Advising an employee who is employed in a medium-sized company because it is important for the company to help the employees to move forward. The company itself has done everything to help but is stuck and needs new input as well as help from outside.
I act as a neutral third party which whom the employee can share his/her thoughts – a sparring partner. My task is to ensure that the employee returns to work after being on sick leave for a long period of time. To create a durable and satisfactory solution that is also long-term, I work with the following elements:
- Identification of strengths in my dialogue with the employee
- Motivation, what does for instance make the employee happy
- Definition of goals, what does the employee´s desired job looks like
- Definition of action plan, how to reach the desired job
- Sparring to achieve the defined goal through ongoing dialogue and training
This specific coaching takes place over a period of a total of 6 months and ends up with the employee getting another job internally in the company. Today the employee is back full time and thrives in the new job.
A large public organisation in Denmark implements SAP in their entire organisation. I am employed as a Change Consultant to facilitate and implement the human part of the change, as numerous studies show that to be successful in change processes, it must be achieved by dialogue and involvement of all employees.
Changes require special actions and managerial focus, which is why I choose to work with:
- Establishment of a project plan with KPIs, because a plan and goals ensure that there is an overview of what has to be achieved by when, just as it draws attention if you are behind schedule so that extra actions can be initiated to catch up.
- Communication of the plan and the change model to the management and then to all employees so everyone knows what is going to happen when. This also creates an understanding of possible reactions in the different phases of the change process.
- Identification of change agents because these can be good ambassadors for the change just as they can help both to identify and to “convert” potential critical employees.
- Training of three target groups: managers, change agents and all employees. The purpose it to equip everyone to handle the change and to support each other in the roles they each have during the change. The training consists of the following elements:
- The plan – what happens when and who does what?
- What phases does a process of change consist of
- What reactions can this trigger in the individual?
- How can you handle this as a manger/change agent/colleague, respectively?
- During the entire project continuous dialogue meetings are held which are either held as large meetings with all employees at once. Or held as smaller meetings in each department. The purpose of these meetings is to enter a dialogue with all employees and provide a temperature measurement of what is happening among the employees at this time so that preventive activities can be initiated. It also gives employees a forum to come up with all the questions or concerns they may have.
The European headquarters of a global group needs a temporary HR Director to step in for a period of 12 months during maternity leave for the current HR Director.
The task is to lead the department and to be a strategic sparring partner for the management team on their people topics. As well as keeping the department fully operational during the leave with the delivery of all core services within legal framework. Here I work to ensure:
- Development of the department through review of current procedures and development of new procedures
- The management team grows during my sparring as I ask open questions in management meetings for instance about the current way of doing things as well as challenging their current behaviour
- I build close relationships with every single manager within the organisation. I enter a dialogue with each individual manager where I ask questions that make the individual reflect.
- I see that the HR function needs new inspiration, new ways of doing things and I ensure that we get knowledge of “Best Practice” within HR in the form of networking, lectures, articles, and literature
During this period, all core services and HR tasks are solved to everyone´s satisfaction, just as there is new input and energy in both the management team and in the HR department.
A medium-sized company in Denmark will establish new sales offices in three European countries where it has not previously been represented. I am hired as a HR Consultant to handle the HR challenges in this regard.
I prepare an action plan to ensure effective knowledge and experience transfer to the three new sales offices. My action plan contains among other things the following elements:
- Clarification of key competencies as well as which positions are needed to start up the three new offices
- Identification of current employees in the company who possess the relevant knowledge and experience
- Identification of project managers who can transfer the necessary technology and knowledge to the three new offices
- Selection of people from the head office who will transfer the necessary knowledge and technology to the new offices
- Development of a plan for targeted retention of the above employees with the necessary knowledge and experience
- Determining the transfer of knowledge to the new offices from the head office (project employment, posting, double work, replacements, etc.
- Recruitment of local employees who cannot be covered by experienced employees from the head office
- Identification of external experts within e.g., labour law experts, recruitment experts etc.
- Establishment of management team
Medium-sized company in Denmark within the simi-public sector. Here I am contacted by a new manager in the management team, who enters an old, heavy, and difficult culture, which requires change if it is to achieve its goals – both in relation to employees and goals towards the world. Therefore, I work to coach the boss and take the first steps towards ensuring that the new boss stays in the job, understands his role, gets it defined and not least to ensure that the new boss gets impact in the management team, which ensures joint propulsion. I also coach the boss to work on, among other things:
- Structure such as the establishment of policies and procedures, because these create consensus and a clear common thread all the way down through the organisation – and thus calm
- Changed behaviour among managers, to ensure clarity in everyday life and that the management team plays together and does not play each other bad or off the field and thus creates discord between the departments
- Definition of values because the management team has not defined what it will stand for in the organization and thus what it will reflect and expect that employees and itself works actively and positively for in everyday life
- Establishing KPIs for behaviour and management to ensure a unified management team
- Organisational culture because leaders often do not know when to go to each other or make an independent decision
- Meeting culture, because the meetings are often held without a clear structure and prioritisation of fixed points and who takes care of what in the meeting – e.g., to write minutes and ensure the content and review of the agenda at the meeting
In a medium-sized production company located outside Europe and part of a global group. There are major issues in the production company, as it does not live up to the normal standard in the group in terms of qualifications, processes, procedures, and behaviour. I am appointed as a project manager on the HR part to raise the human and managerial part of the business.
My task is to coach and train the local HR team. They must gain an understanding of what it means being a local HR department as well as being part of a global HR team. They must understand the overall business and the requirements it places on both managers and employees. They must also be able to identify “Best Practices” in the HR field, develop policies and procedures to change behaviour in the necessary direction. The goal is that they can continue the work independently after I finish in the project.
In addition, I solve several other HR-related tasks, which concentrate on:
- Development and definition of a model that provides an overview of the necessary qualifications for all employees. This ensures that all employees are fully qualified for their tasks which must be solved in accordance with the global requirements.
- Interview and assessment of approx. 100 salaried employees, both managers and employees. The assessment is made in relation to the defined model with the necessary competencies in a global company. The assessment ensures that all employees in the company are qualified to carry out the tasks they are employed for, and which will be required of them in the future.
- Evaluation of approx. 200 production staff to ensure that everyone can read and write so that all production regulations can be complied with and implemented as prescribed.
- Identification of talents and key employees based on their behaviour as well as previous results.
- Identification of training needs based on the identified gaps in relation to the necessary competencies in a global company.
- To ensure that everyone is qualified and lives up to the global requirements, special designed courses are developed in, for example, communication and leadership development so that everyone has the toolbox to draw on in their respective role.
Finally, I coach and train the local management team as well as leaders to be able to act in the global network.