Testimonials
I have had cause to call on Nigel's services in both a fire-fighting situation and in setting up an initial HR strategy and process. In both cases he has been superb. I can't fault his expertise and knowledge or the advice he has provided and the robustness, clarity and patience with which he helped our organisation to deal with a very stressful situation. Where more technical legal knowledge was required, he had the contacts to get a swift and firm answer to our queries. We exited the situation with the best possible conclusion.
When creating the new processes with us he has delivered high quality documentation. He listened really carefully to what we needed, tailored the documentation accordingly, and it's written in English not legal speak so is accessible to everyone. I will be using Nigel for all our HR requirements in the future and would highly recommend him to you. And no, he hasn't asked me to write this!
Samantha Mant
Managing Director - Three Sixty Services
Taking on sole ownership of my company I embarked on an HR modernisation regime and was fortunate to be introduced to Nigel. He has provided invaluable assistance in the production of our new Contracts of Employment and an Employment Handbook. Having Nigel in the background instills confidence in ensuring our documentation and policies are fair and ‘legal’ and helpful for driving the business forward in a more modern way during tough economic times.
Peter Norris
Managing Director - Oculus Building Consultancy
As a relatively small but rapidly expanding business we are not yet in a position to run a full time HR department. However, acknowledging that there will inevitably be employee-related challenges we engaged the services of Nigel Cook at The Employers Cookbook in 2009. Since that time Nigel has provided the company with truly outstanding, flexible and cost effective support through both the routine and the tricky situations that every company has faced over the last couple of years.
Nigel has given us the ability to respond quickly, fairly and effectively to each new challenge – the greatest benefit has been to be able to demonstrate to everyone in the company that we are responsive to their needs whilst ensuring that the chosen path or action is the right path.
Paul Manister
CEO - Olton Solutions
Nigel has made a considerable impact on our internal communication processes and performance management techniques and has supported the entire company through numerous disciplinary issues, including supporting me through a successful defence against a Tribunal claim. We regard Nigel as an integral part of our managment team.
Rob Taylor
Managing Director - Avalon Leisure
In his time with The Consortium Nigel played a leading role as instigator and facilitator of considerable cultural change. His sound professional judgement has been valuable in helping others to deal effectively with their day to day people issues. Building and sustaining the right Company culture is a key competitive advantage and therefore an essential component for every organisation’s ongoing success.
Nigel is a natural team player who openly shares original thinking in contributing to strategic discussions. His knowledge of personality profiling helped colleagues to better understand how different people “tick” thus improving individual and team effectiveness.
He combines an innate intellectual capability with a sound professional CIPD grounding and his operational experience to develop policies and strategies across the spectrum of business issues delivers sound business results.
Jeff Gould
Consortium Chairman
When it comes to the subject of 'culture’ in business, I am a 'converted sceptic'. In all my previous operational experience I came across many HR initiatives which didn’t really impact on the performance of my people, or the bottom line.
However at The Consortium, Nigel and his team, working closely with me and my management team, put in place a range of initiatives which really did make an impact. The benefits have been: an immediate transformation in staff retention; much higher levels of productivity and quality of work; much greater ownership and commitment from the entire workforce towards process improvement - all of which have established a previously unheard of standard of service to our customers and at a reduced cost too.
It’s always difficult to pinpoint the causes of low moral and one initiative we have found particularly useful has been EVM (Employee Value Management). Not only does it help us to understand and deal with all the issues our staff have, but also people feel valued because they’ve had an input and we have been seen to have followed up on their feedback. It enables my management team to focus on actual rather perceived issues and positive results are achieved much more quickly. An additional unforeseen benefit was that the numerical score improved on each successive survey and everyone has taken great pride in the progress made.
I am confident that any business would benefit from working with Nigel to improve its performance.
Steve Tadhunter
Warehousing & Distribution Manager
EVM is the tool you need to measure (anonymously) whether staff are with you. It provides quantitative & qualitative feedback which combined give real insight into your stewardship & the management of individual teams. EVM results were as important to me as customer satisfaction scores.
Rob Stafford
Former Consortium FD & Corporate Turnaround Executive