Existing World

Bartoline Limited is a reputable East Yorkshire manufacturer and Europe’s leading producer of decorating supplies for the home improvement industry. This renowned family business was established in 1876 and its products include white spirit, paint solvents, fillers, paint strippers, garden wood protection products and various forms of lighting fluids.

Obstacle

In 2021, it was acquired by private equity firm Endless, which wanted to modernise the business and ensure it was in the best position to reach its full potential over the next century.

Call to Action

To enable the new managing director to begin the transformation that needed to take place, Bartoline called on Blue Tree Consulting to provide good human resources (HR) governance while helping to evolve the culture.  Our role was to ensure everything was in line with the very latest legal and regulatory requirements, including employee contracts and policies for everything from anti-bribery and corruption to modern slavery, where, not having had their own in-house HR function taking care of things, they lacked confidence.

The Guide

Phil Marsland worked hand-in-glove with Bartoline’s new Managing Director, Paul Robbins, identifying and tackling its ‘hot spots’ where the team felt things needed bringing up-to-date.

The Challenge

Blue Tree Consulting also helped to create an appropriate HR structure and the beginnings of a new organisational culture as crucial bedrocks for its future development. As with all significant change, the transformation at Bartoline brought about some people challenges, including some exits, and Blue Tree helped the firm deal with these appropriately and, with a lot to achieve in a tight timescale, to prioritise the things which were most important and would bring the greatest value. Along with the practical support Phil was able to offer, his experience, listening ear and confident ability to guide and deal with the kind of employee sensitivities that accompany major change –including a strong knowledge of legal guidelines – was invaluable in helping them to manage and mitigate risk according to their company appetite.  And Blue Tree helped to form a new set of company values, cascade these to all staff and embed them within HR practices and employee behaviours.

The Transformation

Bartoline now has strong and capable senior managers with the right experience, in the right positions, and professional people practices and governance at all levels – as well as the kind of positive, modern and progressive culture which will get it to where it wants and deserves to be.

New World

This already- highly respected, historic business is now lean, fit and well managed, with all the right competencies to ensure it is ready for its next 100 years, and better able to achieve its ambitious growth plans and capitalise on the opportunity brought by the recent investment.