Provalis (formerly Cortecs Pharmaceuticals) was an international research and manufacturing organisation employing over 200 people and with offices in London, New York and Australia and an international HQ at Isleworth in West London.

The lease on the Isleworth premises was due for renewal and the Chief Executive, Dr Michael Flynn, had decided to move the Isleworth operations to Deeside in North Wales where the company had a small facility capable of being expanded and where occupation costs were appreciably lower than Isleworth. Plans for the move were still highly confidential and had not been communicated to staff at either location.

The news of the move wasn't expected to be well received in Isleworth and heavy staff losses seemed likely. To assist with the preparation for the move Dr Flynn decided to engage a relocation consultancy with experience in planning, organising and managing relocation projects and capable of putting heavy emphasis on the need to retain key staff if at all possible.

Dr Flynn called us in and asked us to meet him and discuss what we could do to help. We prepared and submitted a proposal detailing a carefully structured communication programme aimed at encouraging staff to relocate to Deeside to further develop their careers with the company. This suggested programme was reviewed and accepted by the then group Chairman (Lord Patten) and Dr Flynn.

• Our first task was to individually meet the three key senior members of staff who were already aware of the intention to move to Deeside. This enabled us to understand their own individual views about the planned move and also gain an initial insight into what they believed the key issues would be for people in their departments. Following these valuable discussions we drew up two outline draft documents.
• The first was a summary of our initial ideas about what we felt the staff relocation support policy should cover and the second a draft of how the crucial and highly sensitive first announcement to staff should be made. Both drafts were discussed in detail with Dr Flynn and his senior management colleagues and after wide ranging discussion agreement on the way forward was reached.
• In a nutshell we agreed Dr Flynn should arrange for all the Isleworth based staff to attend a meeting at which he would make the initial announcement of the intention to move to Deeside but then immediately hand over to us.
• We would then go through the planned move in more detail and outline what the staff relocation support package would be based on. It was also agreed that the detailed terms and conditions of the staff support package would be finessed to accommodate, as much as possible, the needs of those interested in relocating.
• On the day this worked very well. The vast majority of the staff appreciated the openness of this approach and the genuine desire to understand what the barriers might be to them relocating and continuing their careers at the company.
• For the following day we had organised an on-site exhibition room at Isleworth already amply stocked with volumes of information about living in the Deeside area. The 'please take one' information and data covered housing availability and costs, as well as shopping, sport, leisure, travel, environment, places to go and places to eat.
• That same day, and on the following days, we invited staff to come along to confidential one-to-one meetings with us at which they could ask questions and obtain further information which they might need in order to arrive at their own GO or STAY decisions. We made it clear that a condition was that we would keep these discussions private and would not disclose them to the company.
• Armed and informed with this further information we were thus able to re-draft the staff support package to those wishing to relocate – as well as to better support those unable, or unwilling, to move.
• Although the prime recipients of the information were inevitably the staff members themselves we also took great care to provide a wide range of other background information to help each member of staff's family unit understand what living in the Deeside area would be like.

When Dr Flynn first decided to move the business to Deeside he estimated that perhaps only 20% of his staff would move with the company. But he was delighted to find that the figure turned out to be almost 75% which meant he still had the experienced core staff he needed to take the organisation forward.