Royal BAM Group (BAM) is a leading Tier 1 building contractor.  Its senior leaders asked Collinson Grant to help them review and redesign the UK & Ireland division’s organisational structure.

BAM had recently brought its regional and independent operating companies into a single UK & Ireland division and was now looking to pursue a more customer intimate strategy. This prompted a need to reconsider how the organisation was structured such that it could best serve customers and elevate embedded capabilities. The leadership team recognised that the existing design—developed during earlier consolidation would not deliver this.

We aimed to create a more coordinated, less complex organisation that could make faster decisions.

A clear view of the organisation and areas for change

We worked closely with the managerial team to understand the current organisation, its strengths, and the barriers affecting its work.  We found several performance limitations, including duplicated effort, inconsistent reporting lines, siloed working and unclear responsibilities.

We also examined how the structure affected communication and decision-making.  Like many large, project-based organisations, BAM needed to ensure information could move quickly and reliably throughout the business.  This meant removing layers of management that added cost and delay, and rebalancing spans of control that had become too narrow.

We developed options to solve these problems, concentrating on how the business faced the market and how work was coordinated between functions, projects, and regions.  We worked with the senior team to develop these options, from high-level design principles to detailed working practices, team structures, and accountabilities.

A practical understanding of how work is done

To support the redesign, we used Collinson Grant’s Process Activity Analysis (PAA)—a diagnostic tool that maps the core processes within an organisation and identifies who is doing the work and how much effort is being spent on each activity. This showed how work moved between individuals, departments, and business units, and where processes were vulnerable to handoff failures, duplication, or delay.

The analysis supported open, evidence-based conversations about which practices BAM needed to keep and which needed to change.  The PAA gave the managerial team confidence that the new structure was informed by how people did their work, not just how they were nominally organised.

Preparing for change and supporting implementation

We presented the proposed design to the senior leadership team and worked with them to define how key functions would operate in the new model.  We supported BAM’s change team to prepare for implementation helping them to translate the high-level structure into teams, roles, and reporting lines, and giving them the tools and guidance needed to lead the transition.

Mark Sheridan, Commercial Director of BAM UK & Ireland, with Simon Millman and Ryan McKnight from Collinson Grant

Callaway Care and Support is a specialist care provider of residential care and supported living for adults with learning disabilities, autism, complex health needs and behaviours of concern.  Its services are designed around a ‘pathway to independence’ model, combining 24/7 residential care with flexible supported living options to help individuals progress toward greater autonomy.  The organisation operates several homes and supported accommodation schemes across South East England, providing person-centred, holistic care that promotes inclusion, dignity and community engagement.

Callaway Care and Support engaged Collinson Grant to conduct leadership assessments for the organisation’s Managing Director and three care home managers.  Led by an experienced Occupational Psychologist, the work combined psychometric profiling with verbal and numerical reasoning tests.  This assessed each leader’s capabilities and how well these aligned with the company’s operational and people responsibilities in a complex, regulated care environment.  The assessment framework was designed around existing person specifications, allowing clear benchmarking of performance, behavioural style and leadership approach.

The outcomes gave the leadership team a clear view of individual and collective development needs.  This helped shape targeted coaching and succession planning.  The process also highlighted untapped potential among the care home managers, identifying those capable of taking on broader strategic responsibilities as the organisation continues to grow.  By using a structured, evidence-based approach, Collinson Grant helped Callaway Care and Support to strengthen its leadership pipeline and ensure its management capability remains robust, reflective and ready for future challenges in the health and social care sector.

Donna Thompson, Managing Director of Callaway Care and Support, said, ‘This process has helped us move forward, with more clarity, more alignment, and a stronger commitment to supporting our leaders.‘

The Chief Finance Officer (CFO) of NHS England asked us to support a couple of Trusts that had challenging financial situations.  The Executive team at Mid and South Essex Foundation Trust was under sustained pressure.  The leadership burden needed to be reduced and they needed additional capacity to be able to change.

It was clear from the outset that long-term improvement was only possible if the finance community took ownership.  So, our role was to provide temporary, focused support to stabilise and strengthen financial leadership throughout the Trust.

Our work included:

• acting as a ‘critical friend’ to the finance leaders, providing practical help, independent challenge and strategic capacity
• using the CFO’s influence to complete projects where necessary
• changing the Trust’s view of functional support
• helping change the functional mindset within finance.

We focused on people, processes and costs to build confidence, capability, and focus.  This was fundamental to creating a new environment within the function after the Covid-19 pandemic and the structural changes at the Trust.

The high-impact areas we worked on included: improving recruitment and roster controls, streamlining procedures for payroll and stock, and standardising governance and financial accountability throughout the Trust.  We worked alongside the existing teams, engaging key parts of the system while the rest continued to function.  It was essential for us to relieve pressure without causing disruption, working in real time and making adjustments as the system responded.

We developed better scenario planning and forecasting to help the organisation anticipate risks.  By improving accountability, local finance teams were capable and confident enough to lead and tackle challenges, with clear escalation routes for problems that could not be resolved locally.  With improved focus and clearer reporting lines, it relieved pressure on the CFO and the Executive team while maintaining their confidence.

These changes helped Mid and South Essex build a more resilient and self-sufficient finance function, which is better equipped to handle emerging and future challenges.

Dawn Scrafield, Chief Finance Officer of Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust, said:

“It was a breath of fresh air working with Collinson Grant. Their insight into public sector challenges was invaluable, and particularly able to draw on experience of different sectors which allowed fresh perspective. The support I received was value adding to the team as we were able to target the benefits to improve delivery and support development. To have a ‘critical friend’ of this nature was well timed and I would recommend to forming teams navigating challenging times!”

Phil Ross of Collinson Grant and Dawn Scrafield, Chief Finance Officer of Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust, at Southend Hospital

The business prides itself on driving efficiencies and tight cost control.  Collinson Grant has forged a long-term relationship with Brewing & Group Supply Chain, providing targeted and skilled support to help answer well-chosen questions on several topics, ranging from warehousing productivity through to a very specific review of pricing policies for cellar services.

Our work in the distribution business has operated at two levels; firstly, we used our expertise and experience to support a review of the network strategy which led to several targeted improvement initiatives.  Brewing & Group Supply Chain has valued our subject matter expertise – generating options, challenging business cases, and validating the assumptions behind proposals, providing independent, impartial advice and support to the Programme Steering Group.

Secondly, using our strong track record in productivity improvement we have completed granular analyses throughout the network, working at the warehouse manager level, to help identify and agree opportunities in the way the warehouses operate, which the management team has built into its annual planning cycle.

Commenting on our multi-layered support Martin Hayes, Finance Director for Brewing & Group Supply Chain, said:

“Collinson Grant has played a pivotal role in supporting Greene King (Brewing & Group Supply Chain) in identifying productivity enhancements throughout our network, driving substantial value.  Their efforts in recognising opportunities and assisting in executing our strategic initiatives have been invaluable.  As a long-standing trusted partner, their deep understanding of our business, coupled with their objective and insightful advice, has been instrumental in elevating our operations to the next level.”

Paul Weekes, Director at Collinson Grant and Martin Hayes, Finance Director for Brewing & Group Supply Chain at Greene King, at the Riverside pub in Burton on Trent

Paul Weekes, Director at Collinson Grant and Martin Hayes, Finance Director for Brewing & Group Supply Chain at Greene King, at the Riverside pub in Burton on Trent

The majority of Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) understand the importance of HR.  CEOs expect their HR leaders and the HR function to achieve the basics well, but have little interest in the administrative, transactional, and compliance aspects of HR beyond the fact that they are done.

Research overwhelmingly finds that what CEOs want from HR, and what they care about most, is support in enabling the business strategy and building the people and organisational capability to achieve it.

The technical expertise of the HR leader is a given.  Strategic thinking, commercial understanding, and performance are the differentiators. HR Directors need to be more ‘Director’ and less ‘HR’.

And many CEOs privately admit that they don’t know how to use their HR team as effectively and strategically as they would like to.

Equally, that same group said that having the right data is vital – particularly HR metrics that contribute to commercial goals.

Some of the most important metrics and leading indicators that your HR team should provide are:

Hiring plan

Including targets for numbers, time to hire, cost to hire, agency fees, diversity rates, open positions filled internally, etc.

Exits/attrition

Including regrettable turnover percentage, exits within six months, exits within 24 months, attrition/retention percentage, leading termination reason, leading resignation reason, internal turnover, etc.

Manager effectiveness

Including data by manager for turnover, retention, engagement, performance reviews completed, etc.

Employee engagement

Including trends over time and qualitative feedback, employee net promoter scores, etc.

Absenteeism

Including short-term, long-term, lateness, etc.

Training effectiveness

Including training days/costs, course attendance and completion rates, post-training assessment rates, learner satisfaction and retention rates, and training return on investment.

Cost

Including total cost as a percentage of overall organisational expenditure, cost of the HR function per employee, the ratio of full time equivalent employees to HR staff.

This mix of leading and lagging indicators signals a wide span and range of critical areas that may need attention.  They will allow you to recognise patterns, identify strengths and weaknesses, predict future trends, and take action where required.

This is the real power of HR leading (and lagging) indicators.  They allow organisations, businesses, and HR leaders to proactively tackle problems identified by these signals.  This means they can prevent problems from escalating or even occurring in the first place.  Conversely, ignoring these early warning signs can lead to reduced employee satisfaction, increased turnover, lower productivity, and ultimately, a negative impact on the organisation’s bottom line.

If these data, and associated insights, are not readily available in your organisation then you must ask why.

Most new houses are built by a small number of large developer.  They need somewhere to build, permission to build and then labour and materials to get the job done.  Government is working to make planning permission easier to obtain, so what are the challenges in building?

Materials and supply chain

As we saw in 2020 and 2021, the building materials supply chain is finite and can be slow to respond to increasing demand.  When everybody spent their money on home improvements instead of holidays the price of basic building materials soared, when they were even available.

Skilled tradespeople

Since the 1990s the UK education system has aimed for 50% of young people to go to university.  The emphasis on academic education inevitably took young people out of vocational training and apprenticeships.  Fewer apprentices 20 years ago means there are fewer experienced, skilled tradespeople now.  A high proportion of those who are experienced are now looking towards retirement.  Can we fix it?  Not quickly.  Traditional apprenticeships take two years or more; longer for electricians and plumbers.  Rushing people through will reduce quality, leading to the need for re-work.

Generally, house builders do not employ tradespeople.  They contract with them for each job.  So a shortage of trained people increases competition for those who are available.  If the materials to complete the work are not on site, workers will find other work, which increases the delay when materials are available.

Changes in regulations

Construction must comply with the building regulations.  These have changed in recent years to mitigate climate change – for example, exterior walls now require 150mm of insulation instead of 100mm; fossil fuel burning boilers are banned.  Some changes are straightforward, but others require new skills – a heat pump and a gas boiler have different installation requirements.  This again causes difficulty in finding skilled workers.

Careful planning

These challenges can be met by careful scheduling of deliveries and engaging with the workforce.  Getting this right will avoid delays and keep the project within budget.  Digital tools, such as Building Information Modeling (BIM), can help but there are still factors outside the builder’s control, such as poor weather, that must be allowed for.

Self-determination theory, first posited in 1985, says that autonomy is an important factor in motivation.  When employees have control over their work environment, they can tailor it to their preferences and spend more time being productive rather than dealing with things that are just not quite right.  Some may prefer to start and finish early, while others don’t find the energy to achieve their goals until later in the day.  Some thrive in a neat and tidy environment, while others work best when they can spread their work to suit themselves.

The debate over homeworking versus office-based productivity may have missed the point.  Perhaps productivity is not a function of where you work, but rather about how much control you have over your work environment and schedule. By prioritising autonomy and empowering employees to work in a way that suits their needs, wherever they are, organisations can unlock higher productivity and job satisfaction.

Edward Hollingsworth, a 19th century hosiery manufacturer, equipped his Nottinghamshire factory with mechanised stocking frames.  In November 1811, seeing a threat to their traditional skills and fearing for their livelihoods, a group of textile workers broke into the factory and destroyed several machines, beginning the Luddite movement.  However, although the need for skilled weavers diminished until it almost disappeared, the new mechanised mills brought down the price of textiles, which increased demand until more people were employed to operate automatic looms than had been employed as weavers. Associated industries, such a fabric dying, also expanded.

Automated teller machines (ATMs) began appearing in the USA in the 1960s and 70s with wide anticipation that the number of human bank tellers would fall.  The number of tellers in a branch did fall and those who remained no longer dealt with routine deposits and withdrawals but spent their time on more complex services such as loan consultations, financial planning and customer service.  A branch was now cheaper to run, needing fewer people who could now spend their time gaining customers, so banks opened more branches to compete in new locations and the total number of human tellers increased.

Today, we see companies taking advantage of AI for simple customer service interactions powered by chatbots while escalating more complex questions to a human.  Does this mean that companies are employing fewer customer service staff, or does it mean that the staff it employs are free to respond to more complex enquiries, while the customers that could have got their answer from web site or who ask the simple common questions receive a faster response?

At the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow, a pioneering project is using AI to improve the efficiency of CT scan processing.  The technology examines head CT scans and accurately pinpoints critical areas of concern, creating prioritised reporting that allows prompt diagnosis and treatment of head injuries.  Not only does this improve the patient experience, it also alleviates the pressure on the A&E department.  Will this reduce the number of jobs for specialist radiologists?  That seems unlikely, given your correspondent’s recent experience of being told it would take six weeks for a radiologist to review the images of his scan.

So is AI coming for our jobs?  Mechanisation took the weavers’ jobs but created opportunities for machine operators.  ATMs allowed bank tellers to do something other than count money.  Will AI replace last mile delivery drivers and long-distance lorry drivers?  Will financial analysts be replaced by automated trading and AI financial analysis systems?  Or will AI simply allow us to get more done?

Highwood Consultants Limited (Highwood) manufactures synthetic timber products using recycled plastic.  It originated the process 30 years ago and paved the way for recycled timber replacement products in the UK.  Highwood’s supply chain is completely UK-based giving it a Made in Britain status.  The products are made in its factory in Runcorn, Cheshire, from 100% recycled plastic to replace timber, composites and other recycled plastics, which are used in many outdoor applications, including canopies, composite doors, fencing and gates, and outdoor furniture.

Highwood’s UK business was failing to grow and when revenue began to fall it was obvious that changes were needed at a management team level.  The shareholders believed in the product but were unsure whether the problem could be resolved.  Collinson Grant was engaged to investigate the business performance, advise the shareholders and implement the actions that presented the best value for them.

We analysed data from 2008 to 2022 on its financial performance, customers, products, and volumes.  It showed that, despite the business maintaining revenue over several years, it was regularly losing large customers and the revenue should have been at least four times its current level.

Interviews with employees, suppliers, and existing and old clients found that customers generally liked the product but were regularly let down by the business.  Old customers switched to competitors or changed to a different product, and existing customers were actively looking for replacements.  Suppliers were also increasing prices creating a challenging environment.

Collinson Grant implemented an immediate recovery plan to stabilise the business.  This included improving relationships with customers and suppliers, approaching old customers to win them back, controlling costs, improving employee engagement and stabilising and supporting the management team.  These actions prevented the business from closing, allowing time to develop a plan for growth.

Further work commenced to understand competitors and opportunities for growth.  This resulted in a targeted product offering that was easier to sell and created significant growth prospects.  Collinson Grant developed a detailed five-year business plan to transform the business from loss-making to profit with the creation of significant shareholder value.  This allowed the shareholders to evaluate immediate business sales options versus continued investment.  Collinson Grant supported on this evaluation.  Shareholders decided to reinvest in to the business and in support of this, the shareholders needed to hire a Managing Director.  Collinson Grant managed the recruitment processes, and the ultimate result was the appointment of a new Managing Director to the client’s satisfaction.

The business turnaround efforts from Collinson Grant prevented the collapse of Highwood and returned it to a path of profitable growth, presenting its shareholders exceptional value.

“The Shareholders have long supported the business and its product and had been frustrated by the constant barriers to growth.   Collinson Grant’s support has allowed the barriers to be overcome and identified a route to unlock the potential in the business”.

Connect Health is the largest independent community healthcare provider of its type in the UK, providing musculoskeletal, pain management and mental health services, plus other out-of-hospital community care, nationwide.  It provides personalised care to over 350,000 NHS patients each year, with a focus on quality, outcomes, safety and experience.  Patient administration is handled through a Patient Care Co-ordination team (PCC) in Newcastle upon Tyne.

The company had grown incredibly quickly over a short period, organically and through acquisition.  This growth, and the need to fully integrate acquired businesses, led the board to seek an assessment of the company’s organisational structure, the effectiveness of the overhead and support functions and performance within the PCC.  An important requirement was that the future organisation would be lean, agile, sustainable, and could operate at pace.  This final point is crucial given the need for the business to rapidly absorb large numbers of patients and staff after winning a contract.

We worked with the business in three linked phases to reduce risk.  We identified, developed and then implemented these changes:

• A new management structure that optimised managerial capacity, reduced silos, and integrated acquired services. Fewer tiers would also mean better control and communication.
• Clarity over accountability by role, to remove duplicated effort and ensure necessary inward facing and customer facing activity was clear.
• New management systems were introduced to allow improved planning and control with new review mechanisms and processes and a focus on productivity.
• More commercial attitudes and managerial styles. This behavioural change was key to the success of the programme and was supported by formal, bespoke training sessions as well as plenty of practical follow up and coaching in the workplace.

Core to the programme was the need to ensure no changes would adversely affect the patient experience or service levels.  Overall, the business was leaner and more cost effective with a significant cost saving well above the figure originally estimated.

Chief Executive Officer, Mike Turner said…

“This was a key project for Connect and one with inherent risks.  Collinson Grant helped us to design and implement a change programme, navigating through this, which ultimately delivered benefits above our expectations.  Their help was invaluable.”