Helping Businesses Solve Performance and People Challenges

Are You Facing Business Challenges?
  • Facing a divestiture or an acquisition? You want guidance to execute the deal.
  • Owners retiring from a family run company? You want a wise ownership and leadership succession plan.
  • In need of quality people for a startup or growing firm? You want guidance on how to hire and retain the right people.
  • Mature company in decline? You are unsure why decline continues, despite efforts to improve, and you want experienced help.
  • Workforce concerns? Your employees need to understand your expectations for work quality, outstanding customer service and initiating improvements to grow your business, and you want help.
We Can Help You
  • Confirm or develop a clear plan to make your startup, growing or mature business durable and sustainable.
  • Map out and execute the operational and people impacts for growing your business; turning around lagging performance; buying or selling businesses; planning for leadership or ownership succession.
  • Execute good people practices to engage your leaders and workforce to take accountability for achieving your business goals.

Our Practice

Making Businesses Durable and Sustainable

  • When your start up business outgrows your kitchen table operations, we can help you build a solid foundation.

    • Define your new hire profile with the skills for the job today and capabilities to do more/different work as your company grows;
    • Set your market competitive pay including non-monetary benefits and recognition rewards;
    • Document your company values, core policies and work procedures to make your expectations clear.

  • When your mature business is lagging, we can help you focus on solving the root cause of pesky workforce and performance impediments.

    • Improve work process to be more precise, productive and cost effective so you can reinvest profit and other resources in your business.
    • Change your people practices to boost employee engagement in their work, serving customers and contributing to your success.

Buying a Business to Grow; Selling a Business to Retire

  • We can help business buyers evaluate and plan.

    • Assess the leaders and company culture for fit with your existing business;
    • Determine people costs and other purchase price considerations;
    • Draft the integration plan to ensure a smooth business transition.

  • We can help business sellers get ready for potential buyers.

    • Articulate the decision factors, apart from price, for selecting a winning offer;
    • Assess key employees critical to the company’s ongoing success;
    • Solve outstanding employee issues that undermine the purchase price or integration;
    • Compile documentation on company policies and employee commitments to make the business transition smooth.

Good People Practices are Good Business Practices

  • We can help modernize your practices for hiring, paying, and managing your employees.

    • Employees who are skilled, trained and motivated deliver your products and services to your customers in a high quality way.
    • Your customers' experience is directly linked to your employees' experience working at your company.

  • We can help your supervisors / managers build their leadership skills.

    • Communicating responsibilities and performance expectations;
    • Holding employees accountable for their tasks and performance;
    • Giving feedback and discussing career aspirations.

  • We can help you intentionally set and clearly communicate your company’s culture.

    • Culture is based on your company’s purpose and shared values and is lived by your employees all the time.
    • Your culture together with your business brand set you apart from your competition for customers and people.

About Us

Pragmatic Approach - Helps provide focus, clarity, simplicity and candour

  • We are business-oriented, analytical and inquisitive in our approach to help business leaders to:
    • inventory the current situation and desired outcomes;
    • diagnose root causes for operational and workforce challenges;
    • simplify complex matters;
    • generate practical solutions that achieve results while mitigating risks; and
    • take action to efficiently implement solutions.

Partnership - Helping as your advisor and by working hands-on with your team

  • We are trusted by executives, leadership teams and the Board of Directors to provide solutions to business challenges and progressive programs to drive performance and attract, engage and retain employees.
  • We collaborate with leaders, front-line managers and other key people to understand and help solve operational problems.
  • We share our knowledge by training and mentoring operations managers, other functional business leaders and the HR team.

Broad Experience - Helps provide perspective and relevant tools for your situation

  • We have business experience across oil & gas exploration & production, renewable energy/power, manufacturing, financial services, telecommunications, engineering research & design, heavy engineering & construction, NHL teams, waste management, commercial chicken farms and other sectors.
  • We work with domestic, North American, international and Fortune 500 companies as well as small to mid-size owner-operated businesses.
  • We have over 30 years working in various business situations including operational performance turnarounds; effective integration following a merger or acquisition; changes in executive leadership, private company ownership and business direction.
  • We have diverse expertise with an emphasis on performance management, people development and management, compensation, organization and workforce mapping and leadership coaching.

Contact Us

If you would like to talk through your business challenges, please contact us.

Ronda Fox
Foster Williams