• Collective responsibility – we are all in this together
• Employment legislation – Robertsons Interiors
• BEAR Scotland
• The Graduate
• The Scottish Commission for the Regulation of Care
• Loretto School
• The Scottish Commission for the Regulation of Care : Admin Support Review
• Negotiating key supplier contracts
• Implementing a Payroll & HR system
• Conducting a membership survey for the Scottish Model Engineering Trust

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Collective responsibility – we are all in it together.

When it came to organising an afternoon away for the entire team, Carters turned to us for “something different”. With such a succinct brief, we drew on our experience and put together an afternoon which blended practical exercises with thought-provoking discussion.

Jeremy Bull: “The Carters team came to the seminar with open minds and a refreshing willingness to participate fully. From the feedback, we know that they grasped the message that everyone in the business – no matter where they work – contributes to the customer experience. It is this customer experience that influences whether business is won or lost. Appreciating that everyone is part of a team and has a valuable contribution towards the overall ’sale’ is the key to competitive advantage.”

Ian Donaldson, Carters: ” We were very pleased with the way the seminar was put together and it certainly hit the right spot. There was a real buzz throughout the afternoon and everyone left highly motivated.”

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Employment legislation, Robertsons Interiors

Brian Cram of well known Dundee firm Robertsons Interiors was seeking guidance on the plethora of new employment legislation about to come in to effect.  Mr Cram’s concern was two fold.  What was the impact to be on his business and how on earth did he find the time to implement the changes?

Morag Bull ‘Mr Cram was aware of the legislation and was keen to ensure that a firm as well established as Robertsons kept within the law, but at the same time maintained a paternalistic approach with their employees.’  Morag believes the important thing to do is to keep a sense of perspective about the legislation and to include those policies that actually apply to the organisation rather than producing an unwieldy, catch all handbook.

Brian Cram ‘There are so many HR. Legislation initiatives coming out from government that it is impossible for someone like myself to cope.’ At their meetings Morag was able to talk Mr Cram through the various aspects of the legislation and by drawing on her extensive practical experience provide answers to the concerns that he had.  Brian Cram ‘Your practical approach and actually doing all the work helped enormously.’

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BEAR Scotland

BEAR Scotland Plc was looking for an experienced Human Resource professional to provide twelve months maternity cover.  BEAR Scotland is a joint venture business set up to provide maintenance for Scotland’s vital motorway and trunk road network in the East and South.

The role required not only experience of operating at Board level, but supporting the individual depot managers across the regions and experience of negotiating with trade unions.

Being a relatively young organisation BEAR Scotland had limited experience of using Interim Managers and one of the concerns was would it work?  Alan MacKenzie, then Managing Director, ‘The interim settled into the role immediately, requiring very little in the way of induction or support and was very quickly making a valuable contribution to the team.’

The Interim was aware that success depends on becoming effective very quickly and that this is achieved by going out and getting involved rather than sitting in an office.

Interim Management is a resource that is undervalued by a lot of organisations because they do not understand the benefits that can accrue by bringing in experienced individuals.  Too often the existing team is unnecessarily stretched by being asked to provide cover in addition to their existing roles.  Last word to Alan MacKenzie ‘The Interim bought a whole new dimension to the role of the HR Department which the operational managers found invaluable.’

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The Graduate

The work that you have done on my resume has improved it immeasurably. It started off as a spartan piece of paper with very little useful information for possible employers. It is now crammed full of information and I am sure must project a more confident and capable Ian Stewart.

The whole process not only taught me how to write a better CV but also how to look at my life experiences and draw out the positive aspects. I feel a lot more confident in myself and in approaching prospective employers.

I have always had confidence in my talents as a designer and the positive feedback I have had from my early networking reinforces that. However I realise that there is still plenty of hard graft to be done. I feel strongly at this juncture that I must take responsibility for the next stage of the process though I fully acknowledge that you are mostly responsible for my confidence in doing so. I certainly want to keep you informed of my progress in networking and if I can consult with you from time to time that would be of great help.

Ian Stewart

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The Scottish Commission for the Regulation of Care (SCRC)

SCRC is based in Dundee and were introducing an integrated HR/Payroll Management Information System and required someone to manage the implementation phase. Heather Garland, HR Manager, “We needed someone experienced who understood the practicalities of what information a cutting edge HR function required to access from such a system whilst being able to take the responsibility to meet critical deadlines.”

Morag Bull of MDP: “Experience has shown that the system providers and the system users require an intermediary to act as an ‘interpreter’, someone who can provide the right information at the right time, check the output for accuracy and validity, handle queries, arrange and attend meetings and most importantly take responsibility.” This means the rest of the team keep their eye on the equally serious business of the day to day running of the Care Commission.

Final word to Heather Garland: “From our perspective MDP ensured it was a seamless implementation when we cut over to the new system. The secondary phase of defining the management information system requirements was completed within the tight time scales.”

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Loretto School

Anne Cruickshank, Head Of Careers is passionate about preparing pupils for their future beyond Loretto School. Anne has facilitated this process by developing a Careers and Higher Education Resource Centre which includes organising Careers and Gap Conventions and Careers Experience Courses.

Meeting with Anne, Jeremy Bull of MDP realised that he shared a similar passion to help pupils prepare for the future. “While young people are gaining valuable skills and experience from extra curricular activities, what they may not be able to do on their own is to identify the ‘soft skills’ they have acquired and understand how to present these when it comes to application forms and interviews”. Recently Jeremy was invited to take his extensive management experience and training skills into Loretto running seminars for those in the final years of education. “Our young people have the potential to succeed – but it needs to be unlocked. By bringing real workplace styles and techniques into the classroom young people will be much more readily able to recognise the transferable skills they have acquired and how to present them.”

Last word to Anne Cruickshank: “It is so important that the pupils get the basics right to support their academic achievements. This covers everything from the spelling on their CV, to whether they have shiny shoes! Jeremy was able to get these messages across in a practical, motivational style which appealed to the majority of pupils and meant the message struck home.”

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The Scottish Commission for the Regulation of Care: Admin Support Review

When SCRC unexpectedly found itself without a project manager at a crucial stage of implementing a review of its administrative support function they turned to Jeremy Bull of MDP for help. Tom Waters, Director of Finance and Administration “The background consultation work with the employees had been implemented by the Steering Group, but we needed it to be pulled together to produce a proposal. I felt we needed someone from outside the organisation who could take an apolitical view.”

The brief was very clear in setting out the parameters. It should be cost-neutral or beneficial, take account of SCRC’s e-agenda and make better use of the current workforce skills. Most importantly the proposal had to be delivered within a very tight time scale. Jeremy Bull of MDP “It became apparent very quickly that they did not require a ‘big bang’ approach, but a solution that put in place key building blocks that allowed them operational flexibility to meet future business requirements. The workforce are highly motivated and one of my key recommendations was the appointment of a Senior Lead Officer who would ‘champion’ administration and drive the implementation of the building blocks.”

Based on Jeremy’s extensive customer service experience in the privatesector the proposed building blocks recognised the need to maintain the high level of accuracy for completing the Registration, Inspection, Complaints and Enforcement activities whilst making better use of technology to generate operational efficiencies at the same time as allowing them to meet the expanding demands made of a regulatory body.

Last word to Tom Waters “Jeremy brought a different perspective which made us think about the way we currently provided administrative support. His proposals were both practical and compatible with the needs of the business and provided options which may otherwise not have been considered. Most importantly the solution was self funding.”

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Negotiating key supplier contracts

A well established Charity responsible for running a mixed estate of Nursing/Care homes, special needs School and sheltered accommodation wanted to look at ways to reduce their costs in the light of a reduction in external funding. They had identified Janitorial supplies as a significant cost. Their existing supplier had traded with them for many years without any difficulties, but their own internal review had highlighted a number of concerns.

There were a number of reasons why they felt it would be a benefit to ask an outside organisation to assist them with the project:

• It makes for good governance to undertake an impartial review particularly given the longevity of the existing supply arrangement.
• The existing team did not have the experience of negotiating a supply agreement.
• There was a need to undertake the review in a short time scale and the existing team did not have the time to learn how to run a project of this nature.

The specialist nature of the business meant it was important that the supplier chosen offered a reliable service and was able to work with the Charity to help them manage the product portfolio. Pricing had to be competitive, but not necessarily the cheapest.

At the conclusion of the project there was a change of supplier. The benefits of this change were:

• A comprehensive review of the estate’s requirements which led to drastic product rationalisation.
• The introduction of a stock ordering system that prevented the ad-hoc purchasing of products and a reduction in the value of stock held.
• Improved Health and Safety for the staff and the residents / visitors by eliminating the need to self mix chemicals and the associated risk of incorrect labelling.
• Management statistics to aid budget control.
• Competitive pricing module.
• Agreement to fix pricing for 12 months which will aid budgeting.

Because we were focused on the task in hand we were able to deliver the results in an agreed timescale which meant that the tangible benefits from the renegotiation impacted sooner. Because the Charity’s involvement in the process was minimal they were able to concentrate on their tasks which meant that there was no disruption to the normal workflow.

Finally, because our process was transparent the client now has a template for conducting future negotiations with any of their suppliers.

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Implementing a Payroll & H R System:

VSA, a large traditional charity based in Aberdeen, has undergone a profound change in its outlook over the last few years. This was driven by new Directors who all agreed on the need to improve the quality of management information which meant an investment in up to date financial, payroll and HR information systems. The requirement for a new Payroll and HR system was agreed and Ellen Robertson, Corporate Services Director, the sponsor, having had previous experience of implementing new major systems, also argued to have someone with relevant experience to oversee the project as she knew that it was too big for anyone internally to carry out.

This was where MDP came in – at the beginning :-

• teasing out from the internal users all the information needed to put together the specification for the organisations who were asked to tender,
• identifying potential suppliers
• questioning the shortlisted suppliers when they made presentations to VSA,
• then working with the chosen supplier and the internal departments to make absolutely sure that the end result reflected VSA’s expectations.

The system chosen was Chris21, from Frontier Software, which is a fully integrated payroll and management information system. The new system is very user friendly and intuitive but for VSA users it represented a major cultural shift, especially those in the Payroll Department.

One of the key features of Chris21 is that the purchasing organisation itself, in this case VSA, does all the configuration work. This is very useful for helping the purchaser to get to know the system but is very time consuming as the majority of that work has to be done on top of all the normal day to day duties. The magnitude of this task is generally underestimated and overlooked by most purchasers. The benefit of the project manager knowing about payroll and payroll systems meant that she was able to identify where there were anomalies in the VSA payroll and make proposals to rectify them as well as set up audit controls and communicate them.

As Ellen Robertson said ‘On the face of it the MDP project manager could have been seen as an additional cost but the reality was that as she had done this type of project before and was able to take the internal staff with her keeping them motivated. It would have taken a lot longer to implement the new systems without her. MDP were good value for money.’

The project moved into a second phase and John Booth, the HR & Training Director for VSA, saw the potential for not only building the information sources but also revising the existing processes to align them with what he wanted going forward. Again MDP played a significant role as the project manager was able to map the existing processes and – another new departure for VSA – get the departments to work together to agree new streamlined processes which then were linked to the new system. The advantages of the project manager having worked with other systems also came through as she was able to challenge the software supplier on some occasions saving unnecessary development costs.

As John Booth says ‘having the MDP project manager working with us made all our lives a lot easier as she knew what she was doing and made good suggestions along the way for updating our HR profile and procedures. The key to putting in a new system is to understand and work with all the parts of the puzzle which have to fit together – the system, the software consultants, the internal staff, the line managers to whom the system was rolled out, communications, the timescales and deadlines – MDP took them all in their stride and gave us excellent support.’

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Conducting a membership survey for the Scottish Model Engineering Trust:

The Trustees of the Scottish Model Engineering Trust wanted to find out how their membership viewed the past, present and future of the Trust. The range of members interests in the hobby of model engineering were known to be quite diverse and although it would be extremely difficult to cater for everyone’s tastes it was felt important to understand if the majority were satisfied with what they were getting out of being members of the Trust. Jeremy Bull: “There were anecdotal examples of differing views amongst the membership, but no one really knew their true feelings and requirements.”
The Trust had developed quite rapidly since its inception in 2001 when it purchased and the freehold seven acre site on the outskirts of Perth. It had so far developed only one third of the site and the question was, ‘where to next?’ Jeremy: “Unlike a business the Trust members were all volunteers and this was their hobby. Therefore the survey had to be designed with this in mind. In other words we had to find out what aspects were going to fulfil their aspirations and what aspects would actually put them off.”
The survey produced a 75% return and helped the Trustees to formulate the next steps for the development of the site and its facilities. The survey also highlighted that 89% of the membership were very satisfied with the progress to date.
“The MD Partnership were commissioned to carry out a confidential survey of the membership and not only did we find their approach very professional, but for a small charitable Trust such as ourselves, MDP were extremely good value for money.” Graham Burhouse, Chairman of the Trustees.

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