In2People - Human resources and organisational development

About Us

In2People provide a range of human resources and organisational development services that help senior leaders navigate the unique workforce challenges their organisations face.

Our team includes chartered HR professionals, recruitment specialists, learning and development specialists and lawyers, all with outstanding industry knowledge.

Values-driven and ethical, we develop deep and long-lasting relationships with our clients and have worked with many for over a decade helping them to transform their people and organisations to meet their changing needs.

Anita Davis

Anita Davies is an experienced HR professional, leadership and development consultant and executive recruiter. She founded In2people in 2008 having previously worked at a senior level in the public sector. Over the years she has worked with a long and impressive portfolio of clients which includes central and local government, the health and social care sector, further education, higher education, national and local charities, social housing and the private sector.

Anita has over 30 years’ experience of dealing with organisational change, policy development, recruitment and complex HR and employee relations issues both in the UK and internationally.

An accomplished facilitator and trainer, she has designed and delivered leadership and management development interventions at the highest level including for the cabinet office.

As a trusted ‘critical friend’ and partner, Anita is regularly commissioned to investigate sensitive employee relations issues or act as an independent mediator when working relationships breakdown. She also provides coaching to a small portfolio of very senior managers in both the health and higher education sector.

As an executive recruiter, she has played a key role in finding talented employees and has been instrumental in the appointment of senior officers at chief executive and director level.

Anita is a passionate advocate of equity and inclusion, and has supported public sector organisations, notably in the higher education, housing, health and charitable sectors, to address institutional discrimination and bias in the workplace.

Anita has a BA (Hons) in Social Sciences, a Post Graduate Diploma in Personnel Management and is a Chartered Fellow of the CIPD. She is also a non-executive director for a provider of NHS community health services.

Our Services

In2People offer a wide range of human resource and organisational development services that are tailored to the needs of our clients. See below for a sample of the services that we offer.

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion

As passionate advocates for equality, diversity and inclusion, we have successfully helped organisations to identify and address systemic bias and discrimination in all its forms within their workforce. This often entails a root and branch review of policies, processes, practices, behaviours and attitudes that unwittingly serve to disadvantage minority groups and maintain the status quo.

Positive Action

We design and deliver positive action training and employment programmes in accordance with the Equality Act 2010, to address the underrepresentation of minority groups within a range of sectors.

Listening and learning exercises

Since the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, USA (2020), the impact of the BLM movement, Me Too, and the inequalities laid bare by COVID-19, organisations have been keen to better understand the ‘lived experience’ of minority groups in their workforce. We deploy a range of techniques and approaches to ensure that these exercises are person-centred and empathetic and that the learning leads to reflection and change.

Our EDI interventions are always supported by a comprehensive report with robust but pragmatic recommendations that support culture change.

EDI training

We design and facilitate bespoke EDI and anti-racism training for board members, senior leaders, managers and staff at all levels.

Executive Search and Selection

Outstanding organisations have diverse, inclusive and talented teams.

Our tailored approach to all stages of the recruitment process, enables us to attract and identify the best possible talent for organisations.

We identify and test capability and potential from a diverse pool of talent. Our links with associate consulting firms that cover HR, leadership, diversity, and psychometric analysis, enable us to offer a holistic and fast-paced approach to search and selection that has proved extremely rewarding to organisations.

As part of our offer, we commit to ‘going the extra mile’ to deliver a diverse longlist of candidates for recruitment panels to shortlist from.

We believe that our expertise and independence help to reduce unconscious bias at all stages of the recruitment process, provides balance and instils confidence in panel members and candidates.

People Development Programmes

Our ‘Executive Insights’ programme is a move away from the traditional approach to management development. Our highly trained facilitators help participants to ‘power blast’ key management and leadership issues affecting their organisation, enabling organisations and their leaders to explore their development within the context of ‘real-world’ evidence-based scenarios.

Coaching and Mentoring

We provide high quality outcomes focused coaching and mentoring. We have an exceptional track record of supporting leaders who want to take their performance to the next level, helping them to acquire new knowledge and skills, or break old habits and behaviours.

Training and Development.

We offer a full suite of training and development programmes for staff and managers at all levels, to improve performance and resilience at work. Employers with specific training needs can also commission In2People to facilitate existing in-house development programmes.

Management Investigations and Conflict Resolution

We have extensive experience of investigating complex and sensitive grievance and disciplinary cases both in the UK and abroad.

Our approach is robust, pragmatic and evidence-based, providing the level of independence and scrutiny needed for our clients to make a fair decision. We also retain legal expertise through our associate partners, which means that our advice and guidance always complies with current legislation and best practice.

Mediation and Conflict Resolution

We offer mediation and conflict resolution services, helping organisations to prevent workplace issues between individuals or groups from escalating. Our experienced and or accredited mediators use a range of techniques to help parties reach agreement on actions to which they can commit.

Change Management

Our substantial experience in this area of work means that our approach is always conceptually sound, fair, effective and person-centred. Using a range of proven organisational development techniques, we help senior managers to identify the scale of the change required and how it is to be achieved.

Our service includes drafting the business case for the change; producing robust implementation plans; reviewing, producing or strengthening organisational policies and frameworks in advance of change; assisting with internal communications; negotiating with the trade unions; supporting individual and collective consultation exercises and producing letters and templates for all stages of the process.

We also provide support at the implementation stage, including designing fair selection processes and providing training and development to embed the culture changes and the new behaviours required.

Outplacement Support

We offer bespoke outplacement support for groups and individuals leaving their organisation. This includes conducting skills audits, CV writing and interview skills training, supplemented with coaching and mentoring and confidence-building as required.

Policy Development

Our team’s wealth of HR and legal experience enables us to develop robust HR policies, procedures, management guides and handbooks that comply with current employment legislation and best practice. Our policies are bespoke, concise and easy to understand thereby suitable for all levels of staff.

We work closely with managers and employee representatives to ensure that each new policy is successfully implemented. We also provide ongoing support, where necessary, ensuring policies are kept up to date whenever legislation or societal changes requires.

Retained HR Services

While we are happy to undertake ‘one-off’ assignments, we increasingly find that our clients like to retain our services over an extended period of time, especially where there are interrelated workforce issues or to embed behavioural or cultural change.

This retention enables In2People to build an in-depth understanding of the organisation and its issues, enabling us to develop bespoke organisational strategies that deliver demonstrable outcomes, and to take proactive action to tackle issues at an early stage.

Our presence provides support to existing HR teams, providing complementary and specialist areas of expertise which may sit outside of their core capabilities.

Case Studies

We have delivered a range of exciting assignments – either independently or jointly with our clients’ in-house human resources and organisational development teams. Set out below, are a small selection of assignments that we have worked on in various sectors that illustrate the breadth of our impact.

Higher Education

Allegations made by staff and students led a major UK academic institution to commission In2People to undertake a review of institutional racism within their schools.

The review consisted of interviews with a selection of students and staff, written testimonies from victims of discrimination, and an open invite to students and staff to speak with us if they felt they had been the victim of unfair practices. In addition to dozens of interviews, In2People undertook a major data analysis exercise, reviewing HR systems, complaints and performance data. Our in-depth report identified failings within the organisation, and how this was fuelling concerns about institutional racism and disadvantage faced by black students and black staff in particular.

Our report included a series of recommendations covering issues of governance, leadership, workforce representation, cultural and behavioural awareness, as well as policy and process changes.

Our approach to the review and final report provided staff and students with a clear voice, supported by a strong evidence base from the data, which we were able to reflect back to the leadership team. Our report and recommendations were fully endorsed by the board and senior leadership team and has resulted in visible change.

Local Government

Our client, a large local authority employing over 8,000 people across a wide range of service areas, was concerned about the disproportionate number of disciplinary, grievance and dignity at work complaints involving black staff within a specific department.

We held focus groups and one-to-one meetings with staff, managers, trade unions, OD and HR. We ensured that all of the focus groups were balanced in terms of gender, age, ethnicity, and length of service, and met over 100 people during a four-week period. Our research considered their views on a range of issues, including the culture of the organisation; how policies and procedures were interpreted and applied; management style; communication; working conditions; terms and conditions; and also suggestions for improvement. This provided the platform to better understand some of the immediate problems. We also benchmarked the department against similar sized internal departments and against a comparable department in a neighbouring authority.

Our report detailed the range of factors that were contributing to the disproportionate number of employment issues within the department, and identified a range of short, medium and long-term measures to address the issues identified. Our recommendations were cognisant of the culture of the department and of the organisation as a whole.

Our report and recommendations were fully supported by the senior leadership team. Since our review, there has been a notable reduction in employee relations cases involving black staff and this trend has continued.

The NHS

Our client, an NHS Trust was concerned about the underrepresentation of staff from the Black, Asian and minority ethnic community in roles at Agenda for Change bands 8a and above. As recruitment experts, we realised that the issue was multi-faceted and needed a range of approaches to identify and address the problem. A key element of our review was to seek qualitative feedback from recruiters, HR, and employees (including those that were newly appointed) on their experience of the recruitment and selection process and the promotion process. We also analysed quantitative workforce data from HR.

Our review was robust and evidence based. We presented our client with a comprehensive report which included a series of recommendations to address the systemic and cultural practices that we identified as well as some positive action measures to redress the workforce imbalances.

A Non-Departmental Public Body

In2People provided in-depth support to a non-departmental public body undertaking two major restructures over a 2-year period.

During phase one, we were embedded in the internal project team, developing the systems and processes to ensure that the reorganisation achieved the reduction and cost savings required in the necessary timeframe.

We worked with the client to scope the project, define the timeline and draw up much of the communication material for managers and staff, while engaging with representative groups. We also designed the selection processes for the new roles.

As the programme continued, our focus moved to equipping staff with the skills and confidence to apply for the new roles in the structure and providing outplacement support to those that were leaving the organisation. While change is never easy, our person-centred approach helped to ensure that those impacted by the changes were treated with dignity and respect throughout the process.

A National Charity

Following the murder of George Floyd in 2020, our client commissioned In2People to conduct a series of listening and learning exercises with staff and managers from a range of disciplines. The exercise was inclusive and embraced staff with a range of protected characteristics.

Our report included a series of recommendations covering issues of religion, race, gender, leadership and management, workforce representation, cultural and behavioural awareness, as well as policy and process changes.

Our approach to the listening and learning exercise and final report provided staff and managers with a clear voice, supported by a strong evidence base from the data, which we were able to reflect back to the leadership team. Our report and recommendations were fully endorsed by the board and senior leadership team and has resulted in visible change.