Founder & CEO of The People Factor HR Consultancy, Karen has spent her entire career as a HR specialist within the hospitality and leisure industries.
As both an international consultant and long-time HR Director, she has seen first-hand how complex and challenging HR can be for organisations and their people – particularly where company mergers, acquisitions and restructures are involved – and how the right specialist support makes all the difference to the end outcomes.
As well as knowing what it’s like to manage the people aspects of these changes, she also knows what it feels like to be merged, acquired and moved around.
That’s why, to her, HR’s about solving and fixing people challenges and helping prevent people mistakes from being made. It’s about getting organisations through difficult times and coming up with practical and realistic ways to deal with situations that can sometimes appear insurmountable.
And, ultimately, it’s the reason Karen does what she does: to help organisations get their HR right so that they can grow and change in a way that works for everyone.
With more than 30 years’ successful experience, she has witnessed, managed and resolved most of the issues a HR Director could ever encounter!
Projects worked on:
Confidential, senior-level exits, sensitive reorganisations and disposals of non-core parts of the business.
Integration of acquired companies, including prior due diligence exercises, TUPE of employees, restructuring of business brands, site closures, employee retraining on new business systems, harmonisation of terms & conditions and restructuring personnel into new teams.
Right to work audits, implementing processes to improve right to work compliance, representing companies with the Home Office to acquire A* rating and providing immigration advice to avoid legal issues.
Guiding organisations through difficult situations and helping businesses shape for growth and change by restructuring, designing talent programmes, mentoring, creating the right resourcing plans, writing legal policies and procedures, handling TUPE and integration projects and ensuring employment legislation pitfalls are avoided.
Karen is also an Enterprise Business Mentor for The Prince’s Trust, providing 1:1 mentoring support to young adults setting themselves up in business – and empowering them to make their own decisions around it.
Companies worked for:
Clients include Casual Dining Group, Burger King UK, Drake & Morgan, Corney & Barrow, Beds & Bars Group, A2Dominion, Wagamama, Elliotts PR, Fortnum & Mason, Covent Garden Restaurants, Lifespace, Prezzo, Vapiano, Studio Ilse, UKHospitality and Parkdean Resorts.
Specialities:
Organisational design
TUPE
Due diligence for acquisitions and disposals
Business restructures
Succession planning
Business downsizing and redundancies
People strategies for business growth
Talent management
Right to work projects
Immigration
Sponsorship/Tier 2 Sponsorship & Visa expert advisor
Apprenticeship set-up & use of levy
Employee relations and tricky employment law situations
Settlement agreements and exit strategies
Writing legal/company policies and procedures
Mentoring – including Prince’s Trust business mentoring
Business integration
Harmonisation of terms and conditions
Health and safety, crisis management (including anti-terrorism guidance)
Creating compensation & benefits packages to suit the business’s needs
Employment law tendering
Qualified in International HR
