Consultancy

Document Direct is an innovative business that offers a range of outsourced digital dictation and other document preparation services to the professional services sector, specialising particularly in legal documentation. They offer a round-the-clock service and stand by their claim that “your deadlines are our deadlines”.

As the company were growing, they were finding it increasingly difficult to recruit staff with the required level of experience and skill, and with the customer-focused yet self-motivating mindset needed for the demands of the role. Their existing process relied heavily on standard approaches to advertising, recruitment agency, application forms and interviewing, but these were resulting in too many unsuitable clients being ‘pushed’ their way, or reacting to increasing demand by ‘pressure-recruiting’ then watching standards fall.

They needed something radically different in order to change this to focus on recruiting the best overall person for the job – i.e. those with not only the required skills and experience, but the optimum combination of working and motivational preferences – the best mindset for the role.

We worked directly with their Head of Operations, Jayne Smith, to assess and modify their whole approach to recruiting, including the advertisements, application forms, ability tests, selection criteria and interview techniques.

Basically we redesigned each stage of the process around subtle psychological cues and barriers so that unsuitable applicants would become increasingly disinterested and demotivated whilst those with the ideal mindset would remain committed to following through. Not only that, but we trained Jayne in a set of advanced conversational techniques based on psycho-linguistics which meant that she could gain rapid insights into the true mindset of each candidate  in an interview setting. This also meant that she could avoid the old clichéd interview questions which often get the same old clichéd answers and actually tell you very little at all.

You can read more details and an interview with Jayne in the PDF below (click to download).

 

 

The Sport Development & Physical Education department of Liverpool JMU were looking for an innovative and refreshing approach to helping their lecturers develop more engaging styles in a variety of teaching settings, as well as enhancing their general presentation and speaking skills.

As part of a larger project that spanned over two years, ice&lemon worked with a core group of lecturers, and a team of actors on assessing and improving the abilities and skills of the staff related to student learning, mentoring and engagement. There is so much we could say about the details of the project that for the sake of brevity, we’ll concentrate on what resulted:

• A set of co-branded (LJMU and ice&lemon) training materials and a DVD that have been rolled out on a university-wide basis and are now part of their learning library
• A true peer mentoring & coaching scheme was piloted, based around the training materials and focused on delivery style rather than ‘box ticking’ and content, and was so successful that it has been rolled out on a wider basis
• We presented the project at the university’s annual Teaching and Learning conference and was so well received that we were asked to work with several other departments, including Sports Science and Law
• We presented part of the project around personality and learning at the Higher Education Academy’s annual national conference, and as a result we were invited to work with three other universities (Institute of Technology Tallaght and Athlone Institute of Technology, both in ROI, and the University of Chester School of Law) on similar projects

Steve is now one of the mentors on the Liverpool JMU Graduate Enterprise Programme.

You can currently view a sample of the written training materials from the LJMU website using this link.

Hastingsbury Upper School was the first school in the Bedfordshire local authority to be awarded Specialist Status as a Business and Enterprise College, in recognition of its achievements in that field of education, including having appointed its own Enterprise Officer.

The school board decided that this was a perfect opportunity to examine the school’s ‘brand’, and re-engineer it to leave behind the image the school had with previous generations and push ahead to establish Hastingsbury as a viable option to the three highest achieving and most popular upper schools in the area. However, this wasn’t simply to be a change of logo or name, but a full assessment and action plan to change the mindset of the pupils and teachers within the school, the mindset of prospective students and their parents, and the local community as a whole.

We worked with the school to first of all assess some more specific outcomes they wanted from the re-brand and just as importantly, how they would know they’d achieved what they set out to.

We then assessed every touch-point the school had with the students, their parents and the local community, from postcards and newsletters, to the car park, school premises, reception areas and even the school uniform and logo, along with their current communication and PR strategies for achievements and events, e.g. the local press and radio.

Once the initial assessments had been completed we ran a one-day workshop and, along with the Heads of the school (yes, two heads!) and some of the governors, invited pupils, teachers, ex-pupils and parents to take part, which they did. During the workshop we went step by step through a full business branding ‘pyramid’, including identifying the competition, insights into what parents in the local community want, unique points the school could legitimately and honestly claim (and there were quite a few), the schools core beliefs and values, its ‘personality, and ultimately its overall aim and reason for existing.

We then collated all the output from the touch-point assessment and the workshop and put together a set of core recommendations and a detailed short and long-term action plan for the school governors, staff and pupils to act on.

They began in the months that followed with renaming the school to “Hastingsbury Business & Enterprise College”, a revamp of all their communication materials and the strategies that underpin them, connecting with key people in the local media and a complete overhaul of the website. The plan is now regularly reviewed and updated and the school have recently changed their uniform to cut the last of the ties to their past and move boldly into the future.

Ian Campbell, the college’s Enterprise Officer, wrote this:

“I’m Ian Campbell, Enterprise Adviser for Bedfordshire based at Hastingsbury Upper School in Kempston. I’ve been here for two years and I am passionate about helping to nurture young people. My role is primarily about building effective partnerships between education and business, and working with teachers to enhance the enterprise learning curriculum. Prior to this my career was in business; starting in marketing where I was Brand Manager for Marmite and culminating in general management where I was Commercial Director at Autoglass. Subsequently, I worked in recruitment as a ‘head-hunter’ and also had a spell in self-employment as a marketing consultant.

Hastingsbury recently achieved Specialist School Status in Business and Enterprise; the only school in Bedfordshire and Luton to do so. This presented us with a golden opportunity to re-launch and re-brand the school in order to attract as many prospective students as possible from the Kempston community. The ‘Business and Enterprise’ ethos needs an underlying philosophy and culture reflecting the whole school and its communities. Our challenge is to create a distinct vision which permeates all aspects of the school. To start this process we needed some expert help to look at our ‘brand’ – the image and perceptions of the school both inside and outside in the wider community, especially prospective students and their parents. Through a member of our Strategy Group who works for Bedford Borough Council we were put in touch with Steve Wooding at ‘Ice and Lemon’.

After some initial research, a one-day ‘Brand-Building’ workshop was held. The workshop was designed to be interactive, include representation from staff, students and parents, and take participants through a general business branding process. It was a lively and energetic day with enthusiastic involvement from all who attended ably facilitated by Steve. The results exceeded our expectations. We now have a clearly defined brand structure to guide our strategy and a nine point action plan to start the ball rolling. As a first step we are currently consulting with staff, students, parents and local business ‘Friends’ to consider renaming the school. As Jean-Luc Picard, Captain of the USS Enterprise, used to say: ‘Make it so!’ Watch this space.”

You can visit the latest iteration of the Hastingsbury Business & Enterprise College website by clicking here.