People Puzzles turns 14 in March 2024

It’s been 14 years since founder Ally sat on the harbour wall at Harry’s Café de Wheels in Wooloomooloo and decided it was time to put her passion for HR, people and growing businesses into practice by starting her own company.

Ally tells us where the motivation came from to found People Puzzles and what she has learnt in the last 14 years.

“I’m a firm believer that if you have good people, you will make money. After working as an HR consultant I knew I didn’t want to be a tiny cog in a big company: I wanted to help ambitious businesses to achieve their potential.

I founded People Puzzles in 2010, as a lone-ranger HR consultant, helping mid-tier businesses to be more strategic about their people plans. Now there are 100 of us providing commercially savvy, part-time HR Directors for businesses that don’t want, don’t need or can’t afford a full-time People Director.

Our clients say it takes away the time and stress of managing people. Over the last few years we have been growing rapidly – some years almost 40%, which is a real testament to our brilliant team and how they deliver better businesses for our clients. We are proud to consider ourselves as a peer of our clients – walking the same mid-tier, growing business journey. Struggling to find good staff, working out how to get the best out of them, wanting to develop a strong culture, wondering how to effect change.

Over the past 14 years we have learned the importance of

·       knowing where you want to get to (your vision),

·       how you want to do it (your values) and then

·       turning that into an actual roadmap (the operating plan)

And that being clear on these three things greatly increases your chances of success.

This is the approach that has worked to grow People Puzzles and  that we recommend to our clients who are ambitious to grow. As with any growing businesses there have been a fair few ups and downs on the journey, but as 2024 starts we are very proud to have been named top 5 in the Elite Business 100 list (link), to have a team across the UK and even launched our own podcast (LINK) all growing and continuing to help businesses and their people to thrive.