The Client:
An Academic Institution – Secondary & Primary School
The initial situation:
The Board of Governors decided to enlist the services of an external, independent consultancy firm to undertake a review of its HR Strategy, Policies and Procedures. In broad outline, the purpose of the review was to confirm and validate the current whole school HR strategy as benchmarked against best practices for similar type of schools / education institutes. Ownership and management buy-in were key to the effectiveness of desired People Policies and Procedures.
Further needs identified included development and roll out of an Employee Engagement survey. A key success criteria was the ‘handing over’ of the results and facilitation of ‘what next’.
Further findings:
Initial stakeholder meetings identified the breakdown of communications between the academic and non-academic teams and how they just did not work together, neither did either respect the work of others. We also found that there was residual impact on the key stakeholder in all this – The Students. This was added to the brief and we are asked by the Board of Governors to address this alongside the communication plans.
The Solution:
After extensive interviews with the key stakeholders we held random interviews with several staff members to begin to get an understanding of the communications issues. An Employee Engagement survey was designed, rolled out within the agreed timeline. On going communication ensured a 99% participation. Results were presented to the BOG first and then the Academic leadership team. Finally, results were presented to ALL participants.
For the HR Committee – recommendations were made for challenges identified. Workshops for College Leadership Teams for implementation of Communication Programmes were conducted. Coaching and Mentoring provided for the in-house HR Teams.
We went further with detailed reports on all materials reviewed and the way forward complete with timelines and recommendations on priorities.
Feedback from the client & key stakeholder:
”Primarily Zakeera is strategist with a strong sense of vision and purpose. Where many may get bogged down with the detail, she is always able to maintain the vision to ensure that appropriate goals are set and ultimately achieved. I am delighted to confirm that ConnectedHR delivered all that was required of them, on time and to the full satisfaction of the Board. This is a substantial achievement when taking into account the multicultural diversity of the audience (students, staff & board) and the associated difficulties of group consensus decision making. Herein lies the strength of character and charming personality that is the make up of Zakeera” College: Chair Human Resources Committee, AGM & Head of Asset Finance.
Our reflections:
As a learning organisation it is important for us to learn from each and every one of our projects – as we learn we add more value to the clients we serve and at the same time we grow and do not remain stuck in our ways of working.
One of the strongest learning points for us was the remote support that was necessary for the ‘consultant on site’. It is easy to forget someone who is not in the office everyday and team at the main office need to ensure that the consultant is not left out!. Allocation of a peer coach & mentor would have avoided that, and it is now embedded practise for all projects that require lengths of time away from the office.
