People strategy is the business articulation of how your wider business strategy will be achieved from a people perspective. It’s important to regularly review your strategic people and HR goals, particularly during periods of change. By doing so you can ensure your business goals translate into people outcomes and you can build an operational plan to make it happen. Our team of experts is here to help you define your strategy and lay out your plan for success.

How do we do that?

Whether you are a new HR Director undertaking organisational change or keen to review your existing people strategy, we have a team of HR strategy experts to support you. We develop people strategies and experiences that integrate your workforce, maximise your technology and fuel your culture and organisation. Our goal is to help you realise the full potential of your people and your investment, as well as creating alignment to your business priorities.

How we can help:

• Survey and feedback to determine business requirements
• Strategy facilitation and challenge
• People plan definition
• Transformation and digital roadmap
• HR Director / CHRO / CPO coaching
• External case studies and benchmarking
• Capability assessments
• Defining your case for change.

What to expect:

The first step in any great people strategy is getting under the skin of what the business as a whole is trying to achieve and how that relates to its employees. Read our thoughts on the difference between people vs HR strategy in one of our blogs here.

As an HR Director, you may be asking yourself:

• What are the four or five critical things I have to focus on to support the business with achieving its goals?
• How can I set out our strategic HR intent to my business stakeholders in an engaging way?
• How will I measure success?
• How does my HR function need to change to ensure we can deliver our critical people outcomes?
• We want to become a more digitally enabled HR function delivering great experiences for our people – what does that look like and how do I get there?

Our experienced team will work seamlessly alongside yours to map out the people outcomes and the milestones for your People plan. We have worked with senior HR leaders from multiple industries so can bring external challenge and different perspectives to shape a robust strategy and plan with clear accountabilities and success factors.

The LACE approach:

1. We understand you

Our team has a powerful mix of operational and consulting experience, enabling us to really understand the challenges you may be facing and provide personalised solutions.

2. We inspire and challenge you

We have worked with senior HR leaders from multiple industries so can bring external challenge and different perspectives to shape a robust strategy and plan with clear accountabilities and success factors. We pride ourselves on being brave enough to tell you the truth. We aren’t afraid to suggest something totally out of the box and we will give you our honest expert opinions. Experience has told us this is the fastest route to excellence, even if it can sometimes mean revisiting the drawing board.

3. We pave the way for you

We will turn your strategy into a practical operational plan so that every member of the HR leadership team is clear on the direction of travel and their role in delivering the target outcomes.

4. We co-create with you

We don’t have a cookie cutter mindset; we work in partnership with you to create and deliver bespoke solutions aligned directly to your business requirements and people priorities. We use our extensive experience to accelerate you through this at pace.

5. We get it done

The proof is in the pudding. We show our value through the results we bring and your positive experience along the way. Our aim is to make you as an HR leader successful in your role by delivering on the people priorities for your business.

Organisations want to move to the Cloud and digitise their workforce to deliver increased value and provide insights. From thinking through the experience and capabilities you need in your next generation of digital people systems, to developing your HR technology roadmap, we can support. If you are looking to build a business case, or are deciding on the right systems for you, we will help you make the right choices to maximise your investment in digital enablers and people analytics. We focus not just on the immediate product decisions, but more importantly, how the choices made will impact your broader people systems landscape, as well as how your current processes and data will evolve in the Cloud.

How do we do that?

Our product-agnostic team of experienced HR technology practitioners use our proven methodology, templates and tools, to help shape and structure your journey to the Cloud. We are in a unique position to provide advice on the leading HR products and how to integrate them with your current processes, technology, and data to maximise value and drive adoption for a successful transformation. We can support you throughout your journey to the Cloud; whether you are at the very beginning, are in mid-transformation and would like an external view, or want to understand the art of the possible to optimise your existing Cloud technology.

How we can help: 

Cloud readiness

• Leadership alignment, as-is assessment, roadmap and case for change
• Experience and service design and Cloud support model
• Product and System Integrator selection
• Business case
• Preparing for transformation – Data, process, and key design decisions

Agile Cloud Implementation

• Provision of client-side implementation specialists including programme and project management, programme office, solution architects, testing and deployment, change management and adoption
• Business case realisation
• Independent Programme Assurance (IPA)

Living with the Cloud

• Cloud operating model definition, assessment and optimisation
• Post go-live Cloud solution optimisation
• Periodic health checks

What you can expect:

Our digital transformation experts bring a wealth of experience and lessons learnt from implementing all aspects of HCM and workforce digital Cloud technology. We put employee experience and workforce productivity at the centre of our approach, focusing on the value and insights your next generation of systems will provide over what you have today – after all, they are likely to be with you for the next decade or more, so ensuring you have thought through the foundations of your next generation of systems is critical. We tailor our proven approach for your organisation, right sizing our approach for your level of complexity and the scope of the journey you are considering. Our team can work seamlessly with yours (either in-person or remotely) injecting senior specialists and additional support as required.

As an HR Director you may be asking yourself:

• How do we improve our digital employee experience?
• How do we migrate to the Cloud / what do we need to do to optimise our existing Cloud platform?
• Which products should I be considering?
• What is the case for change?
• My technology is painful to change, how do I get more agile?
• We tailor our proven approach for your organisation, right sizing our approach for your level of complexity and the scope of the journey you are considering. Our team can work seamlessly with yours (either in-person or remotely) injecting senior specialists and additional support as required.

The LACE approach:

1. We understand you

Your value case and roadmap begin with where you are today. To help shape your journey we take the time to understand your current landscape, constraints and pain points – not all of which will be solved by jumping to the Cloud. We seek to understand your aspirations and consider them within the broader context of your business and people strategy. Our discovery sessions typically begin with a set of structured workshops and executive interviews to rapidly build out the starting point for your digital transformation roadmap, articulate your key value leavers for change, and develop an aligned vision of your eventual destination. We put ourselves in your shoes to understand your organisation, what characteristics drive change for you and provide you practical hints and tips to be successful.

2. We inspire and challenge you

We will develop your vision of a digitally enabled workforce through immersion workshops to challenge and confirm your people function, service and experience ambitions. We will use these insights to recommend initiatives and supporting technology, showing you how as an HR leader, you can create organisational value by investing in digital enablers. Our team will bring inspiration, influence fresh and creative thinking, and provide practical advice on how to drive your digital agenda. We will connect you with industry HR experts, clients, and strategic partners.

3. We pave the way for you

To connect you with your digital future, we will lay out a practical roadmap to move you forward in digestible stages, aligned to your value case and with logical gating to manage and control risk. Underpinned by years of experience of supporting businesses through their digital transformation, we will help you crystalise your digital vision and desired outcomes, building a realistic plan and case for change.

4. We co-create with you

We pride ourselves in truly embedding ourselves into your organisation and creating a truly collaborative “one team, one dream” environment. We will guide your team and key stakeholders through our structured methodology, sharing our tools and experience to co-create with you.

5. We get it done

Shaping and delivering a successful change programme requires specialist skills and experience. We focus not only on our deliverables and the promises we have made, but also on building capability within your teams and being pragmatic in everything we do.  We act as your trusted partner bringing together skills to complement your team and drive your successful outcome.

People experience in the workplace is now arguably one of the biggest factors in driving productivity, retaining great talent and differentiating your organisation. People are fundamentally thinking differently about their way of living, craving independence, personalisation, and self-control. Organisations have a sense of urgency to refresh their employee value proposition taking an imaginative look into personalised experiences, fresh look at reward packages offered and new ideas for connecting all their workforce and cementing a sense of belonging. We can help you think differently about your people experiences, your value proposition and put a direct link between these and the productivity of your workforce.

How do we do that?

Designing a powerful, positive people experience isn’t just a box to tick for HR – it can have a significant impact on many parts of the organisation. We will help you understand your experience gaps today, provide recommendations on how to solve them across the employee lifecycle from attracting talent, onboarding, development and simply keeping your talent in the business. We will give you the knowledge and tools to help you measure progress over time and interpret your people data to create impactful insights.

How we can help:

• Immersive half-day or full-day people experience workshop to inspire and align your leadership
• Assessment of your current employee experience gaps and expected experience journey’s
• Actionable people experience and employee experience recommendations to inform your people strategy and digital roadmap
• Employee value proposition (EVP) – we’ll help you to map out, assess your existing EVP, so that it supports your talent attraction and retention plans
• Strategic workforce planning helping you to map out your future needs aligned to your business objectives
• Talent marketplace – assessing your current talent/skills gaps, identifying hidden talent and the movement of talent around the organisation, as well as rethinking how you identify, assess and onboard talent.

What to expect:

Getting your people / employee experience right is a fundamental part of ensuring your people are engaged and are delivering productivity for your business.

As an HR Director, you may be asking yourself:

• Where is my employee experience falling short of expectation now?
• How do I gain insights to design and implement the right experiences to attract and retain our best talent?
• Is my employee value proposition hitting the right spot?
• Are we giving people the right opportunities to keep them engaged and motivated?
• How can I get the best from my hybrid workforce?
• What digital tools will work best to improve employee engagement in my organisation?

Our team of experienced practitioners have a wealth of knowledge working across multiple organisations to ensure that your people experience delivers exactly what you need in supporting the overall objectives of your business. Our knowledge across a variety of different sectors in delivering successful people /employee experience programmes can be applied to your business today – you just have to get in touch.

The LACE approach:

1. We understand you

Through a combination of our experienced HR professionals and our propriety HR transformation diagnostic tool, we will determine your readiness for change across a number of dimensions (e.g. service maturity, HR capabilities, mindset and technology) and provide clarity and practical advice on where to focus your attention based on your business and people priorities.

2. We inspire and challenge you

Through our half-day or full-day immersion workshop, we will bring inspiration to your team, influence fresh and creative thinking, and bring practical tips on how to drive your new differentiated experience for your people agenda.

Based on your needs we can deep dive into specific topics to help your think broadly about your people experiences such as workforce productivity, strategic workforce planning, talent marketplace and internal mobility or your learning agenda. These tailored workshops are designed for you to help you take purposeful steps to achieve your people experience vision, map out an actionable path and gain leadership commitment and alignment to move forward at pace.

3. We pave the way for you

Our role is to boost your team and support you in your success. Our team will join yours either virtually or in person to ensure you are confident at each step of your people experience transformation journey. We will help you pave a practical path forward to realise your differentiated experiences through a flexible six-to-twelve week set of activities, which outlines the key decisions to make, uses our experience journey templates and accelerators, with our deep understanding of the technology market to advise on your digital tools to bring your new people experiences to life.

4. We co-create with you

Our unique collaborative approach to co-create with you allows us to design the very best solutions for our clients. We don’t have a ‘cookie cutter’ archive of HR solutions; we work alongside each of our clients to create and deliver a personalised approach using our experience and people experience assets and accelerators to guide our design and build something that works for you.

5. We get it done

We show our value through the results we bring and your positive experiences along the way. Every project we deliver comes with defined objectives which we will tick off with you as we get you from A-to-B and we can bring expertise to complement your team to implement your desired people experiences from programme management, specialist HR professionals, data and technology architects or simply “phone a friend”, which is a unique retainer arrangement that you can call upon as you need to act as your sounding board, to stress test ideas or help you unblock a barrier along the way.

The Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated workplace change and shifted workforce expectations in unprecedented ways, putting HR teams and their ability to lead organisational change firmly in the spotlight. The People Function has never had a greater opportunity to drive change and business value.

Transforming HR is our passion at LACE – it’s what we love to do. We share your belief that people hold the key to business performance and we’ve worked with many clients to make a fundamental difference to HR’s ability to deliver real value.

How do we do that?

Since the beginning of the pandemic working life has changed a light speed; and continues to do so. As organisations adapt and optimise their ways of working we are ready to help make these ideas a reality.

We select, design, and deliver HR and digital solutions that can help your People Function emerge stronger for a future-fit organisation. Our team of experts will ensure you have the right capabilities to drive business value and a clear path to maximise your investment in technology. 

How we can help:

• ‘Future fit’ assessment – a holistic review of your current HR target operating model across people, process, technology and tools, governance, skills, behaviours and mindset, aligned to your future strategic objectives
• Building your HR transformation business case, including the case for change narrative, transformation roadmap, etc
• HR operating model design and implementation, including organisation design
• HR shared services optimisation
• Process optimisation, through an operational effectiveness and experience lens
• HR capability framework development
• Line manager capability framework development
• HR technology assessment, selection and implementation – across HCM / vertical solutions as well as service delivery technologies
• People data analytics and insights.

What to expect:

There is no single blueprint which organisations can follow for successfully adapting to the new world of work. We’re passionate about designing experience-led people functions and making sure they connect the dots between HR’s purpose and wider business goals. Each of our team has their own ‘war stories’, having lived the end-to-end HR transformation journey either as consultants, HR practitioners or both, and brings these insights to help shape every project with our clients.

As an HR Director, you may be asking yourself:

• How can we re-think our HR operating model to support our business strategy and stay aligned?
• How do we maintain an agile People Function and continuously improve?
• How do we build or optimise our HR Shared Services capabilities?
• We have a large population of our workforce that are ‘unconnected’ – i.e. frontline, operational, field based. How do we best provide HR services to them so that they feel connected, engaged and empowered?
• What skills, behaviours and mindsets should we be investing in across our HR teams and how do we go about this to make it sustainable?
• How do we harness digital and analytics to create an intelligent People function that can support the business and provide the right insights?
• What service delivery technology is best for us and how can we leverage leading technologies like AI, VR, blockchain etc.?

The LACE approach:

1. We understand you

Through a combination of our experienced HR professionals and our propriety HR transformation diagnostic tool, we will determine your readiness for change across a number of dimensions (e.g. service maturity, HR capabilities, mindset and technology) and provide clarity and practical advice on where to focus your attention based on your business and people priorities.

2. We inspire and challenge you

One of our three core values at LACE is innovation and we bring a fresh, practical perspective on the future of HR. Through a combination of immersive sessions, such as your people ambition and the people function of the future (where we explore the ‘10 traits’ at the heart of every high performing people function and share examples from comparator organisations), we will energise and align your HR leadership team around a shared vision and the drivers of competitive differentiation – always linking back to your overarching business objectives.

Whilst having a shared vision is important, key to your success will be the ability of the HR leadership team to effectively lead change from the front. Through acting as a critical friend, a fundamental part of our role is to help you do exactly that.

3. We pave the way for you

Over approximately six to eight weeks, our team will work with you to develop a high-level design for your future HR operating model which enables the effective delivery of your ambition and strategic priorities – be that optimising what you already have, or fundamentally transforming the status quo. This could include experience principles, future service offering, service delivery model and indicative teams and skills/behaviours. We pride ourselves on our pragmatic advice – a blueprint is of limited use without a practical plan to execute it. As such, we will also develop an implementation plan (covering people, process, technology and governance), indicative business case and case for change narrative. Together, these will help you gain internal buy-in to your future ambition and its associated recommendations, plus give you confidence in the immediate actions you need to take to maintain momentum.

4. We co-create with you

Our approach is inclusive, collaborative and engaging. We will involve a cross-selection of HR and business stakeholders in design and review sessions, combining virtual and face-to-face engagement channels and collaboration tools. Typical activities include: organisation design, HR capability development, detailed process design / optimisation, experience design, service delivery technology selection and design, line manager capability framework development and also overarching change management / adoption. Depending on your requirements, we have the depth and breadth of experience to create the future design of the overall HR operating model or a specific functional area – e.g. talent management, people analytics, HR shared services.

5. We get it done

We are more than just strategic thinkers. Depending on the nature of the project and your internal capabilities, we can provide experienced resources in the areas of HR transformation programme management, solution architect and solution assurance, experience testing advisory and change management.

Our job is to take the stress and noise out of your payroll problems. We can help you with payroll vendor selection if you are changing provider, or support you if you want to optimise what you already have. Our team can provide a pulse-check to illustrate how your payroll is functioning currently, including a detailed global analysis, giving you the insight you need to get the best out of your payroll.

How do we do that?

Our technology agnostic team has a powerful mix of operational payroll and consultancy experience, ensuring you choose the right payroll system and tailor it to your business. Our goal is to build confidence in your payroll and create an end-to-end solution that you can be proud of.  

How we can help:

• Global and local payroll strategy and health-check
• Payroll vendor selection and business case development
• Expert market insight and provider quality assurance
• Evaluating and optimising your existing payroll systems and processes
• Parallel run test planning and management
• Managing your end-to-end payroll implementation programme

What to expect:

Our expert team are able to support at any point during your payroll transformation. We can help identify your problems, speed up your deployment, optimise your service or just provide you with expert independent advice.

If you are looking for a new payroll provider we are able to assess your existing payroll landscape, working with you to define your requirements and build a robust payroll roadmap.

We are totally independent of payroll technology providers and will give you our unbiased expert opinion on which technologies are best suited for your organisation. Our team works as a seamless extension of yours, injecting senior specialists and additional support as required.

So whether you know you have a problem and need support to identify why, have made the decision to change providers and need support with any phase of that process, want to perform a health-check on how your payroll service is running, or just need some independent advice we can help.

The LACE approach:

1. We understand you

Our team have a powerful mix of operational and consulting experience, enabling us to really understand the challenges you may be facing and provide personalised solutions. We will not focus solely on Technology, Processes, People or Policy and will ensure we build a full understanding of your challenges in order to properly advise the relevant solution. Typically we will begin with a series of interviews or workshops to build our understanding of not only your organisation and the current challenges, but also your aspirations. During this phase we will also ensure we build our understanding of your broader business and people strategy to inform our analysis and recommendations. It is about putting ourselves in your shoes and ensuring we deliver what is required in order for you to achieve success.

2. We inspire and challenge you

We pride ourselves in being brave enough to tell you the truth. We aren’t afraid to suggest alternatives and we will give you our honest expert opinions. Experience has told us this is the fastest route to excellence, even if it can sometimes mean revisiting the drawing board. Once we have built a full picture of your business and the challenges that need to be resolved we will be open and honest with our recommendations, even if that means starting again, or in some cases fixing something else. Our experience tells us that not all payroll challenges can be resolved in payroll, and sometimes a shift in approach may be required to truly and permanently resolve your challenges.

3. We pave the way for you

Our role is to boost your team and support you in your success. Our team will join yours either virtually or in person to ensure you are confident at each step of your payroll transformation. By the time we leave your team will be ready to continue your great work without us. Wherever we have recommended or implemented new technology, new ways of working, or supported you in changing the way your payroll team are structured, we will provide you with the mechanism to maintain success, through robust vendor KPI monitoring or service management tools.

4. We co-create with you

Our unique collaborative approach allows us to design the very best solutions for our clients. We don’t have an archive of templated HR and payroll solutions; we work alongside each of our clients to create and deliver a personalised dual approach. We will ensure that solutions, implementation plans and recommendations are suitable for your organisation, and are delivered in a manner that befits your companies culture.

5. We get it done

We show our value through the results we bring and your positive experiences along the way. Every project we deliver comes with defined objectives which we will tick off with you as we get you from A to B. Shaping and delivering a successful change programme requires specialist skills and experience so we focus not only on our deliverables and the promises we have made, but also on building capability within your teams and being pragmatic in everything we do. We act as your trusted partner bringing together skills to complement your team and drive your successful outcome.