THOMPSON DUNN
Your clear way forward

At the end of 2007 we at Thompson Dunn felt it would be timely to request feedback from our clients. In our 19 years of trading this is the first formal survey process that has been undertaken. Thompson Dunn is currently in a period of transition and change. The company is growing and to facilitate its development and that of ourselves as psychologists working in the corporate sector, we felt the need to listen to a range of clients' perspectives on our services to date.

To maintain the independence of the survey and allow participants the space to be clear and authentic in their responses, we contracted out the operation of the project to a third party. We would like to take this opportunity to thank Martin Lyle of Lyle's Consultancy, who ably conducted this survey on our behalf. Above all we would like to thank all the participants in the survey for their time and your thoughtful, constructive feedback.

In total 43 interviews were conducted. Participants had either experienced our services, had sponsored Thompson Dunn activity in their organisation, or both. Overall we received an average service rating of 8 /10, with 93% of respondents prepared to refer our services. Overall participants rated our business awareness as 'Good to Very good'. Whilst this is an encouraging top-level picture, we have also taken on board the comments made where service improvement could be developed.

From the survey, it is clear that the most important people related challenges facing our clients are the recruitment and retention of the right people. Sustaining an adaptable, committed and motivated workforce is central, with a strong focus on maintaining a leadership pipeline. Without question, this is the core central service offering that Thompson Dunn provides and stands by. A large proportion felt the areas in which Thompson Dunn currently delivered maximum value were in supporting personal development, identifying strengths and development opportunities amongst staff and supporting career development.

Thompson Dunn has been an organisation that has historically developed through the experience and expertise that Pat has to offer. The organisation now has three full time consultants, with more in the pipeline. As a consequence we have a greater scope for taking on larger projects and sharing the consultancy delivery to a much greater extent. Our internal competencies are becoming increasingly commercial and business-outcome oriented. We are planning to develop the reach of our recruitment assessment work across our clients, and continue to expand our product portfolio for team coaching and audit.

Whilst there is definitely synergy in our core offering and what is held as the greatest people challenges for our clients, when we asked how Thompson Dunn could significantly increase sales, a strong theme that came through was refining our articulation of why clients need our services and the organisation's 'value add' of engaging us. We have taken time to address this articulation within this newsletter, focusing on 'value add', ROI and the how the core assessment process, that underpins much of our work, can be integrated into a model for strategic organisational development. Developing better working relationships with HR was also referenced. We continue to invest in our HR Breakfast meetings and encourage members of the HR community to join this ever growing network to share more of the specific challenges facing them and to explore how these might be addressed.

We are currently perceived as an assessment and coaching service provider. Immediate thoughts on how people felt when experiencing our services were, in the vast majority, extremely positive. Clients were 'positively challenged' and felt 'well understood', 'energised' and 'supported'. In some cases individuals felt they were not challenged enough, and the business objectives were only loosely integrated.

When we asked participants about problems inherent in contracting external consultancy work, setting clear goals and objectives for the work and clarifying service expectations dominated as a theme. We are an organisation that will always seek to work holistically with an organisation, though often though individual assessment. We are now addressing the need to contract with both clients and sponsors to define and agree clear overarching objectives for development projects with regular review meetings to ensure we a remain 'on track'.

Furthermore, Thompson Dunn will endeavour to integrate a 'stepped' evaluation within our coaching service to give clients every opportunity to discuss how they feel the process is working for them. Sponsor or line manager inclusion in the review of progress is a factor we advocate as a means of leveraging value from our coaching. We will continue to encourage this activity and design it into our coaching contracts from the outset.

Overall we are an organisation that needs to continue to listen to our clients and we will endeavour to connect with participants individually to work through any particular comments and suggestions which arose. We will continue to share our passion for our psychological work and seek opportunities to articulate its direct business impact. We will use our quarterly newsletters to keep you updated on both future developments and the progress we are making on the themes already outlined here. We are committed to continuous service improvement and enhancing the delivery of sustainable business value.

Phil Jefferis +44 (0)20 7486 1199 phil.jefferis@thompsondunn.com