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Case Study: IR35 advisory services for a leading Insurance Company
- Solution: Preparing for IR35 changes
- Industry: Financial Services
IR35 advisory services for a leading Insurance Company
Engaging and communicating their IR35 strategy with their hiring manager population.
The Challenge
The business had to make some tough decisions around how to approach the legislative change, therefore it was vital that the message was managed effectively to obtain the desired outcomes. They wanted to work with Consultancy+ following attending one of our events, seeing how our knowledgeable team could add value to their programme.
Our client needed to present a consistent message across the business, upskill hiring managers, explain their approach, and ensure hiring managers could undertake the next steps. The brief for the project was to initially advise on how to communicate their IR35 with hiring managers, as well as casting an eye over their approach to IR35 in general. We were then tasked with running a programme to train and communicate the strategy to hiring managers across all departments that used contractors.
The Solution
Our solution met the brief as we ensured a clear and consistent message was delivered across all sessions and interactions.
We designed a workshop session and then delivered these workshops for small groups across the organisation at various sites. The aim was to train managers on the changes in IR35 legislation, communicate the organisation’s Strategy, and prepare them for conversations with their contractors. We also help one-on-one drop-in clinics for both managers and contractors to come and ask questions or express concerns. Although some conversations were challenging, the project was a huge success with managers across varying levels of seniority providing excellent feedback.
We used a team of two experienced HR consultants to design the session and deliver the workshops and one-on-one sessions. We held workshops across multiple locations, adapting to the client’s needs. We went above and beyond through the flexibility and short notice arrangements we were able to make to the programme, including running addition sessions and managing last minute cancellations. This gave the client confidence they were partnering with a provider that was flexible and adaptable to their processes.
There were challenges in delivery, there were challenging conversations, differing reactions to our messages, and negativity associated with the legislation. Our expert team overcame them by keeping the objectives of the programme front and centre, whilst empathising with the challenges that hiring managers and contractors were going through.
The Results
We ran 10 workshops, upskilling over 100 hiring managers.
Attendees were left with a basic understanding of the legislation, the challenges faced by our client and other businesses, and crucially understanding of the client’s approach to dealing with the change. Feedback from all sessions was positive, with many attending one-to-one sessions with our consultants following the workshops.
We achieved the goal of minimising the impact of the change. Our client feared losing the trust and engagement of their hiring managers, and mass walkouts of contractors. However, our experience helped shape their strategy to make the most out of the situation by mitigating impacts and implementing creative solutions. For example, we were able to implement a solution for providing inside IR35 with three different options of engagement, making our client a more attractive place to remain contracting.
We helped our client in three ways:
- Advice and expertise in shaping their strategy
- External partner to assist in communicating their decisions internally
- Upskilling and training their managers
It was important for our client to bring in external expertise. Firstly, to benefit from specialist knowledge on IR35 to shape their plans. And secondly, a credible external partner was able to achieve more effective outcomes from their hiring managers and prevented some of the negative reactions associated with the IR35 changes.
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