A stellar year – what happened at the Expert Witness and Assessment Services division conference?

The Expert Witness and Assessment Services division conference was a chance for a whole division to get together in a room (on one of the warmest days of the year) and get a feel for how things are going. 

Hosted by Sue Henry, Caroline Arrowsmith and Sharon Butler Hughes, our conference saw leaders from Advanced SCS, MLA, Mind Right, Speed Medical, WillisPalmer, Foresight and TG Associates get together to discuss the progress we’ve made since the launch of the division over a year ago.

The headline is – progress has been superb. Everyone involved is outperforming their targets, and we’re able to help more customers than ever before. 

But it wasn’t a conference to share spreadsheets and graphs. It was a chance to really take stock of where we are – and where we’re going next. 

The plan is already taking effect

If you go back 18 months or so to the launch of our Expert Witness and Assessment Services division, you’ll see MD Sue Henry and Commercial Director Caroline Arrowsmith lay out their big plans for the division:

Sue laid out her future plans clearly, with collaboration at the heart of everything:

“Our first task is to tackle what I see as the three biggest challenges for us. Improving customer intimacy, finding and creating new opportunities and making sure we have a collaborative, joined-up division that still has room for singular identities.”

And Caroline identified the links between businesses as a massive strength for the division as a whole:

“Relationships are the key to problem solving. They’re how we educate and reassure customers, how we identify and seize opportunities.”

With collaboration and communication identified as a key strength from day one, it shouldn’t come as any surprise that when we asked Sue and Caroline how the division had managed to exceed all of its targets for the last financial year, they both pointed out the same thing.

Team spirit.

By fostering a division where communication is free and easy, problems are solved, opportunities identified and growth is supported.

You could say it’s all going precisely to plan. Or as Pete Clark of Mind Right put it after the conference:

“You can see that there’s vast opportunity for collaboration across our division.”

A time to celebrate

And, as Rich Neve of Speed Medical pointed out, it’s also a time to celebrate the way handl Group develops in-house talent:

“What stood out for me was the depth of home-grown talent that’s moved into senior roles across our division. The internal progression and leadership mobility are seriously impressive!”

So what did we learn, and what’s next?

As you’d expect from a successful year, there was a lot to learn. While Sue and Caroline were quick to point out that it’s important to keep a close eye on your margins and always be awake to new opportunities, people across the division also took away their own lessons:

“Improvements don’t have to be huge. A 1% improvement can have a massive effect on the whole division.”  – Tom Sanderson, Advanced SCS

“We all share similar issues, so we can solve them together.” – Erin McBride, MLA

“We can all bring together the same strategic and leadership principles.” – Sarah Roddy, Advanced SCS

If our division leadership team has one piece of advice from what they’ve learned this year, it’s definitely of a theme with the feedback we received.

Clear and consistent communication is our biggest strength. We’re working in an environment where we can work together to solve problems and to find new opportunities. 

And that ties in to Sue’s aspirations for next year.

“More of the same!”

More growth, more collaboration, more communication, and more success. 

We can’t wait to learn where the Expert Witness and Assessment Services division goes from here.