This year, Capability Group received three Brandon Hall Group™ HCM Excellence Awards (two Gold, one Bronze), for the work delivered alongside R.M.Williams, Palmerston North City Council, and Bstore.  

"The HCM Excellence Awards have become the most recognized benchmark for excellence in human capital management because organizations know they are earned, not given. Every winning program has demonstrated measurable impact, innovation, and execution through one of the industry's most rigorous evaluation processes. We are proud to recognize the organizations setting the standard for the future of work." Mike Cooke, CEO, Brandon Hall Group™

R.M.Williams was recognised with the Gold Excellence Award for Best Employee Engagement

R.M.Williams engaged with Capability Group with the mission to build an engagement strategy that reaches every employee, every day, regardless of role, location or language.

Of their 1,200+ employees, 85% are frontline working in retail, the workshop, and distribution across Australia, most without a computer or a desk. In the workshop alone, 18 first languages are spoken.

Together, we rolled out Axonify to create a mobile-first, always-on learning and engagement platform designed around that reality. Over 12 months, the results were significant:

• 83% participation, at 14.8 logins per active user per month

• 63% average viewership across all company announcements, with multilingual delivery lifting reach in workshop and distribution teams

• Company-wide knowledge lifted 16 percentage points, reaching 93%

• Workshop and distribution lifted 21 points, closing the knowledge gap with the rest of the business

• More than 200 Recognition Pins exchanged monthly, aligned to the four pillars of The R.M.Way

Behind the numbers, Workshop Team Leaders and Retail Store Managers start the day with their teams on the platform, turning a daily question into a shared learning moment.

What sets this project apart is how deeply it's embedded. The programme now runs through onboarding, compliance, leadership listening initiatives like CEO Coffee Corners and Listening Lunches, and the Annual Employee Engagement Survey, creating a feedback loop between employee voice and business priorities.

Palmerston North City Council was recognised with the Gold Excellence Award for Best Leadership Development

Leadership programmes often default to generic frameworks. E Tū Kahikatea was built to be the opposite: A bespoke, bi-cultural leadership programme co-designed with Palmerston North City Council to build capability across all 120 of its people leaders.

The programme was gifted its name by local iwi (tribe) Rangitāne o Manawatū, and structured around EQ 360 assessment, our PEAR model, and Peer Learning Groups.

Chief Executive Waid Crockett offered the following reflection on the programme’s impact:

“What I’ve noticed with the introduction of E Tū Kahikatea is leaders are having conversations with their teams in meaningful ways that I hadn’t seen before. I think that’s really making the difference both within our teams and actually across our organisation. What is really encouraging is some of the courageous conversations that we’re having with each other. And more importantly, people are actively listening to the things that matter most to their people.”

The first graduated cohort rated the programme 9.3 out of 10, and 100% of respondents reported sustaining some or all of their intended behaviour changes. That shift is now visible at an organisational level: the Council's 2026 engagement survey showed performance-conversation scores up 7% and overall leadership scores up 2% year-on-year, with participants reporting leaders asking more open questions, listening more, and creating stronger psychological safety for their teams.

Bstore was recognised with the Bronze Excellence Award for Best Learning Technology Implementation

Bstore's training used to be fragmented, with one-and-done sessions and no ongoing reinforcement. They replaced it with Axonify, bringing learning, communications and operations together in one platform for every team member across Australia.

The impact was immediate and has kept building since the November 2025 launch:

• Within 30 days of launching: 89% participation, knowledge up 7%

• By 90 days, high adoption continued at 90%

• A clear pattern between higher-frequency use and stronger knowledge and confidence outcomes

• AI-assistant MAX answered 97 frontline questions with a high relevant-source success rate

Bstore is now moving usage into manager KPIs and connecting learning outcomes to commercial metrics like returns and sales as proof this was never just about training uptake.

Huge congratulations to everyone involved

Different sectors, different workforces, different starting points, but each of these projects was built around the same idea: learning only works if it's designed for how people actually work.

Congratulations to the teams at R.M.Williams, Palmerston North City Council, and Bstore for the trust and collaboration that made these results possible, and to everyone at CGL who helped bring them to life.

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