Gold standard HR Consultancy

HR Consultant Sue Westhead of Yorkshire based HR Outsourcing and Consultancy business HR180 Ltd, is using skills gained working with Laing O’Rourke, a delivery partner to the Olympic Development Authority (ODA), to guide HR180’s business clients, existing and new, through strategy development and change management.

As we sit down to watch Rio 2016 Games this summer we might well wonder at how on earth does an event of this size get organised? It is of course down to vast numbers of people – not only the personnel supporting the Olympic and Paralympic athletes for the duration of the Games, but those involved in creating the infrastructure, to get people to the right places at the right times, and civil engineering to build stadia for hundreds of events and the Olympic Village, the athletes’ home before, during and after their events.

This requires strong leadership to ensure projects are delivered safely, on time and on budget.

So wouldn’t it be great for UK businesses to have the benefit of experience gained from the delivery of the London 2012 Olympic Games? Well,  Leeds-based HR Outsourcing and Consultancy HR180 Ltd is able to offer a ‘gold standard’ service by virtue of a new member of the team with just that experience!

The award winning company, 10 years old this year, now adds a strategic ‘360’ check to its services, an in depth look at an organisation, facilitated by HR Consultant Sue Westhead. Sue worked for Laing O’Rourke as part of the London 2012 Olympic Development Authority (ODA) delivery partner conglomerate – CLM – where she gained valuable skills in creating and evolving processes for strategy delivery.

Belonging to a team of 3 supporting the project at the front end for Laing O’Rourke, and with Laing’s Caroline Blackman, Director of Sustainability, at the helm, Sue was responsible for People Development Management. With the project delivering unprecedented industry benchmarks for safety, quality and sustainability as well as key deliverables in terms of timescales and costs, the result was business excellence through the delivery of operational services.

Not bad going given the numbers – 3,000 people in the supply chain in addition to the 46,000 people needed over the project’s lifetime. To put that in context that’s somewhere between the total number accommodated within the Olympic Stadium itself, and the capacity of Leeds United’s Elland Road ground.

London 2012 Olympic Stadium (Flickr.com/ DAVID HOLT)

The process included documenting everything such as the barriers encountered and how these were overcome, creating transparent trails, resulting in best practice policies. The outcome was that the leadership team at all levels were able to identify areas of improvement and feed those into the plan – especially in the areas of health and safety, sustainability plus employment and skills targets.

Regarding her work with Laing O’Rourke at the time of the London 2012 Olympic Games, Sue says, “Having been involved from an HR perspective, I have learnt many lessons which will be of real benefit to other businesses – I can guide organisations of any size through strategy development and change management. I look forward to the challenges that my role with HR180 Ltd will bring.”

To find out more about HR 180 Ltd, our strategic ‘360’ check and HR Consultancy or our HR Outsourcing services, please get in touch via our website or by calling 0113 287 8150 or 0845 458 5881.

For more information about the role Laing O’Rourke played in the London 2012 Olympic Games please see here.