White Cube Consulting

How To · Something Else

Something Else...

Got an HR Challenge you can’t quite define or don’t know how to solve?

Not every people management challenge fits neatly into a named category. Not every situation can be described through a neat description, heading or topic. And not every organisation facing a people challenge knows at the outset what support they may need.

Something Else

That’s entirely normal.

In fact, some of the most valuable work we do at White Cube Consulting starts with a vague, undefined brief and an exploratory conversation. Through which we help assess what is happening with an organisation, team or individual, why it matters, the impact and what could be done to help.

We have worked with organisations facing challenges that are vague, niche, unusual, sector or culture specific, or issues that cross over different people management areas all at once.

We have supported organisations through situations they find difficult to describe, let alone know how to solve them. In these cases, the most important thing we provide at the outset is not expertise or a solution, but the time, willingness to ask the right questions and to actively listen. Without ever presuming we know the answer or the proposed solution, before the conversation even begins.

Our How To… guides cover some of the more common people management challenges that organisations typically face. But these obviously don’t cover every possibility.

If the challenge your organisation is currently dealing with is not listed, or if what you are facing might be a combination of factors which feel difficult to make sense of right now, we would love to hear from you.

No challenge is ever too big or too small to have an initial, no obligation discussion. If the issue you are dealing with involves people, leadership, HR, teams, organisational effectiveness or anything similar, there’s a fair chance we will be able to help. Just get in touch.


The Range of Support We Can Provide

White Cube Consulting's expertise covers a broad spectrum of people management, HR, training, recruitment and organisational development areas. Beyond some of the specific topics covered in our core services and How To guide series, we regularly support organisations with challenges that can be highly specific, contextually unusual or require a more tailored approach.

Areas where we regularly provide support beyond the named topics in our guide library include:

HR Investigations and Complex Employee Relations

We provide independent investigation support for disciplinary and grievance situations, but also for more unusual or sensitive employee relations matters that may not follow a standard pattern. This includes situations involving multiple parties, allegations that span several issues simultaneously, cases involving senior individuals where internal independence is difficult to maintain, or situations where a previous process has broken down and needs to be rebuilt.

Bespoke Leadership and Executive Support

Leadership challenges are rarely generic. We provide executive coaching, leadership team facilitation, senior appointment support and leadership effectiveness consultancy that is always shaped around the specific individual, team and organisational context. Whether a newly appointed CEO navigating a significant transition period, a leadership team fractured by change or a high-potential individual struggling to make the next career step, the support we provide is built around the person and the situation.

Culture and Values Development

Culture is one of the most frequently discussed and least well-managed dimensions of organisational life. Many organisations know their culture is not what it needs to be but struggle to diagnose exactly what needs to change or know where to start. We help organisations understand the culture they currently have, define the culture they seek and develop a practical approach to closing the gap. Support is based around real leadership behaviours, management practices and structural conditions that shape how organisations actually feel to work in.

Founder and Owner-Manager Support

Growing businesses face people challenges that are can be significantly different from those of larger, more established organisations. When a business grows beyond the point where its founder can manage everything personally, the people management, leadership and HR challenges that emerge can be unfamiliar, uncomfortable and difficult to navigate without professional support. We work with founders and owner-managers to build the people infrastructure, management capability and leadership culture their growing organisations need. Delivered in a way that is proportionate, practical and aligned to the realities of a smaller or rapidly scaling business. We know exactly how small businesses work - we are one.

Team Restructuring and Role Design

Organisational structures and team redesign often evolves reactively rather than deliberately. Roles and reporting lines can be shaped by who happens to be available rather than what the organisation actually needs. When the structure stops serving the strategy, we support organisations to design team structures, define roles and create the organisational structure that gives their people the best possible conditions to perform.

HR Due Diligence for Mergers and Acquisitions

People and culture considerations are among the most significant determinants of whether a merger, acquisition or business integration succeeds or fails. They are among the most frequently underestimated issues in the due diligence process. We provide HR due diligence support that gives organisations a clear picture of the people, culture, employment obligations and people management risks associated with a proposed transaction, helping them make more informed decisions and plan more effectively for the integration challenges ahead.

Workforce Planning and People Analytics

Understanding the current and future shape of a workforce, the skills and capability gaps that are emerging and the people planning implications of organisational strategy requires a level of structured analysis that many organisations do not have the capacity or methodology to undertake internally. We help organisations think through their workforce planning needs, build the analytical frameworks to understand their people data and develop the people planning approaches that connect HR priorities to strategic objectives.

Sensitive and Confidential People Situations

Some of the most important people management situations organisations face cannot easily be discussed openly, cannot be managed through standard internal processes and require a level of discretion, confidentiality and professional judgement that makes external support both appropriate and necessary. We provide confidential advisory support for sensitive situations involving senior individuals, family-owned businesses navigating personal and professional complexity, board-level or governance-related people concerns and other matters where the need for independence, discretion and genuine expertise is particularly acute.

International and Cross-Cultural HR Support

Having delivered projects across many countries in four different continents, we have experience supporting organisations with the people management, leadership and HR challenges that arise in international and cross-cultural contexts. Whether supporting a Scottish business with international expansion operations, helping an international organisation understand and comply with UK employment law, or supporting leaders working effectively across cultural boundaries, we bring a breadth of international experience that many Scotland-based HR consultancies cannot offer.

Wellbeing, Burnout and Psychological Safety

The wellbeing of the people who work in an organisation is just a moral consideration. It is a commercial one. Burnout, psychological safety failures, chronic stress and the absence of care for employees in the workplace all have direct and measurable consequences for performance, retention, creativity and organisational effectiveness. We support organisations to understand the wellbeing challenges they face, identify the leadership and management behaviours and structural conditions that are driving them and develop approaches to building a healthier, safer and more sustainable working environment.


How We Approach New Challenges

One of the things a client will sometimes say at the start of a conversation is: I am not sure if this is something you can help with.

Our answers is always: tell us more and we can let you know.

What we bring to every new or unusual challenge is not a pre-prepared answer but a way of thinking about people problems that works regardless of how specific, unusual or complex the situation happens to be.

Out approach looks like this:

We Listen Before We Recommend

Every engagement begins with a real effort to understand the situation as it is, not as we assume it to be. We ask the right questions. We listen carefully. We interpret. We resist the temptation to categorise, diagnose and recommend before we have a clear picture of what is actually happening.

What We Can Do and What we Can’t Do

If a challenge falls outside our experience or expertise, we will be the first to tell you. We never overstate our capability or take on work that we are not equipped to deliver to a professional standard. If we think a different type of support, provider or approach would serve you better, we will always say so. If we can assist, we are often able to recommend other solution providers that may be better placed to help.

Breadth of Our Expertise

Many of the people challenges we support don’t sit neatly within a single HR service category. They draw on a mix of elements of HR consultancy, leadership development, psychometric insight, change management, employment law and organisational development in parallel. One of the distinctive things about working with White Cube Consulting is that we bring breadth and depth of capability to to help with any challenge faced, without the need for multiple service providers.

Solutions Design Around the Problem

We never apply standard templates or frameworks to problems they are not designed to solve. When a challenge is unusual or context-specific, the solution often needs to be equally different. We invest the time needed to design a support solution that is appropriate for the situation, even when that takes longer than adapting an existing approach.

Here For The Duration

Complex or unusual challenges are rarely resolved through in a single conversation or a single intervention. We build long-term relationships with the organisations we work with, remaining engaged to see projects successfully complete, adjusting our support level and approach as the situation develops and as our shared understanding increases.

What Prompts People to Get in Touch

If any of the following sound familiar, we would always welcome a conversation.

We have a situation involving a senior leader and we are not sure we can handle it internally without compromising independence or confidentiality.
Our culture feels wrong but we cannot quite put our finger on what needs to change or where to start.
We are growing quickly and the people management approach that worked when we were smaller is starting to break down.
We are going through a merger or acquisition and we are worried we have not thought enough about the people implications.
We have a team that is technically capable but does not work well together and we do not know why.
We have a situation that involves multiple HR issues and none of our standard processes seem quite right for it.
We are trying to plan our workforce and leadership pipeline but we do not know where to start or what framework to use.
We have tried to address a people challenge internally and it has not worked. We need a different perspective.
We are not sure exactly what kind of support we need but we know we need some support and we need it soon.

Our How To Guide Library

Our How to Guides provide some practical guidance for each of the relevant topics below, covering some of the more common issues and challenges. If you cannot find what you need, please get in touch.

Apply AI in HR

Using artificial intelligence responsibly and effectively in your HR function.

Assess Talent

Building accurate, structured and evidence-based talent assessment processes.

Attract and Select Talent

Improving the quality and consistency of your recruitment and hiring decisions.

Build a Successful Team

Developing cohesive, high-performing and behaviourally aware teams.

Coach Effectively

Providing professional coaching that builds self-awareness and lasting capability.

Conduct 360-Degree Feedback

Designing and facilitating multi-source feedback processes that generate genuine insight.

Conduct an Executive Search

Identifying and appointing exceptional senior leaders through a rigorous search process.

Conduct HR Investigations

Running fair, thorough and legally sound disciplinary and grievance investigations.

Develop an HR Strategy

Building a commercially aligned people strategy connected to your business objectives.

Develop HR Policies

Creating and embedding legally compliant and consistently applied HR policies.

Develop Leaders

Building self-aware, commercially effective leaders at every level.

Develop Managers

Helping managers develop the skills and confidence to lead their teams well.

Develop Soft Skills

Strengthening the communication and interpersonal capabilities that drive performance.

Improve Communication

Building clarity, confidence and openness across the organisation.

Improve Employee Engagement

Addressing the leadership and management behaviours that drive genuine motivation.

Improve Organisational Development

Strengthening culture, structure, leadership and capability across the organisation.

Improve Team Performance

Addressing the specific dynamics and leadership challenges limiting your teams.

Manage Absence Effectively

Creating a consistent, fair and legally compliant approach to absence management.

Manage Change Effectively

Planning, leading and embedding organisational change that genuinely lasts.

Manage Conflict Effectively

Resolving workplace conflict through early intervention and skilled mediation.

Manage Onboarding Effectively

Setting new hires up for early success and sustainable performance.

Manage Outplacement Support

Supporting departing employees through redundancy and career transition with care.

Manage Poor Performance

Building the frameworks and skills to manage performance fairly and consistently.

Manage Redundancy

Navigating redundancy fairly, legally and with genuine care for all involved.

Mentor Effectively

Designing and running mentoring programmes that accelerate individual development.

Recruit Graduates Successfully

Building a compelling graduate employer brand and improving early-career selection.

Reduce Staff Turnover

Understanding the real drivers of turnover and developing targeted retention strategies.

Run a Development Centre

Providing individuals with evidenced insight into their strengths and development priorities.

Run an Assessment Centre

Designing and facilitating assessment centres that improve selection accuracy.

Run Development Programmes

Designing programmes that create lasting behavioural change.

Succession Plan

Identifying and developing your future leaders and protecting organisational continuity.

Use Psychometrics Effectively

Selecting and embedding psychometric tools that generate genuine and lasting insight.

No Challenge Too Unusual, Small or Complicated to Discuss.

Whatever your organisation is facing - whether it is complex, sensitive, urgent, unclear or simply not described by anything in our guide library - we welcome the opportunity to have an honest conversation about it.

We will listen, ask the right questions and give you our best assessment of how we might be able to help. There never any obligation, no hard sales pitch and no pressure to commit.

Just a straightforward conversation with people who understand the human side of organisations and who care about getting it right.

We aim to respond to every enquiry within one working day.