: Our client, a London Borough, took a strategic decision to reorganise a number of Council services, including a single front line and shared back office support services. Q. Learning was commissioned to support the transformation of the human resources service.

Historically, the Council provided HR services from within each service department. This had led to the evolution of six different HR teams, with differing standards of service, a range of policies and procedures, high overhead costs due to the large number of senior managers and inefficient communication. The result was a lack of acknowledgement of the Council as a single employer, an inconsistent application of HR practices, a lack of strength in specialist areas such as industrial relations and low morale among HR employees.

A Q. Learning consultant worked with a range of managers, both inside and outside the HR service, to clearly articulate the values and beliefs that the Council held about itself as an employer. We facilitated presentations and discussions with the management board to develop a statement about the relationship between employer and employees that all chief officers signed up to and assisted the senior HR managers in developing this into a clear and concise HR strategy that could be seen to support the overall business objectives of the Council.

The new HR strategy was launched at a series of lunchtime seminars for managers, these highly interactive sessions were fronted by the HR Director and facilitated by Q.Learning consultants. This was supported by an internal communications campaign run by the Council.

Delivering the new service required the move from six different services to a single HR team. Q. Learning facilitated meetings with all of the employees affected (over 100 in total) to enable the Council to listen and address concerns. We worked closely with managers on the design of the new service, ran workshops to involve staff in designing solutions and facilitated three conferences at critical points in the transition to maintain clear and open communication.

The transfer process was successful and 18 months later the integrated HR service is serving the whole Council with a reduction in overhead costs of over 10%.

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