Quick census

[ginsmyname]

Hi all.

I'm a newish mum. Baby is 8 months old. I'm an hr manager with over 20 years experience. I'm considering my options about returning to work and can't see any viable way with the flexibility I need as we have no support anywhere close by. Husbands family is 4 hours away and mine are scattered in different countries. Friends often ask me for hr advice when they go through employment issues, e.g redundancy / pay disputes/ disciplinaries etc.

On the back of this and considering my position and rtw I'm thinking of starting a consultancy service where I can help people with their issues and wondering you guys would ever use such a service should it be available? Let me know your thoughts.

I started up on my own as an HR consultant almost 10 years ago, and now I mostly work with other HR professionals who are doing the same. I did have a few private clients at the beginning, just as you describe, but i would strongly advise not building a business around that client base, for the following reasons:

No repeat business (usually!)
Much lower prospect of them referring you to others.
Not financially lucrative as they don’t have the money to pay for a high level of support so the rates you can charge are low.
Mostly they rely on free services like Acas until they can’t any more at which point they are more likely to need a solicitor.
They are labour-intensive and there is no ability to charge for a retainer service or develop a fruitful and productive long-term relationship and really see a difference, like you can with business clients.
They are often much more difficult to deal with than business clients. I remember one private client who left me 10 messages between 6pm and 11pm one evening because she’d had a letter from her employer she wasn’t happy about.
They frequently look for freebies. We often get phone calls from disgruntled employees who literally expect our consultants to give them free advice.

There’s much more prospect of you making a decent living working for businesses, either small ones or larger ones, whatever fits best with your experience and what you’re looking for from work, than working for private clients.

Thank you flowery. Funny those were my thoughts but it's useful to get a second opinion.

I'll look into some other options.

Regards