People + Talent

Strategic HR

Your business success is reliant on your people, they are your greatest asset.

In reality our conversations will be less stuffy and formulaic than the text below might suggest… that said – this gives you a sense of the structure that underpins decision making when it comes to finding the right solution for you. Whilst my approach is conversational and fluid, my experience stems from leading HR learning and development teams.

As an HR professional I recognise that a strategic approach to L+D ensures that you are actively nurture capability within your business, aligned to your broader business goals. Exceptional Leadership ensures your teams are inspired and motivated, as your business grows. It is also wise to consider how effectively you are Managing your HR responsibilities. All too often I see HR being considered as an after-thought.

Here are some questions which may help identify how your HR management could be enhanced…

1. Are you attracting the best and delivering a professional recruitment experience?
2. Are you providing sufficient training to ensure they are competent within their role?
3. Are you regularly setting and reviewing expectations to provide focus and direction?
4. Are you tackling under-performance, sickness and absence in an ethical manner which promotes the potential for individuals to attend work, learn and improve results?
5. Do you recognise high potential within individuals, do they have access to resources to actively drive their careers, progress and grow within your business
6. Do you have a culture that promotes a balance of support and challenge, valuing feedback with open channels of communication?
7. How do you recognise and reward employees and is this sufficient to retain your talent?
8. Are your exit processes robust, are you gaining feedback from leavers and managing your employer brand?

Blowing on the Embers of Awesome

HR describes this as “Talent leadership” which focuses on ensuring you are bringing out the potential of those you work with. Do you acknowledge the true talent within your team?

Talent Leadership is at the heart of an efficient, effective and motivated workforce.

As experienced learning and development consultants we can support you with provision of systems and tools, HR skills coaching and upskilling plus psychometric assessments.

The following areas outline the type of support I can offer at different stages of the employee lifecycle and I am happy to consult with you regarding your specific needs.

Right people, right place, right time doing the right things

In “HR speak” this is known as “Staff Profiling, Manpower, Engagement and Efficiency”

HR Review – profiling your business system to ensure the staffing and management structure are appropriate for your current and future needs. A deep dive to see if you are set up to succeed.

Resource Planning – reviewing capability and productivity. Checking if your people are equipped to cope in terms of their capacity and skillsets.

Coaching and Change Management – Support potential job role changes to ensure that your consultation processes are legally morally and ethically sound and any transition maintains staff engagement. Being fair and consistent in any structure changes.

Staff Satisfaction – staff engagement processes, understanding staff satisfaction, driving retention, ensuring broad recognition. Enabling a two way dialogue to treat people with respect.

Finding the right people

Otherwise known in HR as “Attraction, Selection Recruitment and Induction”

Employer Branding – assessing and promoting why people should want to work for you.

Competency Frameworks – bespoke CFs aligned to your culture and context – these essentially highlight the core skills and behaviours success is measured against.

Professional Role Descriptions – tailored and aligned to your relevant competencies and organisational culture.  Helping people know what is expected of them.

Robust Selection Processes – provision of assessment centres, plus development of skilled recruiters ensuring an ethical and cost effective approach to recruitment.

Induction and Probation – tools and processes to support on-boarding of new staff. Helping people settle in and get up to speed.

Becoming great at what you do

In the HR Employee Lifecycle this is termed “Performance, Training, Development and Succession”

Career Development Frameworks – role and progression mapping to support career management and planning continual professional development (CPD).

Performance Management – formal and informal processes and tools for the entire performance continuum (great to less desirable). Appraisal, individual reward and benefits, disciplinary and grievance systems, exit processes and up-skilling of management to use these effectively. In essence the tools to enable people to perform at their best.

Capability Management – design and integration of self-managed development tools and guides (aligned to your performance management process) to help support staff in developing their competence within their current roles where workshop attendance is not appropriate. These can be specifically designed and branded around your business and the work roles within your business or to enable generic competency development. If you would like to know more about this service please arrange for a free consultation.

Succession Planning and Development – support and processes for business leaders to plan for succession. Design and delivery of assessment and development centres, leadership and management programmes such as in-house graduate schemes and senior talent pools. Coaching and ALS (action learning set) facilitation to support individuals with progressing to their next role.

Learning and Development – aligning L+D activity to your business goals is essential to ensure your investment in the development of your teams fits with your broader strategic outcomes. Through consultation and training needs analysis (TNA) I can help you to define the desired changes you wish to create and design bespoke solutions to enable this.

Interpersonal Impact, Time Management, Assertiveness, Project and Stakeholder Management, Recruitment Skills, Performance Management, Conflict Resolution, Train the Trainer, Sales and Customer Service, Influencing and Negotiation, Presentation Skills, Commercial Awareness, Coaching Skills for Managers, Introduction to: Emotional Intelligence, Transactional Analysis, NLP

Ahead of the Curve? – Take a look at our two day LDM mBIT Programme, designed for those who are looking for something entirely new – this is an excellent workshop for Board Director retreats.

I can help you select appropriate workshops and create programmes which support your requirements. The example leadership sessions detailed here are indicative rather than an exhaustive list, and the offer continually evolves in content and approach.

I tailor programmes for specific teams to attend or individuals from cross functional units within your business as part of their continual professional development linked to your performance management process.  I also run shorter Zoom Training Sessions which can be useful for remote teams.

Are you a small business without enough people to fill a course? Why not host a workshop and collaborate? I can run these workshops for groups from mixed businesses, so these development solutions can be used as an opportunity to learn alongside your key collaborators providing additional networking and relationship development benefits.

Developing and Mentoring your HR Managers

For those moving into HR roles I can help you with mentoring emphasising the proactive (talent management) aspect of the employee lifecycle aligned to many of the areas above.  Including: “effective recruitment and induction”… “training, developing and managing team performance”… “engaging and retaining employees”… “career paths, staff succession and manpower planning”… “capability auditing and productivity”… “performance management systems and competency frameworks”… “disciplinary, grievance and challenging conversations”…  “professional employment law referrals”

I am not an employment law specialist, but I can recommend some if your HR guidance requirements are reactive in nature and the above are signposts only, so if you have an HR related query and wish to align your Business and HR strategies in order to develop a more cohesive approach to Talent Management, please arrange a free consultation, I am happy to discuss your requirements and help you identify a way forward.

In Summary

Using a consultative approach I explore your strategic and tactical aims, supporting you to effectively manage stakeholder relationships and ensuring that your HR agenda is aligned to your requirements.  I have a wealth of experience working within the field of strategic leadership, HR and organisational development and take regular action to update my skills and understanding within these arenas.