A HR Consultancy Working With SMEs Across All Sectors
We Are ChangeHR
We are an experienced and robust HR consultancy that aims to delight our dedicated clients through their lifecycle, providing a one stop shop service across the whole HR spectrum. We can communicate with your organisation from ground to Board level to help spark positive change. ChangeHR has acquired a wealth of knowledge from working in the private, public and third sectors, enabling us to identify key characteristics and introduce methods that help your organisation improve workplace efficiency and positivity. Our knowledge bank covers HR, training, employment law, and data protection.
We have recently worked with SMEs in the independent schools' sector, private family-run businesses, hospitality and construction sectors, making them more effective in addition to reducing risks, ensuring the right operations are conducted in the right way. Our HR consultancy is therefore familiar with many different people challenges your organisation may face and allows a peace of mind.
Our Story
COVID-19 significantly escalated changes to the workplace environment in various ways. Our founder, Stephanie Harper witnessed an acceleration of transformational change, which produced many positive outcomes, such as improved technological skills, worldwide collaboration, faster delivery, and improved mental wellbeing awareness. This resulted in consideration of how to keep up this momentum – hence the creation of "ChangeHR" - an HR consultancy determined to help organisations drive positive change through their people.
During this time Stephanie worked with a range of clients virtually who sadly, like many others, had to make employees redundant. All clients wanted to follow the right process to minimise risk, but many were also willing to do the right thing without compromising their business. As a result she wished to establish an HR Consultancy that helped clients consider innovative solutions to people issues, going beyond the legal requirements, by ensuring employees are treated with fairness, kindness and integrity whilst still meeting effective outcomes for her clients.
Stephanie Harper FCIPD - Founder & MD
A fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development, I was recognised by the CIPD for over 30 years of work in HR and have since established ChangeHR. Starting out as a psychologist, I am passionate about the excellent management of people. My approach is very much solutions focused by helping organisations and line managers to follow the right process and do the right thing. I have been here and done this before. Along with my expertise in HR consultancy, I am also an experienced workplace mediator, qualified GDPR practitioner, a qualified Agile project manager, a published author of articles and a Scottish Mental Health First Aider.
Keen on practicing a growth mindset, I continue to learn from the amazing younger people within my voluntary role as a Director/Trustee of Heriot Watt University Student Union. I am an avid networker and take enjoyment from connecting people. Quieter time involves Jane Zoom's fitness pilates and lovely walks in the Pentland Hills with family, friends and our black Labrador aka hoover; Simba.
Scott McCrory-Irving MCIPD - HR Consultant
With a background in Sociology and Psychology, Scott is a Chartered Member of the CIPD with consultancy experience in the public, private and third sectors.
Scott is excellent at asking the right questions and analysing detailed evidence to get to the root of the issue, allowing him to recommend effective solutions. His value lies in communicating complex information to clients in a user-friendly way, helping them to feel confident with a clear plan and support to implement it.
Most notably, Scott brings expertise in organisational design, HR documentation good practice, and reward & recognition, but he is comfortable delivering people projects across the employee life cycle.
When he's not working, you will find him playing football for Broxburn Athletic FC or on an adventure with his better half Anna.
Sandra Forbes MCIPD - HR Consultant
Sandra is a Chartered CIPD member with a background in Career Counselling. She brings over 20 years' experience as a people professional. She has held both executive and non-executive roles in private, public and charitable organisations predominantly in Scotland but has also worked internationally. Sandra's experience spans both consulting and corporate environments across a range of sectors including energy, education, aviation, government, housing and retail.
Sandra has a wealth of expertise in developing and delivering organisational and people strategies that drive positive impact. Sandra can support the full employee life cycle: specialising in change management, restructuring exercises, talent management, succession planning, policy and procedure, employee relations, performance management, and training workshops.
Sandra lives in Edinburgh and in her spare time enjoys travelling, walking, cooking, photography and generally enjoying the many cultural activities the city and surrounding areas has to offer.
Christine O'Ready MCIPD - Associate Consultant
Christine is a Chartered CIPD member with a background in Psychology. She has worked in England and Scotland predominantly in the education/charity sectors before becoming an HR Consultant. Since then, work has taken her to a wide range of sectors including fashion, housing, retail, employability, theatre and healthcare. Whilst she has a strong background in absence, conduct and capability management, Christine is happy to turn her hand to any HR challenges, big or small, with recent projects on complex grievance investigations, organisation design, training workshops and restructure support.
When not working, Christine enjoys spending time with her family, watching films, swimming and getting stuck into a DIY project!
Jill Harper - Associate Consultant
We are delighted that Jill has joined Change HR as an Associate. Jill comes from a background in Policing, having joined Fife Constabulary in 1991. She served in a variety of roles during her service, including Domestic Abuse Liaison Officer where she advocated on behalf of survivors and worked with other public and third sector colleagues to improve service delivery. Jill also trained as a Police Negotiator where she was deployed on numerous occasions to support people in crisis.
Following the formation of Police Scotland, Jill specialised in business change and led on several complex projects which saw the rationalisation of controls room and IT systems.
On retirement, Jill joined His Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary Scotland, working on a number of Inspections, including Wellbeing and Organisational Culture.
Jill lives in Fife and in her spare time enjoys watching her son play football, travelling and, as an avid music fan, Jill loves going to concerts.
Jessica Harper - Communications Assistant
As a current student at Glasgow Caledonian University studying Multimedia Journalism, Jessica provides part-time communications support to Change HR. Within her role as a Communications Assistant, Jessica drafts out blogs, articles and white papers containing information about current issues arising in the workplace. She also carries out quality assurance checks on key documents.
When she is not studying or writing, Jessica enjoy filling her free time by experimenting new cooking recipes to bring out at our family meals! Then burning the calories off on a run around the Pentland hills.
Socialising with friends, whether it's for a quiet Starbucks date or a night out in Edinburgh, is an important aspect of Jessica's life and she couldn't imagine life without them. To relax after busy days, sitting in bed with a book is the perfect way for Jessica to take a break from her own writing.
Our Ethical Charter
Treating people with fairness, kindness and integrity is at the heart of our HR consultancy. We are passionate about helping organisations like yours do the right thing – in the right way – to achieve their goal. This ethical charter is here to enshrine these principles and ensure that decisions are not made which may breach or materially affect our ethical practices without first considering the views of clients and employees. There are certain values we regard as core to our philosophy and practice and should not be changed without proper consultation. These principles include:
Open Communication
Our natural HR consultancy style when working with clients is to foster a strong atmosphere of collaboration in which ideas and goals are freely shared and incorporated into the decision-making process. However, when the time is appropriate, we will take the lead and deliver occasionally difficult messages to you. We do this because of our unswerving commitment to complete transparency.
During COVID-19, we experienced the incredible generosity of others. People have pulled together in times of difficulty and we want to maintain that spirit by supplying your organisation with a library of free resources that contribute towards facilitating a more positive working environment for your employees. You can therefore always count on ChangeHR to work collaboratively with great partners to provide reciprocal services.
Authenticity
We only provide our HR consultancy service if we believe that we can exceed your expectations. Making money has never been our goal; we want to provide expert assistance that helps organisations improve employee relations and foster a more positive workplace culture even if you are going through difficult restructuring and redundancies.
All members of our team are incredibly knowledgeable and value honesty above all else when dealing with you. If they do not know the answer or feel unsure about the best way to move forward, they will not be afraid to say they are not in a position of certainty. We will then work together to seek the correct solution; our team never pursues a course of action that it does not know will suit the characteristics and aims of your organisation
Respect
No matter how difficult or challenging a situation becomes during investigations or redundancies, we will always work closely with clients with the aim that all individuals involved are treated with equal levels of dignity and respect. ChangeHR will never prioritise our clients over the welfare of our team – all parties will be given the same level of respect. Discrimination in all its forms is strictly prohibited.
We genuinely believe that by trusting and treating our clients and employees with the same level of dignity and respect, a strong working relationship will always serve as the end result. Our team will always look to establish dignity and respect as the basis for how we work. This leads to a great service that goes to the heart of what your organisation requires.
