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Develop- Client Testimonials

Ad Partners

One of HCS’ clients certainly found this to be the case. Adpartners in an advertising agency with specialist knowledge and expertise in through-the-line advertising, promotion and internet advertising techniques. With the nature of advertising and design evolving constantly, the Industry needs to ensure their workforce is ‘topped up’ with fresh talent.

Recently Adpartners took on board a work placement student, Angelina, giving her a taster of the advertising world and subsequently benefiting from her insight to a specific target market.

With HCS there to guide them through the process and ensure that they complied with employment legislation such as the Working Time Regulations (1998) and the Health and Safety at Work regulation (1999), Adpartners found the process both simple to follow and a worthwhile exercise.

Scott Muir, Head of Creative Output at Adpartners said “We were able to use Angelina as a ‘sounding board’ for our creative strategy in order to make it more appealing to certain social groups. The real benefit of this particular work placement came to fruition when one of Angelina’s suggestions was developed and added to the campaign. As part of her remit while on work placement, Angelina was set the task of designing the layout for the HCS newsletter and Hot Topic which she did well at, as you will see by looking at the front cover and main featureof this month’s newsletter. HCS helped us find a suitable candidate for work placementand were there as a ‘helping hand’ to ensure we managed the process properly”

Scott continued “As a small company Adpartners don’t have an in-house HR resource and rely very much on the experience of HCS to advise on staffing issues . The introduction of a school student under the age of 16 on a ‘work placement’ week introduced added complications. Adpartners gave HCS a detailed brief on the type of student that we felt would benefit from working experience within an advertising agency. HCS contacted local schools with and found Angelina De La Rocca a 4th year Student at St Aloysius College. HCS then ensured that we met all employment regulations for under 16’s employees. As always the service and advice given was excellent”

Angelina found that this work placement gave her a good insight to the working environment. If you would like further details on workplacements or need some help in managing students on placement, please contact Human Capital Services on 0141 776 6456 or e-mail enquiries@humancapitalservices.co.uk

Citizens Advice Bureau - East Dunbartonshire

HCS have recently run bespoke employment law workshops for the volunteers of East Dunbartonshire Citizens Advice Bureau in order to extend their knowledge of specific employee-related advice issues. The workshops had to be targeted specifically as the type of problems that may be likely to arise between the employer and the employee and HCS were able to consider the things that traditionally lead to grievances, disputes and disciplinaries in the work place and present them in a way that was lively, informal and practical for the volunteers.

The half day workshops were fully interactive with a variety of case studies used to illustrate potential cases and provide an opportunity for volunteers to "practice" asking the key questions to uncover the root of the problem.

Catherine Bradley, Manager, commented "The HCS workshops went down very well with our volunteers. They would not have responded well to a "chalk and talk-style lecture" and they were delighted that the workshops were informal, broken down into easy to understand sections and full of real life client experiences and relevant case law. The volunteers knew the basics of employment law but being able to understand in context how some of the new legislation is being applied is invaluable and hearing the experiences of the HCS teams has enabled the volunteers to understand some of the challenges also faced by the employer when a dispute happens. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive and we would not hesitate to recommend HCS to develop and deliver bespoke workshops to any organisation"

IT Consultancy

HCS have recently supported a client operating in the IT Consultancy arena to design, conduct and analyse a staff satisfaction survey. The purpose of the survey was to understand and benchmark staff opinion on a number of key human capital management processes including appraisals, training and development opportunities, or-ganisational communication and career path and progression. HCS developed a range of questions to draw out results that would draw out specific employee opinion on the surveyed processes. HCS implemented the survey anony-mously via a secure online tool, allowing staff to complete the survey where and when they were comfortable to do so. On completion, the results were presented to the senior management team allowing the key findings to be collated and assessed.

On the findings the CEO commented “The survey allowed the management team to understand the key breaks between management perception and employee perception for several of our key human capital processes. Using the survey results as a basis, we have been provided with tangible and relevant data to allow us to devise a strategy to resolve the key issues iden-tified and amend our processes and activities in line with our employees’ comments. Based on the findings, the organisation is implementing some ad-ditional aspects to our staff develop-ment approach. What the survey results showed was we are actually doing a lot of them already informally but we don’t get the recognition nor full value for our efforts – using the survey findings to direct our strategy, we will maximise our value.”“Many of the results reflected my own perception that as an organisation we are simply not serious enough about the processes and hence get less value than we believe we should from it. The results showed that staff are confused about our process and their reporting lines, the documentation is often cumbersome and overly complicated which is impacting the level of input and effort staff give to the process and subsequently the lack of value either the employee or our organisation gets out of it.”“One of the key benefits of conducting the survey is that we can be certain that our processes and company values, mission statement etc are clearly com-municated. If we are to become the #1 at what we do our employee engage-ment must drive home our behaviour expectations and constantly remind staff of the standards we are setting.

In order to measure the success of the strategy and improvements made, we will be using HCS to conduct a staff satisfaction survey annually”. Following the completion of the survey, HCS compiled an action plan with clear recommendations addressing the findings of the survey. Staff and man-agement were assigned appropriate ac-tions, and to evaluate the progress made by the company, HCS will re-run a year on. Engaging employees and providing them with a platform to directly provide feedback up the management chain can significantly contribute to improved employee engagement. Contact HCS today for more informa-tion on the design and implementa-tion of staff surveys that will pro-vide specific feedback which can be used to inform and direct strategy improvements.

JB Foods

HCS carried out a Training Needs Analysis (TNA) for JB Foods, one of the leading independent food service and retail wholesalers in Scotland employing 90 staff. The TNA was part of a project to identify and deliver training to Scottish wholesale organisations. The purpose of the TNA was to identify the priorities to develop first line managers to improve their effectiveness in managing and developing their teams.

JB Foods was one of a number of companies who undertook the TNA which was designed to identify skill gaps in the areas of performance management, employee development and leading and developing teams. From the analysis HCS was able to define a programme of training that would focus on developing operational excellence, up-skilling first line managers and delivering tangible returns to the participating businesses.

JB Foods have identified the benefits of the training programme and Phiona Boyd, Office Manager of JB Foods comments "Those first line managers who have participated have reaped the benefits of the training as it is specific to our business needs. The TNA instilled a discipline for me to examine our business plan and current internal training provision and identify our training requirements for our employees.

Our business has benefited greatly from the training programme with employees praising its quality and relevance to their role and the business has easily identified return on investment from continued business success".

Phiona concluded "it was important that we conducted a TNA to be confident that the investment in training was being targeted in the right areas for the right people and would deliver a return to our business"

Net Media Planet

This client focus describes how HCS delivered our Team Dynamics Programme to one of our Clients, Net Media Planet and the value delivered from that programme.

Net Media Planet (NMP) is an award winning specialist ‘paid search’ marketing agency based in London. NMP work on a ‘Paid on Performance’ model which means they invest their own money to drive results for their clients and get paid only when sales are generated.

HCS recommended the “Team Dynamics Programme” for NMP as a means of developing team effectiveness within the organisation.

The HCS Team Dynamics programme helps each team member to gain a unique insight into their behaviour at work and the way in which other team members behave and why. This enables the group to explore how
working relationships can be optimised. This is achieved by examining individual styles, the team dynamic and the various inter- relationships between team members in a fun and interactive way.
Sally Wilson, NMP’s Financial Controller, who has overall responsibility for Human Capital including HR, Training and Development comments:

“HCS ran this workshop in an enormously energetic way, to enable us to identify our true behavioural mode using a very easy to understand system of the four colour energies. The session allowed for self reflection on personality and also for some fun and constructive feedback on our peers.

As part of the session we had an activity to plan an event whilst we were all categorised into our ‘colours’. It really helped each team to understand the benefits of each behavioural “colour”. The entrepreneurial thinkers and the individuals with most attention to detail had completely different approaches to the activity which was at times hilarious. Most importantly it helped us to understand that by optimising the strengths of each individual, we have the ability to succeed as a team!

HCS gifted us with coloured scarves for us to wear on the day. They now hang on our desks and this helps us to recognise the behavioural mode and strengths of our colleagues when we are working together and really evidences the diversity of our team.

This workshop has completely changed the way in which we work together, communicate with each other and has dramatically increased the effectiveness of all teams within NMP”.

RHI Refractories Ltd

RHI Refractories is a global technology leader in the sale and lining of non-substitutable refractory products, which are indispensable for all industrial high-temperature processes. Within the UK, they are experiencing a period of growth through the acquisition of strategic partners, whilst striving to improve their processes and deliver an unrivalled service to their customers. With employee numbers growing, and recent changes to the management and supervisory structure, RHI recently engaged HCS to deliver a series of development workshops to their management team as part of their continued focus on developing all of their staff.

One of the key workshops delivered was in the area of managing conflict. Hailing from a traditional heavy industry background, RHI experience a great deal of ‘banter’ on the shop floor. Whilst there hasn’t been what they would consider a significant ‘conflict’ problem, RHI wanted to up-skill the managers to know what was acceptable banter and what crossed the line to ensure conflict doesn’t become part of the accepted culture.

Sheila Donnelly, Training Coordinator with RHI speaks about why RHI approached HCS in this area. “Our management team have gone through a lot of change in recent times, with a large number of experienced employees stepping up to the role of supervisor or manager. We wanted to feel confident that regardless of their background, managers felt equipped and able to deal with conflict if it ever arises. One of the key elements of the training course HCS developed for us was to understand what a conflict situation was, how conflict might masquerade itself and the best way to manage conflict and difficult situations. We found the practical elements of the course particularly useful; in understanding how to turn arguments into discussions and to diffuse blame so that a conflict situation didn’t flare beyond control. HCS spent time working through real life examples to improve our managers understanding and ability in actively listening and responding during conflict resolutions, and the best methods to prepare for delivering bad or unwanted news, again to limit the scale of any conflict arising. The feedback from the managers for the course was great, they found the examples tangible and experience transferrable.”

Scottish Enterprise Dunbartonshire

Scottish Enterprise Dunbartonshire engaged the support of HCS in a number of different contexts, to provide assistance to small and medium sized businesses. The Enterprise’s key priorities are to provide a range of high-quality services to:
• Help new businesses get underway;
• Support and develop existing businesses;
• Help people gain the knowledge and skills they will need for tomorrow's jobs;
• Help Scottish businesses develop a strong presence in the global economy - building on Scotland's reputation as a great place to live, work and do business.

In November 2005, the Business Improvement Forum (BIF) was established to provide a mechanism for sharing workforce development good practice and networking. The Workforce Development Team at SE Dunbartonshire which is responsible for the BIF wanted to ensure participants applied good practice within the Human Capital Management area. The services of HCS were engaged to address this.
HCS have been involved in separate projects with Scottish Enterprise since 2005 and the purpose over the last two years was to carry out an HR risk audit on selected SMEs nominated by Account and Client Managers. The risk audit covers 5 areas including Recruitment and Selection, Contracts of Employment, Appraisal Process, Training and Development and Policy and Procedures. From the information gained in carrying out the risk audits, in conjunction with HCS, the Workforce Development Team decided to tackle the common areas of Human Capital that were lacking or underdeveloped in these businesses.

Areas identified were:
• Job Profiling
• Measuring and Monitoring Performance
• Employment Contracts, Terms and Conditions
• Absence Management
• Dealing with Disciplinaries and Grievances
• Practical employment legislation guidance
• Recruitment and Selection

Mhairi Robertson (Senior Executive in the Workforce Development Team) explains “HCS provided practical workshops, delivered from the perspective of understanding the needs of small and medium, tightly run organisations who want to have specifically tailored information. Each delegate was able to take away and apply it in their own workplace. The audience was considered during every aspect of the delivery of each workshop – ensuring that terminology used was straightforward and jargon free. The importance of each of the issues was emphasised from the perspective of employer obligations and risk mitigation in their business. Each workshop clearly identified the content, delivery methodology and learning outcomes.”

An example of the ‘Recruitment and Selection: Get it right-every time!’ workshop is illustrated below:

Content:  How to conduct an interview.
   Establishing effective interview questions and tests.
   Making the right choice.
   Writing the offer letter.

Delivery
Methodology: Using case studies and discussion of examples of specific recruitment projects, delegates will see how important effective questioning techniques can be in selecting the right staff. Evidenced-based questioning will be introduced and examples of effective and poor questions will be provided.

Learning
Outcomes: Delegates will be provided with examples of questions to use in an interview and a clear picture of how to prepare for an interview, how to select the best candidate for the role and the process of offering and regretting following the interview itself. Handouts will provide examples of template letters and types of questions.

Mhairi confirmed that “HCS embarked upon a delivery method that was lively and informative encouraging the audience to engage in the workshop by sharing their experiences. The trainers concentrated on situations that had occurred in delegates’ businesses and this was supported with case studies. A question and answer session was always undertaken at the end of every workshop which encouraged participants to bring practical issues to the table for resolution. We had many positive comments following the workshops.” Some are listed below:

“The programme provides companies with the opportunity to use case studies that are relevant to my business”.

“From resources provided we intend to update our company handbook and display literature for employees and managers.”

“Good, knowledgeable presenter who conducted the session in a relaxed and friendly way.”

“The forum was most beneficial for someone who does not necessarily work or have specific knowledge of HR”

“Superbly presented in a simple and clear manner – no complications for the sake of “creating” consultants advice”.

For Mhairi, the success of this programme has been that participating business owners gain enormous awareness around the issues that can affect future growth and success should they fail to apply good practice and regulatory amendments. She confirmed “the workshops highlighted the benefits of applying straightforward, practical advice in a logical and step by step manner across a wide range of subjects within the arena of human capital management and why this is vitally important to the growth and success of their business. .Workshop participants will now be in a position to follow clear procedures, with rigorous quality applied as a direct result of their improved understanding and the practical advice provided during these workshops.”

Terasaki

Liz O’Hare, HR Manager of Terasaki has recently attended 2 of HCSs workshops, held in McGregor House, Kirkintilloch. Terasaki is part of a global organisation providing electrical protection and distribution equipment to today’s switchgear users and buyers

“I received the invitations for the HCS workshops and decided to attend the Recruitment and Selection workshop
and the Absence Management workshop. Working in a manufacturing environment, we tend to get issues in
both areas cropping up and I find keeping up to date with current practices is immensely helpful when managing issues.

The Recruitment and Selection workshop was very helpful in that it gave practical advice in managing the vital stages of recruitment including designing an interview process that drives out real evidence from candidates through questions and probing techniques we can use, making sure that as an organisation we can make informed decisions on the most suitable candidate.

During the Absence Management workshop I realized that counting the cost of absence is the first step to understanding the impact it has on our business. I feel confident now in dealing with both long and short term absences and when it is necessary to involve the disciplinary process. One of the biggest concerns is knowing when absence is considered a disability, something which the workshop covered in clear and simple terms.

Overall I find the HCS workshops informative, tangible and find the guidance really helps my business. I look
forward to the next workshop I attend.”