People Puzzles has made a world of difference – GAMA Healthcare

‘People Puzzles has changed the way our company functions and is making a dramatic difference.’

Rob Cook from People Puzzles has helped the founders of GAMA Healthcare to engage better with its employees, create an effective leadership team and recruit the right people as the company expands further.

The Client, GAMA Healthcare

GAMA Healthcare is an entrepreneurial success story. Doctors Allen Hanouka and Guy Braverman founded the company in 2004 to develop and supply high-efficacy disinfectant wipes for use in NHS hospitals. Now, it’s the largest supplier of wet and dry wipes in the UK with products in every NHS hospital.

The company’s expanding product range is now sold in more than 60 countries and it currently operates in China, Australia and the UK, turning over £35m a year.

The Challenge

After several successive years of rapid growth and more than 120 employees, GAMA needed help building more effective people practices and, in particular, making sure salary arrangements and bonuses were well-designed and competitive.

The founders were becoming concerned about losing talent because of a lack of clearly defined career paths for staff, many of whom were ambitious young science graduates. Rob also noticed that many leaders were focused on their own goals and team activities rather than making decisions which took wider business issues into account.

Rob Cook was brought into the business in March 2017. After conducting a three-day ‘fact find’ interviewing key members of staff, he made a set of people priorities for the year ahead.

The Solution

Rob kicked-off proceedings with a two-day workshop in London for 14 of the company’s most senior people, in order to build a strong senior team. Here, they mapped their priorities for the year ahead and defined what values and behaviours were most important to GAMA’s success.

The management team was restructured and monthly meetings were set up for the team to discuss operational priorities, track their progress through the year and tackle any arising issues.

Additional People Puzzles support was brought in to provide executive coaching to leaders, one of whom now oversees the company’s human resources. Rob also provided expertise in moving people internationally as GAMA expanded into different countries.

An urgent requirement that Rob addressed over the summer was a comprehensive induction process for staff. New employees to GAMA now quickly understand how the business works, learn about its values, find out ‘who’s who’ across the organisation and work out how they can make a difference in their new role.

Rob then turned his attention to the company’s wider staff policies. He worked with the senior team in building a grading structure for all GAMA jobs to benchmark reward levels and benefits externally.

Along with clear job roles, visible career pathways are now being developed by Rob for GAMA staff, along with a coherent reward policy to reflect individuals’ achievements.

In order to manage these processes efficiently, Rob is bringing in an intuitive HR technology platform which all GAMA people can easily access. He continues to work on-site at GAMA two days a week to facilitate GAMA’s journey as it expands further.

The Conclusion

GAMA co-founder Allen Hanouka is delighted with the results so far. ‘We wanted to go big on employee engagement, give people defined career pathways and make sure that people were happy with their rewards and development. Rob is doing all of this and much more.

He totally gets this company, what makes it tick, how we work here. We’ve looked at so many areas in the company. There wasn’t enough communication between our directors but now we meet every month everyone now understands what the other departments are doing.’

Allen explains why employee engagement is important at GAMA Healthcare. ‘Every single person feels like they know what they’re doing, why they’re doing it and I think most people are very happy to be working here,’ he says. ‘It’s made a world of difference.’

He concludes, ‘People Puzzles have been phenomenal. We’ve used many consultants in the past, but Rob has been very impressive. He is changing the way our company functions and made a dramatic difference.’

Please do contact us if you would like to discuss any of these areas within your business, on 0808 164 5826.