About us
Founded in 2005 by Jo and Jon Darling, Vital HR set out to provide practical HR solutions to organisations requiring assistance with HR problems. They wanted to provide solutions specifically tailored to individual organisations needs and move away from the one size fits all solutions so readily available.
Spending time understanding your business strategy and objectives is key to us developing the right solutions and ensures we can provide you with the most appropriate member of our team.
Whether you require an HR generalist, a Training and development specialist or someone to project manage change management programmes we have team members with the relevant specialist knowledge and experience.
Jo Darling
Jo has 17 years generalist HR experience at a senior level within a number of multi national organisations and SME’s. Her time spent at Peugeot, Marconi Communications and Jabil Circuit has developed a strong commercial understanding enabling her to develop and deliver HR strategies in line with business objectives. Working through times of recession and boom she was responsible for major recruitment drives and rationalisation programmes. Her strong employee relations background including extensive negotiations with Trade Unions has assisted organisations in delivering significant change programmes.
Following her time within multinational organisations Jo moved to Cooper Parry, business advisors to SME’s in the East Midlands. Here she developed their HR Consultancy working with clients to deliver all HR requirements from provisions of contracts and employment handbooks, recruitment, disciplinary issues to management development and preparation of Investors in People.
Jo uses her down to earth approach to offer a complete range of practical tailor made HR solutions.
Judith Wardell
Judith has a strong commercial understanding and an extensive general HR background and has worked for Peugeot Talbot, Smith & Nephew and Colgate-Palmolive. In addition, she held the first civilian HR Director post within a Police Force during a time of major cultural change and diversity issues. She is an experienced trainer and facilitator and works with managers at all levels to develop people management, communication and interpersonal skills. She is qualified in the use of SHL personality profiles and the Strength Deployment Inventory and has recently gained a Post Graduate Certificate in Life Coaching.
A specialist in Equality and Diversity issues, Judith has worked with both public and private sector clients to ensure that diversity is fully integrated into business strategies and practical people management processes. She is able to design and deliver lively and engaging training programmes to raise awareness and understanding of diversity issues and provide managers with the skills to recruit and retain a diverse workforce. Judith has a sensitive understanding of conflict at work and can act as a mediator or independent investigator in individual grievance, harassment or bullying cases.
Judith is the Lead Consultant for our Training and Development team and our Equality and Diversity services
Stephen Knight
Steve spent over twenty years in four business sectors beginning with production management in food manufacturing, with Bowyers, followed by various management training posts both at tactical and managerial levels with Bass and Peugeot. More recently he worked in an executive capacity handling strategic human resource issues for a rapidly expanding international distributor, RS Components; assignments include working with management teams in Bulgaria, France, Germany, Holland, Italy, Spain and the UK.
He has consistently made a difference for individuals and organisations in the design and application of effective development interventions; Steve focuses on enabling people to lead their way through change, either as individuals, teams or organisations as a whole. Steve is an accomplished coach and able facilitator, being as comfortable in the boardroom as the shop floor. He is qualified to use a wide range of psychometric and ability tests and has extensive experience in their practical application in both assessment and development situations.
He has an Honours Degree, Diploma in Personnel Management and is CMCIPD.
Bruce West
Bruce has over 20 years of experience in learning and development and 16 years of which have been involved in management development programmes.
He was a senior instructor with Outward Bound responsible for the design and development of progressive management development training initiatives. Prior to that he was a technical skill training instructor with the RAF Mountain Rescue Services. He has worked with the European Youth Parliament, organising and delivering team awareness events throughout Europe. Currently he is associated with the Welsh Assembly, where he assessed senior civil servants as part of a leadership development programme which he is now delivering.
He has designed and delivered well-received programs in UK and Europe. His current clients include Welsh Assembly Government, Barclay Bank, Unilever, Cleanaway, Styles ∓ Wood, E-On, DHL and Beresford’s Solicitors
Jane Willers
Jane has a broad base of experience working as a Human Resources professional and Senior Manager in PSA, First direct and the Environment Agency. She has further experience supporting a wide range of organisations undergoing change in retail, customer services, defence and the education sectors. Fully qualified in the use of psychometric ability tests and personality questionnaires Jane has used a wide range of SHL assessment and development tools throughout her career.
Jane uses her extensive experience of working in organisations undergoing structural change to support in-house HR teams and operational managers to manage challenging employee relations and resourcing situations. She also specializes in Dignity at Work claims, acting as an external advisor or investigator into the full range of allegations of bullying, harassment and discrimination. Jane has managed large operational teams and is able to draw on that experience to advise and coach managers on getting the best from their teams.