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Heather’s inspirations, which are continually evolving, are currently being influenced by the work that is ongoing within behavioural science, creativity, mindfulness and compassion based interventions, Positive Psychology and in particular strengths based development; integrity, ethics and authenticity in Leadership Development and dealing with emotional challenges through Cognitive Behavioural Coaching. She is passionate about helping others to be the best they can be while at the same time not doing damage to others and the wider environment. Heather also has a particular interest in bringing research based psychology tools and creativity techniques to mindtrip’s work. You can find out more about some of the latest thinking that is catching her attention through subscribing to mindtrip’s blog.
Having a first degree in Economics and working within the field of occupational psychology, Heather has a particular interest in the work that spans both disciplines- behavioural sciences- and in particular the work of Paul Dolan, Richard Layard, and the team at action for happiness and NEF.
Wellbeing at a personal, organisational and societal level is also key to her work and she has kept up to date with the work of the Government commissioned foresight project around developing mental capital and wellbeing as well as a raft of releases from the BPS and Government and others around wellbeing.
Heather is particularly interested in working with those that help others to prevent burnout. She is particularly influenced and inspired by the work being undertaken into love, empathy and compassion by Paul Gilbert, Tania Singer, Barbara Fredrickson, Matthieu Ricard, Kristin Neff and Sharon Salzberg.
Organisation Development- People, Values and wellbeing
I have been working for 18 months with Perrywood and award winning family run garden centre based in Essex and Suffolk . They have grown considerably with their success and needed help in crystallising their people strategy, finalising their values and implementing an approach to support staff wellbeing. The work started with running a happiness at work survey to establish key areas of focus and then writing and implementing a people strategy as well as a wellbeing strategy. We have taken an iterative holistic approach that looks at both the structure, policies and processes as well as culture, L&D, staff feedback and involvement as well as establishing partnerships with occupational health and EAP providers.
As part of this process we also wanted to hear staff’s views on what they thought made Perrywood special. I designed and facilitated a short workshop for all staff working more than a certain number of hours. These values have now been integrated into day to day desision making at Perrywood.
L&D
An essential part of any wellbeing strategy for an organisation is the abilities and awareness of its managers. As part of the roll out of the work staff requested more feedback on their performance and so we re-introduced 1:1 chats with a coaching approach and I trained all managers on how to have these conversations. This was rolled out to all staff.
Also designed are a series of workshops that can be delivered digitally or face to face on resilience, mental flourishing, healthy management, employee wellbeing, feedback & difficult conversations and Development & Wellbeing.
Learning & Development Faciltation
I worked for over ten years delivering the counsellor and advanced counsellor training within EY as part of an associate team. We were one of only a couple of providers that the organisation had used for that length of time in the UK. This work involved performance management, relationship building, coaching and difficult conversations training. The advanced programme including greater complexity including neurodiversity, careers and mental health.
We worked at senior levels in the organisation and I have facilitated Partner, Director, Senior Manager and Manager groups as well as some more junior staff just starting out in people management. Many of these audiences were globally diverse but based in the UK. I was particularly actively involved with the Advisory business when it was re-starting within the firm, facilitating the partner group around Firm process and their decisions on people management.
I specialise in people development and particularly training in behavioural change, strengths based wellbeing and ‘soft skills’. I can design or design and deliver courses for you that can be either delivered in person or remotely through your digital learning strategy facilitating just in time or real time learning for your employees.
I have a particular expertise in designing and delivering training in the following areas:
- Coaching & advanced listening and questioning skills
- Strengths based careers development
- Integrated wellbeing, development and performance conversations
- Performance development conversations including positive and constructive feedback
- Dealing with challenging, conflict and difficult conversations
- Mindfulness and compassion
- Dealing with change and transitions
- Leading change and transitions
- Resilience and mental flourishing
- Employee wellbeing training- incl stress management,
- Healthy manager and healthy workplace
- Happiness and wellbeing (incl PERMA)
Case studies
I worked collaboratively with a specialist in procurement to design a modular programme focused around strategic category management. The course was designed so that attendees learnt the key technical skills while being interwoven with key soft skills.
As part of the wider change programme I ran for Herbert Smith I designed five 90-120 minute skills booster sessions focused around increasing key soft skills that the support population were particularly requesting 
I worked for over ten years delivering the counsellor and advanced counsellor training within EY. We were one of only a couple of providers that the organisation had used for that length of time in the UK. This work involved perfomance management, relationship building, coaching and difficult conversations training. The advanced programme including greater complexity including neurodiversity, careers and mental health.
We worked with London TravelWatch at a time of large change helping both the staff and managers process and deal with the impact of a large downsize. We worked with them to deliver two all staff workshops around understanding and dealing with change and ensuring consistency of approach in the new organisation going forward. This latter piece of work focusing on developing the organisations values and understanding how they are lived day to day.
Thanks for delivering such a light touch but powerful workshop yesterday. It did just what I hoped
Chief Executive London TravelWatch
Change management
Over a 12-18 month month period I designed and assembled a team of 5 consultants, to deliver a large cross departmental change programme “Good to Excellent’ across support services with the focus on building a sense of community and customer service for internal and external clients. The design had 4 phases including workshops and skills boosters.
To read more about the programme and its design please click : Herbert Smith Good to excellent Programme This was written by the OD department at Herbert Smith for an award submission.
Top Team Development
Prior to Herbert Smith’s merger, I worked over a period of seven years with the Information and Systems department. During that time I worked with them to build a sense of team within the Leadership team, each sub team within the department, across the overall department and also inter relationships between the department and other departments they worked closely with. Work included
- Consulting, designing and facilitating tailored nine yearly top team leadership offsites and 1:1 coaching
- Designing and facilitating intra departmental team events
- Designing and facilitating a series of tailored department wide team leader management development
- Designing and facilitating an all department conference
We needed a facilitator to help us in the critical task of coalescing the senior management team. Heather did exactly that and lived up to out high expectations.
Group Chief Information Officer, Herbert Smith LLP (now retired)
Learning & Development design and facilitation
As part of the wider change programme I ran for Herbert Smith I designed five 90-120 minute skills booster sessions focused around increasing key soft skills that the support population were particularly requesting