Business Psychology
People-focused business growthCLICK TO DISCOVER THE POWER OF …
CLICK TO DISCOVER THE POWER OF …
I’ve worked with ACCA for over 5 years. Here’s what they said about one of the first events I ran for them:
“We invited Jess to talk about workplace wellbeing during ACCA’s flagship annual virtual conference Accounting for the Future in November. Her presentation on Helping Others and Yourself was informative, engaging, well-delivered and packed with tips on how meet the needs of others with compassion. Her experiences of working with clients along with her insights into nurturing healthy relationships were relatable and relevant. And the workbook and slides introduced to highlight points during the presentation were useful tools appreciated by the audience.
Over 7,900 ACCA members attended the presentation and live Q&A session, which generated a large number of questions from participants keen to learn more and ask advice. We received some excellent feedback with many commenting on the relevance of the session to their professional lives:
‘The session was thought-provoking and most helpful.’
‘Thoroughly enjoyed the session with lots of practical advice on managing your own expectations as well as others.’
‘This was a fantastic session. I will go through the workbook and start putting into practice some of the suggestions Jess has offered.’
We are looking forward to working more with Jess on issues of health and wellbeing with the readership of ACCA’s Accounting and Business magazine.”
Jo Malvern, Editor-In-Chief, Accounting and Business Magazine, ACCA
I’ve worked with Wiley for over 7 years. Here’s what they said about one of the leadership development online courses I ran for them:
“We engaged Jess to deliver a three-part series of workshops focusing on building confidence and having courageous conversations over the course of 6 months in 2021. This was to support the Wiley Marketing Mentor Program which teamed up over 115 teammates to create mentoring partnerships. The sessions focused on exploring your inner confidence, strengthening your confidence and building this to create connections and be needle movers in our organisation.
The time and care Jess spent in helping us to shape the series of workshops to enable our team was very thoughtful. An example of the care Jess took was to align the content to our company values which created a strong connection with the audience. She was able to create a blend of theory and practical exercises that gave attendees the tools to be in charge of their growth.
The mentors and mentees on our program are grateful to have the opportunity to attend the sessions, they feel supported and understood by Jess, and it has helped build trust amongst the team. I feel in Jess we have a true partner and would absolutely recommend her.”
Kate Smith, Employee Enablement Director. Global Enterprise Marketing, Wiley
“As a chartered building surveyor and member of the National Association of Women in Construction (NAWIC), I organised the largest conference ever held at the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors in November 2019. One of the attractions was a talk on ‘Imposter Syndrome’, led by Jess Baker. I had not heard that term before, but instantly recognised it.
Jess led an open and honest talk about her own experiences and spoke with other successful women who all confirmed similar issues. Jess is a great speaker, being warm, open, honest and engaging. She offers women a way to change long held debilitating beliefs, and I am so glad many of us were able to benefit by hearing Jess speak. Since then, many of us have joined her uplifting workshops to try and change our old behaviours.
Rosemary Silver, FRICS, Associate Director, Building Consultancy
“The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) strives to deliver high quality, actionable advice and support to help small business owners realise their ambitions. We were therefore delighted that Jess Baker, acclaimed Business Psychologist & Women’s Leadership Coach, joined us to present a series of three interactive, online workshops. Each session was designed for 20-25 participants to facilitate discussion, and each ran at full capacity.
Topics covered included: how to avoid self-sabotaging; finding your focus; and having a healthy money mindset. All of these were delivered in an extremely professional and personable style. This gave participants confidence in the information and advice that Jess provided and also the confidence to take an active role throughout the discussion and Q&A sessions.
These FSB events were delivered as part of a virtual programme to support small business owners through the CV-19 crisis and beyond. It was really important therefore, that participants were given the ideas, tools and inspiration to help them through these most challenging times – both professionally and personally. From the 100% positive feedback received during and post event, I am assured that, with Jess’ help we achieved exactly that.”
Mike Goodall, Development Manager, Federation of Small Businesses
“A colleague introduced me to Jess when we needed an engaging speaker on “How to Tackle the Imposter Syndrome” for our employees in this tough year, (Dec 2020) and boy did Jess deliver! As someone who has suffered from Imposter Syndrome for many years, I was gobsmacked to hear this was a real state of mind for so many people well educated and successful people.
We had over 750 people attend the live interactive session from the US and EMEA and so many reached out afterwards (to me and each other) to share stories and offer support. The supporting documents and follow up has been super helpful and well timed.
Luckily I had the foresight to book Jess for future sessions on How to Enhance Personal Resilience and I, along with many of my colleagues, look forward to these with great anticipation. Our employees have benefited from learning how to tackle the imposter syndrome, and they are owning their own accomplishments. We all need this positivity in this testing year! What a gift to share. Thanks Jess”
Louise Lord, Engagement Leader, Global Multicloud Tech provider
Other Business Psychology Solutions
Here’s an overview of the types of projects I deliver for my clients
Leadership Development
The best leaders manage themselves as well as they engage and motivate others.
They are resilient, self-motivated, use creative problem-solving techniques, and make decisions that are aligned to the organisation’s vision.
Organisations with good leaders, and a diverse top-team, out-perform their competitors.
But you know this already.
Maybe you are doing your best to enable, empower and challenge your leaders to be the best versions of themselves.
Maybe you’ve run a few leadership development programmes that your middle-senior managers have been required to attend.
Perhaps it’s time for you to try something specifically tailored to your own organisational needs, and the needs of your managers.
All managers are not the same. (Nor are we consultants).
If there’s a reason why your middle managers or senior leadership team aren’t performing as well as you’d like them to, let’s talk.
Organisational Culture
Your strongest competitors have aligned their company values to their competency framework. They use that competency framework to attract, recruit, manage and develop their employees to ensure that each one is engaged and productive.
Unfortunately, displaying happy posters in the lobby is not enough to change a culture. It takes a deep understanding of your business to develop a values-based culture. Luckily for me, as a self-professed qualitative data queen, I get very excited when clients ask me to help them do this (e.g. appreciative inquiry, repertory grid analysis, critical incident technique interviews, focus groups and geeking on NVivo software. Love it all).
Your organisation’s culture is brought to life through your
- defined core values
- future-proof competency framework
- on-boarding process and effective recruitment practices
- simple and assertive performance management / performance planning
- practical and meaningful employee development
It can feel like a daunting transition, but I take clients through a step-by-step process, that, with the comms and stakeholder mapping in place, can feel seamless, even enjoyable.
If you would like to redefine your organisation’s core values or competency framework, or want to embed them across your existing processes, drop me an email at hello@jessbaker.co.uk or book a consultation call via the button below.
Assessment & Selection
Do your people have the right…?
- Skills and ability
- Attitude and motivation
- Values
Your strongest competitors are investing heavily on improving their recruitment process: having a clear job description, explicit pre-requisites, using structured interviews and objective assessment methods.
Your strongest competitors know that having a fit-for-purpose end-to-end hiring process is easier to track and more cost-effective than leaving things to chance.
I’ve designed and implemented end-to-end recruitment processes, assessment centres and high-profile individual assessment for national and international companies.
If you’d like to find out how I can help you to recruit and retain the right people for your organisation, let’s talk. Click the Discovery Call button below and chose a time that suits you.
Employee Wellbeing
“Wellbeing” might sound like a bit of a fad. A lot of organisations seem to be randomly adding the word ‘wellbeing’ to job titles in the hope that it will actually have some impact. But employee wellbeing has to be taken seriously.
It’s a costly matter for any company to get wrong. Dissatisfied employees are not productive, are more likely to leave your company, and they have a negative impact on other colleagues, customer service and sales.
Back in 2004 I worked with Aston Business School on reviewing the NHS Staff Survey (the latest data set in Europe). Low staff morale directly impacted patient outcomes – employee wellbeing is literally a matter life or death in that environment.
Research tells us that satisfied employees are more focused, satisfied and productive. Are your employees satisfied, engaged and motivated at work? Do they feel valued?
While there’s no such thing as a quick fix, there are probably a number of practical solutions that you could put in place to improve employee engagement. If you would like to improve the way you engage and motivate your employees, click the button below to find out how I can help you.
Building Mental Resilience
We’re all expected to ‘do more with less’ which puts additional pressure on your workforce. They are keen to do a great job, but tend to struggle when they’re asked to take on more responsibility, or cover for an absent colleague.
You know that if your employees are already feeling stressed, they are less able to focus, less engaged, and less productive.
While you probably have Employee Assistance Programmes in place for people who are experiencing a great deal of stress, you also need to offer the rest of your workforce, what I call, a ‘resilience booster’ ever now and then. This could be one-day training programme tailored to your industry and the particular stressors your employees are facing.
I offer a one-day training programme for non-managers, and a three-day training programme for leaders, which incorporates more advanced theory and practice, including how to identify, coach and manage others’ stress levels.Not only do I have personal experience of near-burnout (as a senior HR manager in the financial sector during the credit-crunch), I also have training in several Cognitive Behavioural Therapy methods, Mindfulness, and Mindful Self-Compassion. I only draw on evidence-based methods that work for me and my clients.
As well as my workshops being fully interactive, I pride myself on simplifying complex techniques for everyday use. Every participant leaves my sessions feeling more in control of how they feel and armed with practical tools that can put in place immediately, at work and at home.
A typical one-day Resilience workshop includes
- How the organisation values employees
- Stressors at work
- Resilience, stress and peak performance
- Resilient mindset and healthy habits
- Daily Mindfulness & Self-Compassion techniques
- Action plans, reflection time
- Interactive session, group and 1:1 workIf you would like to talk to me about running Resilience programmes for your organisation, you can email me or click the green button below to set up a call at your convenience.
Mindful Self-Compassion
I know it sounds a bit woo-woo, and mindfulness has definitely reached fad-status, but there is a lot of evidence to show how being mindful in the workplace, and at home, can improve task-focus, reduce stress, and therefore enhance productivity and personal resilience.
We all struggle to focus on one thing when we are being asked to do several things by several people, under tight deadlines. Remember when it used to be cool to multi-task? We’d compete with each other by saying how busy we are. But we’ve moved on and, thankfully, we have realised that self-care is not an option; it’s essential.
By understanding the theory and practicing simple mindfulness techniques, participants will learn the difference between reactive and proactive thinking. They will feel in more control of their automatic negative thought processes. They will also learn that they can choose how to respond to stressful situations.
The additional ‘self-compassion’ element in this programme helps participants to acknowledge and accept their own needs, and therefore bette at asking for support. Self-compassion also builds self-confidence – by allowing and nurturing your own talents (instead of constantly looking to others for approval). There’s also the longer term impact on the organisational culture: If we are kinder to ourselves, we can be kinder to our colleagues.This programme enables your employees to be more self-sufficient in managing their stress levels in all aspects of their life.
I offer a one-day training programme for non-managers, and a three-day training programme for leaders, which incorporates more advanced theory and practice, including how to identify, coach and manage others’ stress levels.
My programmes are tailored to your industry and the particular situation your employees are facing.
You might have already read that, not only do I have personal experience of near-burnout (as a senior HR manager in the financial sector during the credit-crunch), I also have training in several Cognitive Behavioural Therapy methods, Mindfulness, and Mindful Self-Compassion. I only draw on evidence-based methods that work for me and my clients.
As well as my workshops being fully interactive, I pride myself on simplifying complex techniques for everyday use. Every participant leaves my sessions feeling more in control of how they feel and armed with practical tools that can put in place immediately, at work and at home.
A typical one-day Mindfulness & Self-Compassion workshop includes
- The case for mindfulness at work
- Stressors at work & current coping mechanisms
- Mindfulness techniques – theory and practice
- Self-compassion techniques – theory and practice
- Action plans, reflection time
- Interactive session, group and 1:1 work
If you would like to talk to me about running Resilience programmes for your organisation, you can email me or click the green button below to set up a call at your convenience.
Why Choose to Work with Me?
Clients & Sectors
Whether you are a medium-sized businesses wanting rapid growth or a global organisation seeking to engage your employees, implement a culture change, or develop your middle managers into senior leaders, I can help.
My clients are from a variety of industries including retail, pharmaceutical, publishing, education, defence, private and public healthcare.
Large-scale Programmes
I’ve also held senior HR leadership roles. Working in the financial services sector I helped drive improvements across Assessment & Selection, Organisational Development, Employee Engagement and Leadership Development functions.
Strategic & Creative
Consultancy suits my personal strengths of being creative, strategic, empathic and solution-focused. I get a deep sense of satisfaction from finding workable solutions that are pragmatic and resource-efficient.
Adding Value at Every Step
During my career as a freelance Business Psychologist I’ve learned the importance of being able to add value for my clients at every step of the project, not just being focused on the end result.
I’ve been told that I’m not like other consultants: I’m not afraid to say what I see. You are paying me to identify challenges and to talk about the elephant in the room.
Enabling Positive Change
That’s exactly what I do (talk about the elephant in the room): for the benefit of your team or your organisation, I call it out. Even though it can sometimes feel uncomfortable for the organisation to hear, I’ll be helping you to enable real change and improve your bottom line.
Scroll down to find out more about how I work. If you’d like to talk about how I can help you, or simply share ideas, click the button below for a free 30-minute Consultation Call.
Or if you’re looking for something specific, you can email me directly jess@jessbaker.co.uk