The results are in. Below, PRWeek reveals which agencies and in-house departments have won a 2012 PRWeek Best Places to Work Award.

The process began in August, when we invited UK PR consultancies and in-house PR departments to enter. We received nearly 100 submissions from organisations of all shapes and sizes.

These were put before a judging panel comprising CIPR CEO Jane Wilson, PRCA CEO Francis Ingham and PRWeek's associate editor, features, Kate Magee.

This year we made some changes to the format. Agencies have been judged in size categories: small (two to 29 employees), mid-sized (30 to 99 employees) and large (more than 100 employees).

This is to reflect that larger agencies may find it difficult to provide the personal touches of smaller agencies, while smaller agencies may have smaller budgets to spend on training and benefits.

For the first time, we have also opened up the awards to encompass in-house departments.

The judges selected one winner and three highly commended entries in each category. The overall standard of the entries was impressive. Ingham says: 'The quality of entries was higher than ever this year. At a time when other industries are reducing investment in their staff, ours is increasing it. So many examples of companies investing in their staff, and being fun places to work, made me proud of our industry.'

One focus of this year's judging was whether comms organisations practised what they preached and took employee engagement seriously. It was encouraging to see so many employers retaining and developing staff, as well as listening to their views.

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