Case Study 
Strategic Business Partners

Bruce Christison was new to the role of CEO at Club Menangle. He had moved from an operational role into a leadership position and the board was keen to support his transition. And so, they engaged the performance coaching services of Melissa Powick and ChandlerWoods.

“I first started working with Melissa in 2017. I hadn’t ever had the opportunity to be involved in that type of coaching before, but Melissa made the process really easy. She used the LSI toolset to get an understanding of where I was at and put in place a development program off the back of it.

It can be a bit daunting to think that someone is judging you, but that certainly wasn’t the case. It was very clear from the outset that Melissa was there to help me and further my development.”

Through the process, it quickly became clear to both Bruce and Melissa that Club Menangle needed HR support. And Bruce didn’t hesitate to bring ChandlerWoods in as the club’s HR partner.

“At that time, we were in the process of growing, but we weren’t big enough to justify a full-time HR person. The service ChandlerWoods offered was perfect – it’s HR on tap!

The way we had done HR in the past was quite old-school, so we had some catching up to do. Melissa and the team at ChandlerWoods have helped bring us into the modern age with much better structures and documentation in place.

They gave us a really solid HR compliance foundation with all new employee agreements, induction processes for new staff, policies around bullying and discrimination, recruitment, redundancy, working from home… anything related to our staff and how we engage with them, we put documented policies in place around them.”

With the foundation laid, the Club Menangle/ChandlerWoods partnership has gone on to achieve some phenomenal results. Not least was the opening of the Menangle Country Club, a project many years in the making.

Steve Moore is the General Manager of Hospitality Operations and he worked closely with ChandlerWoods to onboard staff for the new venue.

“Melissa was involved from the very early stages of the project, advising on all the HR policies and procedures we needed to put in place as building blocks.

To get the club up and running we needed to recruit 40 new staff that I personally oversaw. Melissa helped us to implement a scalable policy that enabled us to do that recruitment.

Throughout every stage, from recruitment to onboarding and training, Melissa’s approach was to empower our staff to own it all.

The managers all felt like they had built their own team… because they had. We had a framework to work within, but the rest was up to us, so there was a great deal of ownership and investment in the result.”

Bruce echoes Steve’s view on how Melissa empowers our people by training them in the policies and procedures within the business.

“Our staff understand what they need to do to put policies in place for themselves. Melissa gives us the tools to run the processes in the business so they understand how it works. We don’t have people waiting around for someone else to fix a problem when it arises. Because they understand and own the process, it prevents the problems from occurring in the first place.

We can call on the ChandlerWoods team when we need them. We don’t have an HR resource being underutilised when it’s not really needed. If there is a specific situation happening in the business or I want some direction on an issue, Melissa is the first person I will seek to get input on that as a trusted advisor. She is focused on fixing problems for the long term and not just on a quick fix.”

When Bruce started working with Melissa, it was to help move him away from operational tasks to a more strategic level. What was initially a performance coaching engagement has resulted in significant changes for Club Menangle.

“We are now working on our strategic goals and Melissa is very involved in that. She is very focused on getting buy-in from people and getting it early. She has a way of ensuring everyone has a voice. When that happens, people feel like they are part of those important decisions.

Without Melissa’s support, I wouldn’t have been able to transform as a leader or change the structure to enable the changes we needed in our business. I can now step outside of the day to day to work on the strategy we need to succeed.”

If you’re looking for human resources consultants who can help your business lay a strong foundation for HR compliance and capability, get in touch with ChandlerWoods today. We have a team of experienced professionals who can assist you in developing the right policies and procedures to empower your staff and achieve your strategic goals.