Two Inverness Businesses Shortlisted For National Award

Monday 15 November is the start of Living Wage Week, the annual fixture celebrating the Living Wage Movement across the UK. In Scotland the week culminates in the Living Wage Scotland Awards on Friday 19 November and two Inverness businesses, Yellow Cherry and Teclan, have been shortlisted in the same ‘Employee Choice’ category following nominations from their employees. 

This year’s celebrations and awards are extra special as the Living Wage movement celebrates its 20th anniversary. Speaking of the awards this year Living Wage Scotland said ‘the standard of applications received was exceptionally high.’ Living Wage Scotland congratulated the shortlisted businesses on their ‘fantastic achievement’, saying that ‘only a few Living Wage employers have been shortlisted for each category and the competition was intense this year.’ 

Of six possible award categories one gave employees the opportunity to nominate their employer in recognition of their role in the Living Wage movement. Yellow Cherry was nominated by 20 year-old Jason Cracknell, their Junior Designer who had recently completed a bespoke year-long, full-time Digital Apprenticeship with the agency. Commenting on his decision to nominate the agency Jason said, ‘Yellow Cherry is a fantastic place to work. Not only am I grateful for the opportunity they presented me, but I’m also grateful that they wanted to bring me onboard and teach me so much more. And I can see they’ve been able to do this because they chose to pay the Real Living Wage to help grow the business and create this opportunity. Yellow Cherry is an amazing team and if you get the opportunity to do work with them, take it, you won’t regret it.’ 

(Yellow Cherry Senior Designer, Ruairidh Greenwood (left), Junior Designer, Jason Cracknell (right)

Sarah Francis, Managing Director at Yellow Cherry, said ‘For two of the three companies shortlisted to be Inverness-based is a great show for the city. Most of all, I’m just so pleased for Jason’s experience with us. We’re passionate about helping businesses in the Highlands and Islands to reach their goals. A key part of being able to offer consistency to our clients is ensuring we offer high-quality jobs that pay at least the Real Living Wage. It helps us attract, retain, and develop local creative talent and this, in turn, means our clients can have confidence we’re a high-quality, sustainable, creative partner.’