As a social enterprise, we rely on the support from businesses that share our values to help us promote our free guidance to encourage the recruitment of the next generation. We also want to tell you about the work of our support partners too. So we caught up with Nicky Smith who is the latest HR, employee engagement and transition coach specialist to join the team at Career Directed Solutions (CDS).

Introducing Career Directions Solutions (CDS)

Career Directed Solutions (CDS) is a niche consulting firm that helps business protect their reputation and employer brand during times of change. As we help businesses at the other end of the recruitment cycle to help them promote their employer brand this makes CDS a perfect support partner for Access Generation. CDS also specialise in coaching, outplacement and career management support. So whether you’re in the midst of an organisation restructure, on-boarding senior positions or making redundancies, the CDS team can provide a tailored support solution to suit your business needs.

Championing Access Generation

CDS Director, Steve Thompson-Martyn, helped encourage and support our founder, Chris Tarry in formulating the social enterprise business before our launch in September 2016.

Since then, Steve and the team have been providing us with support and helping to promote the research we are conducting with large organisations to help us produce the free guidance.

Introducing Nicky Smith

Nicky who is based in the midlands and previously worked for a large corporate HR consulting firm, is the newest team member at CDS.

She said: “I wanted to join a niche, value-based consultancy and CDS fit the bill. Bigger consultancy firms tend to be very process and programme driven whereas smaller firms like CDS take a person-centric approach, we stick with people until their achieve their goals and find the right approach for the business.

“I’m based in the East Midlands but work all over the UK. I’m looking to speak to companies that might be experiencing change which impacts their employees such as growth, mergers or acquisitions, or perhaps they need some outplacement support to help employees moving on to make successful career transitions.”

Why would a business consider using a consultancy firm during a change process?

Nicky said: “Companies like CDS bring a wealth of tried and tested approaches to managing organisational change, we help managers do a great job of leading change – helping them to engage and motivate people, often during difficult times. By working with individuals and small groups we can help employees make faster, more effective transitions – whether that’s inside their current organisation or externally. This allows the company to move forward with ‘business as usual’ and has a positive impact on their reputation in the marketplace, this is important when it comes to attracting and retaining future talent.”

How do work with a company?

“I work as an extension to an internal HR team by becoming part of their team. Attending team meetings and working with them to come up with ideas on how their future service might work and collaborating on ideas. There’s a fine line when you’re a consultant to make sure you’re not just selling. You have to listen and understand what the business wants to achieve.”

Do you have a specialist subject?

“Yes. Transition coaching.

“When a company promotes employees into senior roles or brings in fresh talent to address strategy changes then CDS can help with transition coaching. Transition coaching enables new managers and senior leaders to reach the ‘break even point’ quickly, align goals, assimilate culturally and ultimately add value more quickly.

Typically, you have about 90 days to prove yourself; recruitment at a senior level has far reaching implications when it fails both financially and culturally – having a structured approach to onboarding and an external support network helps you embed, be productive and achieve your early goals. It’s a high pressure time in someone’s career and as an organisation you can help get the most out of your senior management team by bringing in a transition coach.”

What’s your experience of companies employing young people?

“In the companies I have worked with to date I’ve seen great graduate schemes in place but some seem to struggle with them because the company hasn’t prepared to bridge the young people from the two year programme into a permanent fixed role. So I’ve worked with a number of companies to help bridge this gap using ‘career activism’ or proactive career management – it’s all about aligning your personal career and business goals and recognising yourself as the ‘lead actor’ in your career.

I think in 2017 we will see more companies considering apprenticeship schemes, not just because of the levy, but with a view to ‘growing their own talent’ from the bottom up – trying to inject more longevity back into the employee/employer relationship. Young people face challenges getting into the workplace and it’s our job as employers to help them. Access Generation are doing some amazing work to help employers attract young talent and keep them and it’s great that the team at CDS have an opportunity to be a part of that journey.”

To find out more about CDS contact Nicky on 07464 498616 or email [email protected]