We work across the complete spectrum of people management, offering a wide range of strategic, operational, ad-hoc and mentoring support and advice for our clients. Our consultancy team members have backgrounds in working at senior levels in the private, public and not for profit sectors and we have a particular strength in working with social housing providers.
Pay and Reward
Providing independent pay and reward advice is a significant part of our consultancy offering. Our pay and reward services are extensive and include advising clients on pay strategy and policy, pay levels (for non-executives, executives and all staff posts), pay modelling and the development of pay structures, pay gap and equal pay reviews, job evaluation, reviewing terms and conditions and employee benefits and developing performance pay schemes. We also undertake research and provide papers on specific topics such as pay trends and forecasts, regional pay and Sue co-authored the NHF publication Board member pay, What housing associations need to know, 2014.
Executive Recruitment
Our approach is not off-the-shelf. Each role is different and we tailor our executive recruitment campaigns to suit the individual role and our client, responding to your context and challenges. We have extensive experience of supporting recruitment during transfers, mergers, and restructures to build high-performing executive teams and to find the leaders of tomorrow. Our approach provides dedicated support of a consultant who engages with candidates from the initial approach to providing quality feedback at the end of the process. We have a strong track record of partnering clients to make great executive appointments.
Interim Management
Whether you have a specific project or challenge, or just a gap whilst you recruit to a post, we can place interim experts across a range of housing services including executive leadership, governance, asset management, finance, HR, and care and support. Our interim executives and senior managers combine significant skills and experience together with the approach and attitude that will provide support in a range of situations, understanding that the brief may vary from leading transformation to ensuring continuity of service.
Recruitment and Selection
Whether it’s help with a candidate search for a difficult to fill post, wanting a challenging selection event for a key post or requiring independent assessment services to support your in-house recruitment processes, we are able to provide a range of recruitment and selection services. Our consultants are qualified to undertake psychometric testing and offer a range of ability tests and personality profiles to predict performance and potential. We also develop bespoke activities to add depth and breadth to a recruitment process.
Organisation Design
Our experience across a breadth of employment sectors provides us with great understanding of what works, what doesn’t and what is changing. We can advise you on organisational design – developing team structures, roles and sizes, whether for all staff, executives, directorates or small teams. We benchmark structures and roles looking at the wider employment market or comparator organisations and advise on best practice to help to develop an organisation or structure that will deliver business objectives, contain exciting and rewarding roles that will attract and retain a high performing workforce and will look to the future. Organisation design will often include the need to restructure and we also provide practical advice and support for implementation including supporting employees to prepare for change and providing outplacement services.
People Management Strategy
We are passionate about HR, and our enthusiasm strives to ensure that HR services keep up with and drive forward the business. We recognise the ever changing and challenging operating environment that teams face and naturally the requirements for the services HR teams provide is changing too. Is your HR team adapting to your needs and the changing environment? Is it working with you to support and drive your business forward? Does it demonstrate creativity, innovation and challenge? We support organisations and HR teams to develop HR and People Management strategies, to ensure that the teams deliver best practice, look to the future, add value to your business and make an effective contribution to the achievement of your business objectives.
Performance Management
It is important that your people are performing to drive your business forward and contribute effectively to organisational success. Whether in relation to non-executive boards, executive, senior managers or staff teams, we work with our clients to articulate what high performing means to them. We provide support to design and set up performance management frameworks, enabling clients to set stretching targets, and to measure and manage performance. Our services include developing competency frameworks, different approaches to performance management and linking performance with pay.
Workforce Planning
How future proof are you? In organisations that are growing and developing services the workforce profile will be continually changing. Does this happen reactively, organically or as part of a continually developing plan? Organisations often seek to achieve more for less. Combine this with skills shortages and in some professions a ‘war for talent’ and organisations need to ensure that they have the right people now and for the future. We have a workforce planning expert within the team and significant experience of assisting organisations to understand their current and future requirements. We can also help to develop and support change and talent management initiatives.
Operational People Management
We provide a wide range of operational HR services to clients. We offer outsourced HR services for the smaller employer, mentoring and support for the internal HR professional, interim HR management, strategic and senior HR support for the Board, ad-hoc independent support for complex employee relations issues including mediation, and developing or undertaking specific projects. All of our HR consultancy team members are qualified senior professionals with extensive experience and are flexible in how we work with clients.
Equality and Diversity
With organisations increasingly looking to achieve a meaningful commitment to equality and diversity and to address continuously developing and changing legislation, we provide advice and support to ensure fair and relevant processes and systems. We undertake equal pay audits, more focused pay gap reports, and broader qualitative reviews of policies and processes from an equality and diversity perspective. We advise on developing fair, and robust employment practice including recruitment and selection and advise on employee matters which involve equality and diversity and potentially discrimination.
People Development
Are you satisfied that your people are all performing to your required standards and have the knowledge, skills and experience needed to make an effective contribution to the delivery of your aims and objectives? We provide high-quality learning and development interventions across a broad range of topics, including executive and senior management development centres, board development, and many practical one-off courses or individual support provisions with a particular strength developing people management skills.
Research
Our clients increasingly want to ensure that their employee solutions, offerings and services are fit for purpose, are appropriate in a changing world and where possible even anticipate the future. We undertake workforce or people management related research projects which can inform business decisions. Recent projects have included pay trends and forecasts, regional pay, modernising recruitment services, paying tenant board members and the factors which might influence office relocation.