3rd – bigger and even better than last year. The nationwide, feel-good award scheme will once again be searching for the workers that exemplify what doing a good job is all about and Dickies has expanded and enhanced the competition for 2011 to help better reach and reward the UK workforce. The inaugural UK Worker of the Year attracted hundreds of entries from all parts of the UK and from across the entire spectrum of the UK workforce. The finalists ranged from Care Workers to Carpenters and from Auto Technicians to Gardeners, with the eventual winner being a Fire Protection Officer from Kent, John Stone. John joins the judging panel for 2011, which will again be chaired by TV Presenter Quentin Willson, who is delighted to be back. "UK Worker of the Year is the perfect competition for us to find and recognise the very best of Britain's workforce, " he explained. “The majority of last year’s entries really exemplified what we were looking for in the search for the UK’s Worker of the Year and this year, I’m sure, will deliver more of the same.” Once again the UK’s Worker of the Year will have a choice of car or van as part of their prize for winning the title and there will be holidays for the runners up as well as various products from the Dickies range of high quality workwear. There is also already a further new partner for 2011 with leading tool brand, Makita joining the scheme and Makita products will also form part of various prize packages this year. As in 2010 there will also be monthly Worker of the Month (“People’s Choice”) awards, with anyone who enters being eligible for a popular vote and with some excellent prizes on offer each month for the winner. The marketing package for UK Worker of the Year for 2011 has expanded beyond 2010’s advertising and PR campaign. Social Networking will form a major part of the drive towards helping spread the word, with the initiative fully embracing both Facebook and Twitter. “We are investing heavily in new areas, to promote the scheme this year,” explains Williamson-Dickie Europe Marketing Director, Maurice Morton. “The competition got people talking in 2010, but there were new things developing with it all the time and we wanted more and faster interaction with people this year, to allow them to get even more involved.” There will be new developments to the competition coming directly through Facebook and Twitter, which will host additional UK Worker activities unique to them – many with their own prize packages and other benefits.” In addition, this year there will be an intense trade driven element to UK Worker of the Year with a major point of sale campaign through various Dickies distributors nationwide aimed at further boosting awareness of the competition and attracting entries. Linked into this, Dickies is also launching an award scheme for its own distributors and the finalists for both competitions will be hosted at a gala Awards Finale in early November. “We see this as being complementary to the existing Worker of the Year initiative” continued, Maurice Morton. “And in fact, we’ve taken it one step further, because part of the judging as to who will be our UK Distributor of the Year is actually based on how well the outlet in question promotes the UK Worker of the Year scheme to its customers.” UK Worker of the Year went live for entries today, May 3rd and nominations for the competition, which again is free to enter, will be open to any UK worker aged 17 or over from then until August 31st. Full details can be found at the UK Worker of the Year website www.ukworkeroftheyear.com The new facebook site can be located at http://www.facebook.com/ukworkeroftheyear And the Twitter site is at : http://twitter.com#!/UKWOTY