FTSE 100 Travel Brand

Organisational change project for global travel company: Rapid TUPE of 1,500 global employees 17 months faster than client thought possible

The brief

TUPE of c.1500 UK employees to an offshore non-European entity.

The client initially estimated a two-year programme to achieve this, involving 15 members of their EMEA HR team. They needed a partner to support with start-to-finish delivery of this programme. The programme involved reward and national tax and legislation issues so the client wanted a partner who could help them navigate these commercial challenges.

Why Connor?

Large change programmes like this put pressure on internal HR teams. Delivering business as usual and doing this type of work using existing resource is unrealistic.

Connor offers an agile, squad approach to helping organisations to increase their HR expertise and capacity and this was attractive.

The client had up to nine Connor consultants working on delivery of the programme, but only when needed, making sure their budget was used efficiently.

Our approach

We listened carefully to the complex brief and made sure that the consultants we used for the programme had the right blend of skills and experience.

The Connor squad included experienced HR leaders, with a history of leading consultation led projects. We also used communication and data experts, so the client’s leadership team had real-time visibility on the status of the programme.

We advise clients to be prepared for ambiguity as some things will pan out as you imagine but you will need to deal with things that you didn’t expect. While the goal of this programme was clear to the client, how they were going to get there was ambiguous. We helped them to budget for this programme by giving some best and worst-case scenarios.

What we did for the client

BEFORE THE PROGRAMME:

We agreed the overall approach to the programme with the client
Created a project plan to inform timescales for initial communications to employees and activities to get the consultation process started.

THE PROGRAMME:

Ran the employee representative election process
Devised and delivered the training for both employee representatives (for collective
consultation) and the line managers (for individual consultation)
Held multiple collective consultation meetings
Developed all communications for the programme with the client’s internal communications
team
Helped the client to deliver all communications, which included numerous Skype calls with
employee representatives based across Europe
Produced and responded to all Q&As within agreed timescales
Facilitated the consultation meetings and managed all the arising complex cases
Devised the outcome letters for all individuals confirming contractual changes.

AFTER THE PROGRAMME:

We managed over 60 unresolved complex cases with help from the client’s HR team and line
managers.

Programme management:

We led all project review meetings, owned the minutes and all actions
We owned all the project data, which gave the client an at-a-glance summary of the status for all affected employees
We delivered a weekly report, including a one-page progress summary for the client leadership team comprising the HR director and the CFO.

Business outcomes

The programme was a success with a definitive outcome for all 1,500 employees within seven months
instead of the two years initially estimated by the client.

In addition, the programme successfully:

Brought together 15 members of the client’s HR team and 9 members of a Connor squad
Managed and answered 165 Q&As from employees
Resolved 161 complex employee cases – ranging from pensions and reward to maternity and benefits issues
Maintained business as usual for the EMEA HR team of a FTSE 100 company.

What the client said

“What we achieved was miraculous and we couldn’t have done this without you. It felt like we were dealing with peers and team members so working with Connor was a totally different consultancy experience.”
Global HR director

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