Richard was employed by the Company in a series of senior HR roles from September 2001 until April 2017.

• Initially Richard was employed as the HR Director for Shiloh Healthcare based in Royton Oldham and in this stand-alone role was responsible for all people related issues across four different business lines covering some 400 employees across 20 locations across England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. In addition, Richard was part of the senior management team reporting directly to the CEO, and part of the bid team that successfully won two of the first awarded DSA outsourcing contracts for sterile services supporting the NHS in the North West of England in relation to 10 large NHS hospitals serviced from two brand new purpose built off-site facilities.

• Subsequently Shiloh was acquired by Synergy Health in September 2005 and Richard moved to become UK HR Director for Synergy, reporting to either the CEO or FD, initially again in a stand-alone role covering some 1300 employees across almost 40 locations covering all Synergy business lines. In 2008 the role was widened to incorporate responsibility for payroll and benefits/pensions/fleet management and as a result Richard formed and managed a fully integrated HR Shared Services team to provide these services to the business. Richard continued to be part of the bid team that continued to successfully be awarded further NHS contracts, in addition to undertaking due diligence on a number of acquisitions, and managing the full integration of all of these staff groupings, and subsequently starting to grow an in-house HR team to support the requirements of the rapidly growing business.

• In 2012 as the enlarged Synergy business moved to a regional structure Richard’s role was enlarged to also include the Republic of Ireland and at this point Richard, reporting to me as the Regional Director, had responsibility through a HR team of 9 for some 2500 employees over 55 separate locations. The role was further enlarged in 2014 with the combination of two original regions to create a single Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region (still reporting to me) and as a result through team members in the UK, Ireland and Netherlands and finance contacts in other parts of the region, Richard was responsible for some 4100 employees across almost 100 locations in 9 European countries plus South Africa. Richard was a member of the Regional Management Board and a key player in the standardisation of processes and policies/procedures that maximised the effectiveness of all business lines across the region.

• Richard's role covered a full range of both strategic and generalist HR items including time and attendance, performance management, handling of grievance and disciplinary cases, numerous re-structures, TUPE transfers in and out, creation and delivery of training modules, interpretation and application of Company policies and terms and conditions of employment, the introduction of a standardised appraisal system including the introduction of and training out the use of agreed Company competences, national and local consultation with Trade Unions and Employee Forums, plus the preparation and presentation of cases in the Employment Tribunals.

Of particular note Richard was responsible for the following: -

• Successful handling of a large number of TUPE transfers both in and out of the business along with numerous internal re-structures, with no associated litigation issues
• Successful introduction of, and ongoing management of the application of NHS terms and conditions of employment (Agenda for Change) in addition to managing the national relationship with Unison and Unite trade unions, again with no industrial action or any other form of litigation
• Introduction of a standardised set of terms and conditions and benefits across the whole of the UK businesses in 2011 which is still used as the framework for all UK roles today, aligned with a set of standardised employment contracts and Employee Handbook
• Creation and continual monitoring/updating of all relevant employment related policies and procedures, in addition to the provision of complete management tool kits, standard forms and letters to support these policies. Furthermore, the creation of a database of all such documents (in excess of 500) which is available to all employees in real time from the Company Intranet
• Introduction of a standardised and detailed Competency Dictionary to assist with the measurement of all employees in relation to the “how” linked directly to the Company’s values, and linked this to the introduction of an on-line appraisal and development system
• Design, implementation and management of a set of on-line workflows to provide direct feed of all people related information (permission to hire, recruitment, induction, probationary reviews, changes to terms and conditions, annual appraisals, leavers, records of grievance and disciplinary cases, sickness absence and timekeeping)