TOP-performing employees can help boost moral and improve performance at their firms. This year the Lancashire Telegraph's Business Awards feature a category for Employee of the Year, and we look at what it takes to scoop the award.

The award will give an otherwise unsung hero the chance to shine.

Employee of the Year is intended to be every business's opportunity to put forward someone who has really made a difference to their firm.

Their impact might have been an ability to bring new solutions to old problems and benefit the way a business works.

Equally it might be someone whose attitude and example stimulates those around them to raise their standards.

The award is sponsored by Blackburn Rovers Football Club. Tim Finn, the premiership side's managing director, said: "We are delighted to once again offer our support to the Telegraph Business Awards, one of the most prestigious events of its kind in the region.

"As a football club we appreciate the value of teams, but, within every successful team, we also acknowledge that there are always many notable individual performances.

"Individuals can make a real difference, irrespective of the size or nature of a business and it is fitting that such efforts should be recognised."

Last year's award winner was Sara Lusty, general manager of the Real Lancashire Black Pudding Company, Stacksteads.

Sara took the award after stepping into management without formal training and helping to increase the company's profits.

Mike Damms, chief executive of the East Lancashire Chamber of Commerce, said: "It's important to say that we have to continue to shake off this very unfair view that we have a factory base where people march up and down and do what they're told.

"We have a lot of people capable of free thinking and it's nice to be able to recognise that."

l Entry forms for the awards are available at www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk