Why I Chose Consulting Over Staying In-House

I used to refer to myself as 'that person who sits at the back of the room asking the difficult questions', but I'm equally happy to sit up front to ask them too....

I opted to take voluntary redundancy from my last in-house position as an SWP leader in 2024. It’s my firm belief that since SWP should be an enterprise capability – i.e. done all through the business at every level in every resourcing decision – then it’s the ultimate goal of every SWP leader to make themselves redundant.

I then decided not to return to an in-house SWP leadership role and instead step into consulting.  

I was already no stranger to change and seeking out new challenges – by that time I’d been in HR for just shy of 17 years, and in SWP specifically for 8. I’d held 8 different roles across 7 organisations – across 3 countries, on 3 different islands, in 5 different industries in both public and private sectors.

There were unique scopes and challenges in each – but I also started to see similar problems across all the work.

Once you see it, you can’t unsee it

Time and time again I would find organisations struggling with an expression of the same root issues:

• A desire to move to longer-term workforce planning, constantly prevented by operational pressures

• Lack of clarity on what SWP actually was, and an inability to find the time and space to move beyond immediate firefighting to support strategic level work

• Frontline leaders and HR teams identifying workforce issues, but feeling unable to express them within the environment (the small-‘p’ politics that exist in every organisation)

• Overcommitment to transformation projects without clear links to both strategy and realistic workforce constraints

• An inability to demonstrate the strategic value of HR activity in terms the wider business recognised and understood

Once you see the pattern you get interested in solving it at the root and saving as many organisations from the same pain as you can.

Calling from inside the house

While I loved my in-house roles, and am incredibly proud to have built the brilliant teams and systems that I left behind in my previous organisations, it must be said that in-house roles can struggle to make an impact for a variety of common reasons.

• Ownership – in-house SWP leaders and teams can end up “owning” SWP rather than it being fully integrated into the business planning cycle.

• Impetus – the enduring and iterative nature of SWP can lead to a kind of drift that sees focus and drive in the business wane.

• Candour – SWP is a challenging discipline that shines a light on business practises that no longer serve the organisation, and sacrifices many a sacred cow. This can be viewed as criticism, and in time jeopardises the vital buy-in needed for successful SWP.

Why Consulting = Impact

Operating within and as part of an organisation does let you see tasks all the way through to completion, which is incredibly satisfying. But what I’ve found throughout my work is that where the challenges arise – and they DO arise – you’re much more likely to be successful in bringing about the necessary change if you bring in an outside expert.

There are some very legitimate reasons for this:

• An outside view to your organisation is completely fresh, with no vested political interests and no view as to the way things “have always been done”

• An external expert comes with a wealth of experience across multiple organisations and contexts

• The structure of a short term engagement forces focus on the work that has strategic impact rather than the daily firefighting

• An outside voice can ask difficult questions safely

If we’re completely honest, there’s also one quite unfair reason:

• Perceived legitimacy – organisations often listen more closely to an external voice they’ve paid a premium for than to their own internal experts. It’s unfair, but well documented in organisational psychology (and you’ve likely come across it in some form in your own career!).

Here at Beyond The 8 Ball, we have both the actual legitimate skill, and the ability to advocate for and upskill your in-house practitioners in ways that other consultancies can’t.

As a visitor to an organisation, I can inject energy to SWP processes and present strong, necessary challenge without compromising long-term relationships and buy-in. Use me as the messenger to shoot, I don’t mind – just take the benefit of the message without any of the pain. 😉

But Not Like That!

Many larger consultancies do indeed offer SWP services – but I’m yet to find one that’s as impressive as a dedicated hardcore SWP geek. See my previous post about the benefits of a boutique consultancy to read a bit more about why that is.

I’ve been the in-house expert myself when an outside consultant has been brought in who unfortunately knows less than I do – and it’s a massive waste of money and your in-house talents time to have to train an expensive consultant!

I’ve also seen plenty of consulting engagements that produce impressive slide decks without leaving behind any lasting capability – and so the firm returns again… and again… and again to help ‘crack’ the SWP nut. This only aggravates and burns out the in-house practitioners left behind to pick up the pieces once Elvis has left the building. Ask me how I know. 😉

Truly meaningful, worthwhile investment in consultancy resource should:

• Clearly define the problem to solve, in business-specific terms, and control scope to prevent drift and overspend

• Build internal capability to solve that problem and demonstrate success

• Transfer core knowledge to enable in-house teams to solve for the next business problem themselves

• Leave the organisation stronger and more confident than before

Anything other than that is the very antithesis of SWP itself – when we Borrow expert knowledge, it MUST come alongside a Build of our own internal skills and capabilities, so that we can get out of the Buy dependency cycle once and for all.

And that’s why I chose to build Beyond The 8 Ball – to help you to move beyond guesswork, stop relying on consultants and frameworks that don’t serve you, and to move confidently into your best future.

We believe that good consulting doesn’t create dependency - it leaves our clients strong enough not to need us anymore. That’s why all of our engagements come with a free post-completion review call when you’re ready to check back in, so that we can make sure you get the best out of us and stay on track when we’re gone.

While you won’t need us to come back to recover old ground, we’re always happy to come back and see you when you’re ready to take the next steps in your SWP maturity journey – because your success is our success.

More soon. Outlook: Clearer.

Jen