What next?

What next?

As some of you may have spotted on Twitter, last week I left Brook after just over three years. If you don’t know about what the organisation does, take a look as its (increasingly underfunded) work is vitally important in helping young people across the UK develop and maintain their health and wellbeing.

Morning All. Last day at the fabulous @BrookCharity after 3 years. It’s time for goodbyes today – but exciting news to come next week..!

— Tim Scott (@TimScottHR) September 30, 2016

Throughout my career, I have been focused on delivering real-world, practical HR. It’s what I do best.  There are lots of organisations and consultants out there doing disruptive people stuff: asking the big questions and really trying to change the long term future world of work for the better. And that’s really valuable stuff and issues that I think about from time to time too. But a lot of us are doing what needs to be done right now: trying to make work better, where we are, every day.

After a generalist career mostly spent introducing HR practices from scratch in very different organisations, I joined Brook in August 2013 and led the People & OD team from the point that seventeen individual charities merged into one, national organisation. At that point, there were seventeen separate handbooks, numerous different contracts of employment and few national HR systems. I led the specification, selection and implementation of a single HR Information System, the development and running of a bespoke Leadership Development programme and the introduction of standardised systems and practices that saw an increase in the Net Promoter Score of Brook as an employer from 33 to 65 in two years. At the same time I restructured the People & OD Team to provide managers with effective support and guidance to help them manage in line with our HR strategy. In 2015 my team won the Charity Times’ HR Management Award, having been Highly Commended in 2014 (CV cut and paste over!). So now it is time for something new.

So, after being in full time employment pretty much since I left university, I’ve decided to join the gig economy and help other organisations to do good people stuff, make the most of the opportunities provided by social media and digital technology and find their own good practice (never best practice – of course!). I have founded TimScottHR (well it is my Twitter handle after all) to work with organisations to find practical and real-world solutions to their people needs and to provide pragmatic advice and support whilst retaining a focus on the “human” aspect of Human Resources.

Is this me out of in-house teams forever? I’m not sure.  It feels like the time is right to try something new and work differently.  So if you need any help with HR, social media, or just need an experienced conference or event blogger… then please do get in touch.

I’ll see you in a coffee shop near you very soon…..

You can find links to all of my other HR blogs and writing at my personal timscott.net site