What we do and why it matters
With more than 25 years of experience in the HR and People Business, we know that achieving sustainable success, for the shareholders and both your internal & external communities, is always about your people.
So that is what we do; we work with you to achieve your strategy and business goals, by helping you to create positive energy and synchronicity in your workplace, in order to get extraordinary results with your people and to make a sustainable difference.
Regardless of if you are contracting, or expanding, the employee experience will determine, more than any other factor, your results.
Leading research time after time, points to the best teams outperforming their competitors on a consistent basis by 18% and above and that is even before we talk about the role great teams play, in driving the social and environmental sustainability agenda.
Our History
We started learning about people, teams, HR practices and organisational cultures over 30 years ago and we are still learning!
We have had over 25 years HR commercial experience, working in a variety of leadership teams and organisations, both in times of growth and contraction.
We have worked for conglomerates, Start-Ups, SME's, Large private sector employers, FTSE 100 organisations, private equity owners and in an array of industries including Recruitment, Shipping, Ports, Logistics, Transport, Aviation, Automotive, Insurance Brokers, Telecoms, Legal Services, Manufacturing and Cargo.
Our work with people, different cultures and HR practices, has took us all over the globe including to Hong Kong, New Orleans, Detroit, Madrid, Zurich and Edinburgh.
It has always been about people; sometimes easy, sometimes difficult but never boring!
Track Record Highlights:
We have been involved, as a Consultant, Interim and permanent employee, in some amazing projects such as being part of the Leadership team that saved Group Lotus from insolvency, winning awards for outstanding performance and the creation of extraordinary cultures at AMOT Control and Marston Holdings and helping to integrate 26 Broker firms into one new entity called Country Mutual.
We have even helped set up the operational HR function, as part of a a joint venture between a military Russian cargo organisation called Volga Dnepr and a British, civil registered cargo airline called Heavylift.
There isn't space to outline all our highlights and experience, however below is a collection of some of them.
What we are sure about is that these highlights and our experience, provide a framework, as a trusted HR Consultant, to help us put together and implement, appropriate solutions, for your current problems and opportunities.
AMOT Controls
Award Winning Culture
The Managing Director required support to re-invigorate the Sales, Operations and Manufacturing team and create an award winning, high performing and cohesive team.
Within two years, following a detailed team and organisational improvement plan, which included building a customer centric culture & re-designing many of the core HR processes, the operational profit had increased to 30 % pre tax and due to these foundations, the business was able to acquire a number of its competitors. The team’s efforts were recognised via a series of industry and organisational accreditations and awards, including the Investor in People Award.
SR Technics
Building A High Performing Team
This Senior Management team was initially fragmented. A new direction was established and the business was focused on delivering results, meeting the customers needs and reducing costs, whilst improving services and systems. Four key areas were focused on to improve the businesses performance:
Building trust across the business Creating a clear purpose for the team Improving systems and processes Maximising and utilising talent
Within two years the business turned its operational performance around from a £100,000,000 book loss to break even.
Marston Holdings Limited
Building A Great Team
Initially the brief was to deliver a series of restructuring programmes across the U.K in order to reduce costs and improve efficiency, prior to the next equity investment cycle. This was successfully achieved with over £2,500,000 savings at the EBITDA level and no drop in customer performance levels and satisfaction. The HR team was then restructured to create a customer facing, business partner model, with central specialisms, to enable the business to deliver in its next phase of growth, which included a series of new M&A's over a three year period,
Group Lotus Plc
Business Turnaround
The brief was to work with the new CEO to stem the 2012 publicly announced losses and ensure the business survived.
Our remit was to restructure the HR team and reduce the cost base in the business, whilst improving staff engagement and developing a high performing culture. Results included
a new Global HR Business partner model,
20 new commercial HR policies,
Department restructures and cost down initiatives, reducing average basic UK salary from £38,000 (2012) to £32,000 (2014),
Reducing organic labour turnover from a peak of 25% (2012) to 9% (2014).
British Telecom
HR Strategy
The remit was to help the business, design and deliver a 'fit for purpose' HR strategy that repositioned the organisation to meet the Group Board's strategy regarding significant financial costs savings, whilst rolling out Broadband and the new BT Network, Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP). Working closely with the local Network, Design and Implementation Boards, we built a HR 'Plan On A Page', for each unit, function and team, that connected and aligned the HR strategic priorities including Agility, High Performance, Skills and Staff Engagement. We engaged with the Business Leaders to strengthen the connection to the Group Board strategy and build leadership engagement and ownership.
This turned 'upside down' the normal established business strategy model.
Through increased ownership results included Broadband roll out regional levels to 98 %, delivering against stretching Capital expenditure (£817,000,000), achievement of EBITDA targets (£3,800,000) for 2004 to 2006 and increases in staff engagement level (90% plus in some units).
Country Mutual
Merger Integrations
The Managing Director of CMIB required HR assistance to amalgamate 26 U.K Brokers with 400 staff in multiple offices across the U.K, into a cohesive organisation, with a clear strategy, a strong brand and shared values.
The remit including completing talent assessments and building a new and agile set of HR policies and processes that would support and promote both the Group's and CMIB's cultures of wellbeing, innovation and entrepreneurialism.
Further assistance was also provided with the due diligence, associated with some on-going acquisitions.
We helped craft a new strategy, that delivered a smooth integration of the largest ever acquisition into the NFUM culture (In December 2003, NFUM made its largest acquisition for CMIB to date with the acquisition of the Beckett Group)
The Beckett Group added 4 branches controlling £55 million of premium income to CMIB, enhancing its position in the east of England.
This project was very successful and in 2006 CMIB was acquired by the Towergate Partnership,
Multi Site Call Centre
Under-performing Customer Services teams
In this environment the Customer Services team, were underperforming and as a consequence there were high levels of entropy in the department.
Entropy is a measure of inefficiencies/poor performance and systems resistance.
It can present itself in many ways such as high staff turnover, high sickness levels, grievances, disciplinary meetings and a consistent pattern of missing KPI's, particularly those that are customer centric.
After we had worked through a detailed diagnostics phase, a coaching programme, to support behavioural Leadership growth, was put in place. Followed by implementing a series of proactive changes, including re-setting the mission, vision, strategy and objectives of the team. Alongside this a workable management operational system was introduced and roles re-designed. A particular focus was also put on the creation of a vibrant and energetic community.
Over time the energy in the team rose, as performance improved. All backlogs and customer KPI’s improved.
Contractor Supply Chain
Self Employed
The brief was to improve the Contractor Supply Chain, across a multi site U.K based Group, with 600 UK sites and 30 trading establishments with a combined total in excess of 1500 contractors.
An initial review of the recruitment and onboarding processes was conducted, followed by the development and implementation, of a robust plan, to improve these processes and de-risk the Group, particularly in terms of the pending changes to IR35 in the private sector.
The changes included new 'fit for purpose' contracts and training the Operational Managers regarding the differences between Contractors, Workers and Employees.
All aspects of the Supply Chain were assessed and diagnosed for weaknesses and their risk category on a green, orange, red 'traffic light' basis.
As an outcome, this project led to a number of Supply Chain improvements and new protocols, policies and standards.
The project also included conducting over 500 status determination statements.
