Dorothy Scott, Associate Manager Finance and Human Resources at Clinvet, is a repeat client of One Circle. Dorothy believes in the benefits of skill infusion into the business through HR on-demand. She even went one step further to hire a coach on-demand through the One Circle platform.

Dorothy wanted to share her experience with other businesses who are still dabbling with the idea of borrowing talent and using HR on-demand for quick, affordable and easily accessible specialist HR expertise.

Here’s what she had to say about hiring HR on-demand through One Circle.

As a business, you just went through an acquisition. How did you manage the workload from a people perspective?

While we internally had a plan to manage this integration, the large-picture HR work was in need of some fine tuning, such as creating an employee handbook that met the needs of our company as it transitioned away from historic management, and created its own “stand alone” policies.

We also needed to investigate whether our global policies and procedures were compliant at a local level.

Our local and global HR team members were not able to focus the time necessary on this project.

One Circle connected us with a knowledgeable HR consultant who was able to efficiently look at our two key project points and identify areas of strength and improvement. Then this same consultant worked with our HR department to fill the gaps and provide us a final draft of an employee handbook.

Also as part of the integration, we recognized the upheaval employees were facing, and began looking into ways we could develop employees to transition through this time.

Our initial project was a Human Resource consultant to review our local/global policies and verify compliance with laws and guidelines at both levels; this also entailed bringing an outdated employee handbook up to date.

Our selected consultant on-demand created a project plan with milestones, and we worked through the project point by point to completion.

This was a 6-week project, and it went well, with an information session each week with appropriate action points.

The second project is the use of a life coach to develop a staff member. One Circle provided us with a shortlist of 3 consultants in 48 hours.

We interviewed all coaches for the project, our preferred on-demand coach, produced a plan that also highlighted follow-up tasks for both the coachee, and Clinvet to help build the skills into the workplace, and we are in the process of implementing this life coaching project.

What were the main drivers for you to use One Circle more than once?

Knowledge and responsiveness of the founder. Emma seems to know and understand her consultants well, and is a keen listener, so when I speak to her about a project, she digs into it well, and points out some facets or additional considerations I may have not even thought of at that point.

Based on our experiences thus far, we will continue to use One Circle because the level of professionalism and subject knowledge is clear, and this helps a company to know they have tasked out an important project and it will be well handled.

Had it not been for One Circle, would you have turned to a traditional consulting firm for this kind of work or hired internally? Can you please elaborate.

In the absence of One Circle, both projects would have been hired out to a traditional consulting firm.

The HR project was initially considered in this fashion, and was going to be treated as a “one size fits all” by the firms interviewed, and at a huge cost.

Then the final project would have had to have been internally customized to meet our company’s standards, costing more time and money than what we were willing to invest on the project.

The life coaching project was always intended to be consulted out, but after such a great experience with One Circle, we decided to go that route again, rather than try to find a local resource.

In both instances, our company recognized the value of HR on-demand consultants, as these projects were finite, and it would not have been a wise financial decision to hire on for projects such as these.

Did the One Circle escrow payment system impact your decision to use the platform?

It did not. While it would be nice to have the ability to pay into a USD account, this was not a deal breaker.

It is my understanding that this option will soon be available, so working with the current system is not a trouble.

The One Circle finance team was beyond helpful to make sure the payment process went smoothly.

As a client, how does engaging independent HR consultants through a platform like One Circle compare with engaging a traditional firm?

This process is very simple; create a public project posting, establish a budget, and see the motivators’ profiles.

Setting up interviews with candidates works well, and one is able to conduct more than one interview or follow up directly with a candidate, either on the One Circle Message platform, or via email. Once milestones for a project have been established, it is smooth sailing.

It did not seem like One Circle consultants we have interviewed for any project were trying to sell us a product.

Whether we selected the candidate or not, the consultants were all engaged in the interview process, they asked questions about our company needs and visions, they shared their professional experience that would benefit the project, and helped to brainstorm some potential solutions and roadblocks to each project.

By contract, the traditional firms seemed so concerned with getting our business, they were more “hard sell” with a cookie cutter solution and seemed to not want to work with a unique situation, rather they wanted our company to change in order to meet their expectations.

I was more of the impression that One Circle’s consultants were confident enough in their skills to decline motivating for a project if it was not a fit for their skillset, etc, and that they were willing to investigate a project well prior to commitment so the match was not one where either party would be disappointed.