Q&A: Atoll HR

Victoria Chidgey and Rachel Pook are both Directors at Atoll HR, a HR Consultancy based in the West of England. They are delivering workshops, alongside Business West, on a variety of HR topics over the next few months, as part of the Workforce for the Future HR Support Service. We caught up with them to find out more.

Tell us a bit about yourself; your job role and your career background?

We are both HR Directors at Atoll HR, an outsourced HR Consultancy.  We are both passionate about HR and have lived and breathed it all our working careers.  

Victoria has worked for more than 25 years in the UK, Europe and Australia within multinational, private and public organisations to attract, recruit, develop and retain talent. Working in partnership with Senior Managers, she prides herself on developing secure business relationships that focus on business strategy and achieving bottom line results. With a coaching and personable approach, Victoria is now focused to work with Small to Medium Enterprises to set up HR and People processes that assist their growth and success.  She is also a guest lecturer on Human Resource Management at a local University.

Rachel is an experienced HR professional with over 20 years’ experience in the HR industry with leading FTSE 100 companies. She works closely with Directors and Senior Managers of client organisations, to ensure they are attracting, retaining and developing a productive workforce to deliver the best value for their organisation. Rachel's speciality is in conducting investigations into employee misconduct. She has an excellent track record in designing HR policies and procedures, providing guidance and support, coaching and mentoring and delivering training courses. Rachel is a highly motivated HR expert dedicated to working with businesses in order to implement and develop their HR processes

What would be your top tip for businesses to try and improve their staff productivity and retention?

Our top tip would be to capitalise on your biggest asset – your employees.  Understand what makes them tick, what type of environment they prefer, how they want to be rewarded and treated and what they would like to see improve. Particularly through the last few years, managing through the Covid-19 Pandemic, ensuring people feel comfortable to attend work is important.  Not one size fits all and everyone is different.  Flexibility is key and truly listening to employees is vital.   Through the introduction of a straight forward employee opinion questionnaire, important information can be obtained about your people, which could help with overall productivity and retention within the business. 

What do you see as the main challenges in putting together effective HR processes for an organisation and how can you help?

HR processes are essential to ensure that both employees and the business are protected.  HR processes communicate the acceptable standards, behaviours and principles required and help shape the desired culture within the business. HR policies play an important role in supporting a culture of trust, fairness and inclusion by outlining the responsibilities of both the employer and employees in the employment relationship.

Having HR processes can also provide guidance to managers on how to manage and respond to issues and situations in a fair and legal manner and avoid any involvement with employment tribunal claims. Processes should also be broad enough to enable flexibility and discretion to accommodate unique situations and personal circumstance.

Finally, keeping processes simple and ensuring regular review will ensure they remain accurate and relevant to the business.  We cover some of these topics in our upcoming workshops. 

What’s a typical working day for you?

Our day is so much more than dealing with people - we combine all the administration as well as the intangible people element.  This can range from client meetings working with their culture, helping set business objectives, recruiting new staff or supporting succession planning.  It could also involve providing employment law advice to employees or employers, being an empathetic ear to a concerned or developing manager, ensuring processes are deployed fairly.  We could be creating contracts and employment policies in the morning whilst involved in an investigation of disciplinary in the afternoon!  We cover the whole employment cycle so we never have a routine, mundane day. We love the variety and the fact that fundamentally we are helping people. 

Can you tell us a bit more about Atoll HR and your vision as a company?

At Atoll HR we take away the stress that managing people bring through building a long lasting personal partnership that will grow and thrive with our client’s business.  Our core values are ‘Commitment, Openness, People and Ethics’ and we are passionate about the service we provide.  Our vision is to help managers get the best out of their people and increase their bottom line productivity as a result.  We support not only managers, but also other HR professionals and by 2025, we would like to be one of the leading HR Independent Consultancies in the UK. 

Through the introduction of a robust talent management process, companies can identify and develop talent within, avoiding hefty recruitment and training costs.

If you would like more information about the HR Support Service please click here. 

About Workforce for the Future

Business West is delivering Workforce for the Future in collaboration with other partners and the West of England Combined Authority.

For more information on Workforce for the Future, please visit the West of England Growth Hub. The Growth Hub is the West of England Combined Authority’s dedicated business support service which offers free, one-to-one advice and guidance for SMEs.

The West of England Workforce for the Future programme has received £4m of funding from the European Social Fund as part of the 2014-2020 European Structural and Investment Funds Growth Programme in England. The Department for Work and Pensions (and in London the intermediate body Greater London Authority) is the Managing Authority for the England European Social Fund programme. Established by the European Union, the European Social Fund helps local areas stimulate their economic development by investing in projects which will support skills development, employment and job creation, social inclusion and local community regenerations. For more information visit: https://www.gov.uk/european-growth-funding.