Who Are Réncái And What On Earth Do They Do?
Who Am I?
Every time I send someone a LinkedIn connection, an email, call someone up or even when a friend asks who I work for, 9 times out of 10 people ask themselves “Who Are Réncái And What On Earth Do They Do?” You’ve probably done the same yourself if I have ever contacted you. To be brutally honest when I first began working for Réncái I was asking myself the same question.
Before I start to talk about Réncái I thought it would be useful to give an insight into myself and how I contribute internally. Essentially, I joined the business back in October 2015 as a Business Associate. My role back then was focused around Research and Analysis, Networking and Administration – to be honest I was getting a feel for the industry I was embarking on, whilst also capturing information around the wonderful world of HR and HR Change/Transformation.
In November 2016 I was promoted to Client Relationship and Delivery Consultant – for those of you who read my last blog “Be Open Minded, Be Forward Thinking, Be Positive” – don’t worry the promotion didn’t go to my head! My role now is focused to work with HR leadership teams, to understand their needs from a HR Change perspective, whilst also giving them in an insight into the services that Réncái provide. I also look after the Réncái Associate Network which is beginning to tick along nicely. My role allows me to engage and communicate with stakeholders at all levels, all industries and all the way across the globe within the HR and Change space.
Getting to the point… what do we do?
I have put a certain amount of pressure on myself writing this blog as my Managing Director will ultimately read it and hopefully agree with me… if not then it will probably be deleted by next week!
An awful trait of human beings (which I am guilty of myself) is putting things into a box – we seem to enjoy doing it! A lot of the HR leadership community that I engage with love to put Réncái into the “recruitment” box – I am sure a lot of you will have done it yourself. Although Resourcing is an extra branch to our tree, our trunk is to support clients to go through HR transformation projects. Let me make this easy we have 3 core areas of focus: HR Advisory, Employee Engagement and Resourcing.What on earth are they…
HR Advisory: This service is our area of focus. Me and the rest of the internal team are motivated to take clients right from being a typical administrative, transactional almost personnel type function, into one that strategically partners with the business. It’s a case of moving away from the ER cases, stopping paying someone £25,000 to purely process the Payroll and actually moving to a People focused function.
For my personally the modern day People function should be a key partner to the business and focus on developing talent, improving internal EVP factors such as: Performance, Comms and Engagement and to actually begin upskilling Managers.
What types of projects are HR leadership teams doing?
· TOM/Organisational Design
· Cloud HRIS Implementations
· Digital HR
· Shared Service Implementation/Optimisation
· Global Process Redesign
· Employee Engagement and Performance Improvement
· Smart Working/Culture Change
· Modern Resourcing Strategy
I could’ve kept on going but I am sure you’ll have got a feel for what types of projects a lot of HR Directors/Operations professionals are considering at the moment.
Where does Réncái fit into this?
However, you want… that’s the best bit about us. We try to be as agile as possible as we appreciate 1) a lot of HR professionals have never led transformation projects, some don’t actually want to 2) these projects take up a lot of resources from both a time and headcount perspective 3) we can come in without the internal politics, upskill the internal team and completely transform the image of HR within a business.
Every single client we work with on the HR advisory side is slightly different therefore, we cannot go into a business with the same plan that we had for the last organisation we delivered a project for. It’s very much all about people like myself understanding the clients requirements/pain points, taking them through the process of learning what will be the best solution whether that be People, Process or Technology, the internal Réncái team then supporting with the business case/RFP, before onboarding our consultants to design the project. Then when it comes to implementation we really do emphasise the fact that we want the clients to develop a strong internal capability, therefore, not needing to rely on third parties for such projects moving forward – this can be done through things such as knowledge transfer. This continues all the way throughout the project journey up until BAU.
The above is suitable for a lot of our clients however, not all. From a Réncái perspective we have seen a real increase in clients valuing short term diagnostic/health check/audit support as they go through their HR change journey. An example of this would be when a new HR Director joins a role, they have no visibility of the organisation, our consultant goes in and maps each individual part of HR, then provides recommendations on what should be the priority project agenda for that individual. Another example would be during the early stages of a cloud HRIS implementation – again the client has never done a project like this before, our consultant can work with the business to understand their functional needs, translate this into a document that can be then used to a) build a robust business case b) take out to tender, ensuring the clients best interest are on the agenda, not what modules “look nice”.
We’ve also set up a number of key strategic partnerships with both consultants (our associate network) and with businesses who share the same values as us. For example; we are now a strategic partner with Engagement Multiplier a fantastic cloud solution that has proven results.
Resourcing: Due to having a strong network within the HR and change space, for us it makes perfect sense to support clients with their resourcing needs. Every single person we speak to has a different preference, some want a permanent opportunity, some want FTC work and some want to provide the advisory/consultancy services mentioned above – it’s down to that individual. However, it’s not a case of a “bums on seats” approach. Often, we will support from a resourcing perspective to allow clients to get a feel for what we’re like to work with, sometimes its due to the fact they have a need and trust us to help. Another reason why we like to offer a resourcing service is the due to the realisation that just because you’re a permanent employee and have BAU to deal with, doesn’t mean you don’t get involved with HR change activities. Usually, we work closely with our strategic partner Emergenetics to create profiles for each candidate we look to place into an organisation – we also do plenty more extra bits and bobs that ensure that all important culture fit.
But what types of roles can we support with?
· HR Directors
· Business/Process/Systems Analysts
· Payroll Experts
· HR Transformation/project/change leads
· People Analytics
· HRBP/HRSS
Again, I could add more however, hopefully that will have given you an insight.
Employee Engagement: I met with a client last week who spoke about his priority at the moment which was “Brilliant Basics”. So many organisations who embark on large scale HR change programmes have underlying issues which restrict the benefits brought from the projects they deliver. Employee Engagement is a vastly used term and one not necessarily understood by a lot of people. It’s also an area that can prove costly for a business both from a time and financial perspective, in some instances it can affect your internal and external brand.
For me personally Employee Engagement comes under the overall banner of EVP – Performance, Communications, Engagement etc. All are mutually dependant factors that often can bring great business benefits such as: increased productivity, increased revenue, lower attrition and higher retention. Also, to be as blunt as possible it actually makes the work place more enjoyable! We’re in work for too long not to enjoy/make the most it.
In terms of Réncái we’re seen a real increase of client interest within this space. Therefore, we’ve set up a strategic partnership with Engagement Multiplier. It’s a very versatile tool that can be used for many different solutions; whether that be increasing your internal communication, making people happier, solving business issues. It’s certainly worth reading a blog wrote by my MD Matt Wilden – please follow link. Réncái Engagement Blog
Summary:
In reality, I could spend my whole Tuesday evening writing thousands of words and to be honest I wouldn’t mind doing so. However, relationships are not built through blogs, nor are they built through emails, they are built through humans.
I have a strong personal desire to promote Réncái to as many HR leaders as possible, for me it’s all about using every channel possible, for some of you, reading this blog would be a great first step. For others, it may be a phone call, it may be an email, it might be a LinkedIn message that gets you engaged.
All that I ask is that you please do not put businesses into a box – you never know when you might need someone.
Nobody can deny that being pro-active is a fantastic thing – it means that if you do come into contact with a problem/need then you have a solution ready. Too many HR leaders are re-active at the moment and all the hard work being done by other people within this space is being tarnished.
To learn more about Réncái please do call me at the office on
or even drop me an email [email protected] I’d love to speak to you.
