Finalists: Ashurst; Berwin Leighton Paisner; Hogan Lovells (highly commended); Obelisk Support; PLMJ

Mayer Brown took home the Human Resources Innovation award for its use of social media tools and an employee referral scheme to adapt to shifting global recruitment trends.

By adopting LinkedIn's Talent Solutions platform, Mayer Brown's HR team has developed a global direct hire sourcing strategy, reducing its reliance on recruitment agencies and generating significant cost savings – the LinkedIn recruitment drive has already saved the firm $292,000 (£222,000) globally.

The system allows Mayer Brown to take a more strategic approach to identifying talent and communicating with potential future hires.

It also allows potential employees to connect directly with and question relevant hiring managers. The programme has already proved successful – the LinkedIn page has seen its number of followers increase by more than half during the past 12 months, attracting both fee earners and people with business services backgrounds, and new hires have been made via LinkedIn at the director, manager and executive level.

In London, direct hires now account for 50% of new recruits, while the introduction of its employee referral scheme has also saved the London office more than £100,000 in additional agency fees. "A clever use of a familiar tool, which appears to have reaped results," according to a judge.

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