All of our consultants are widely experienced trainers – particularly in the fields of leadership, management, managing people and human resources. We love meeting our clients and training face-to-face, but we are also able to offer blended learning and live online training using Zoom or MS Teams.

We have delivered open courses with a variety of partners, but the vast majority of our training work is with clients who wish us to deliver to their employees in-company. This allows us to work with our customers closely, developing training packages to suit their particular needs, resolving their particular issues and using industry specific examples and the employer’s policies and procedures.

Whether you have a strong, professional, HR presence in your organisation (but require additional resources, support or advice), or whether you have none, we can help. Our HR consultancy is focussed on strategy, organisational development and cultural change, policies, procedures and, most importantly, complex casework. We find it’s when grievances, capability issues, conduct and poorly managed processes come together that even the best HR professional can struggle with which way to turn. We’d advise turning to us for advice and assistance. We can’t say you’ll never be subject to an Employment Tribunal, but we can minimise the chances of losing any potential case.

We train HR professionals and managers in the practice and skills needed to conduct an effective investigation, but sometimes a case justifies an independent investigator. All our consultants are experts in this field and all of us have been decision makers and appeal managers in the procedures that commonly follow: grievance hearings, disciplinary hearings and appeals. We have given evidence in employment tribunals too, so we understand the risks and how to minimise them. If you ask to conduct an investigation on your behalf, we guarantee you a high quality (peer reviewed) report. If, on the other hand, you would like to conduct the investigation yourself, but with expert advice/supervision, we can offer that too.

Employment relations issues can take many forms, whether you have an issue with staff relations in general, trades union relationships, pay, terms and conditions or even change management. All of our consultants have extensive experience in this field. We can help you with both strategy and tactics to produce the best result achievable in a given situation. We will bring all of our experience to bear in helping you through what can be very difficult situations and to bring disputes to a satisfactory conclusion. If you have industrial action likely, pending, or under way, we will prioritise your request for help and do everything we can to keep your business moving and help you with a strategic approach to the issue(s).

With many people spending more than half their waking hours at work it is hardly surprising that, from time-to-time, they fall out with each other. Most issues will be resolved in the workplace by the individuals themselves, but sometimes conflict becomes more embedded and skilled help is needed. All of our consultants are trained mediators, very experienced in all of the diverse issues conflicts can bring, whether between team members or at executive level. We specialise in working to resolve what many describe as a ‘personality clash’. Depending upon the exact service commissioned and the level of confidentiality agreed, we may be able to provide substantive advice after the event to prevent issues recurring. Our mediation services are professional and confidential.

Business consultancy takes many forms. Although we mostly specialise in HR, culture and change related matters, we have the knowledge and skills among our consultants to help you with strategy, structure, finance, governance, implementation, research, digital transformation and e-commerce (with our partners, APE Group) and much more. We can help with the management and transformation of operational delivery businesses, finance and legal issues, research and reporting. We even have a pet economist! We always take a facilitative approach and aim to add maximum value to your project. What we don’t do, is simply sell your own information back to you! Please get in touch to discuss your precise needs. We’d be delighted to help but, if we can’t, we’ll put you in touch with someone who can.

Although we are not a recruitment agency, we recognise that our clients often find it difficult to find and recruit the right people (with the right skills) and senior HR and technical roles. All too often, we see cases where recruitment has gone wrong because there has been too little investigation into claims applicants have made (or they’ve talked a good talk in an interview) and too little opportunity to check out how they will actually work with colleagues. We bring all of our investigative skills and people experience to bear, with a view to finding you the perfect candidate who we can all have confidence will succeed in your business. Please contact us for a more in-depth discussion.

Together with our partners, Ape Group, we are able to offer a full service approach to digital transformation. This offering brings the very best of Takeoff’s and Ape’s skills and experience together to help you establish a strategy and change process, commission and develop the necessary technical systems, and implement the whole project bringing colleagues along with you (a common point of failure!). Whether your need is related to operational delivery, moving from a traditional to digital business model, or establishing/upgrading an e-commerce business, we can partner with you from beginning to end and provide ongoing support if required.