Leadership Development Consultant and Coach

Ann Palmer, Associate CIPD, is a development consultant based near Sevenoaks, Kent. She is an experienced people manager and has developed her consultancy skills through more than 30 years’ experience in a wide variety of people development roles and projects. Her background is in private banking and HR, where she worked for prestigious Coutts Bank for many years.

Ann has extensive experience in the design and delivery of wide-ranging programmes that enhance personal and business performance, e.g. leadership, management, emotional intelligence, teambuilding, time management, appraisal skills, performance coaching, absence management, conflict-handling, presentation skills, competency based interviewing, negotiation skills and assertiveness.

Ann is an effective practitioner in the holistic approach to leadership development, using work observation, multi-rater feedback and 1:1 coaching to supplement traditional training courses, so that individuals can reflect on their style and identify areas that they can work on to improve their performance.

She gets real job satisfaction from developing functional work groups into effective, self-managed teams that deliver real and sustained business performance. She achieves this by breaking down barriers and encouraging teams to play to strengths, rather than focusing on weaknesses.

Ann has provided support for many different organisations since becoming independent in 2006. She has supported companies across a wide range of sectors, including financial services, publishing, pharmaceuticals, healthcare, transport, FMCG, information technology and manufacturing, as well as an NGO.

Ann has demonstrated the ability to take the people along with the organisation during change, by ensuring that people strategies are built into project plans.

Ann is passionate about people. She has devised and implemented effective strategies to improve levels of engagement. Getting buy-in has a direct impact on the bottom line, by reducing the costs associated with high levels of turnover and sickness absence, and by increasing customer satisfaction levels.

Whilst UK based, she has trained audiences in both EMEA and APAC regions.

Companies can’t expect a good level of return on their investment in human capital if those in charge don’t align individual and teams’ goals according to their strategic and tactical objectives. They need to empower people to think outside the box and to operate more effectively. Ann has experience in designing and embedding effective performance management and appraisal systems that support the organisation’s goals, as ‘what gets measured gets done’. She has worked with organisations to identify competency models to set clear and transparent standards of behaviour at all levels of the hierarchy. She encourages managers to ensure that performance objectives are framed in a way that enables everyone to understand what is required of them.

Ann also has expertise in delivering effective selection processes, assessment centres and induction practices.

Passionate about customer service, Ann has developed programmes that put the customer back as the focus of the customer service culture, and that illustrate how service recovery techniques can lead to delighted customers.

When required, Ann works in collaboration with a small number of highly experienced facilitators, who share her values and her passion in helping people to be the best they can be.