If you work in HR, you've probably sat through a pitch for a people tool that was going to "transform your culture." You've probably also watched one of those tools quietly die in a shared drive six months later.
So let's start with the thing you're actually wondering: is this another one of those?
The People & Culture team at Shellharbour City Council had the same question. They'd already lived through a psychometric tool that looked good in the procurement document and did very little in real life. What they did next is why they're now one of the most progressive HR teams we work with. Their managers walk out of sessions asking, "Can I profile my team next?" And over six months, every single employee across the council is getting the chance to experience it too.
Here's how they did it, including the parts a cautious HR leader will want to know.
A team that wanted more for their people
When we first met the People & Culture team at Shellharbour, one thing was clear straight away: they knew exactly where their impact came from.
HR doesn't lead the teams. Managers do. So this team saw their role as supporting managers, and they understood that the better equipped their managers were, the greater HR's impact would be.
Their starting point wasn't frustration with managers. It was belief in them:
"Everyone has good intent. Everyone comes to work every day wanting to do a great job, but for a bunch of reasons, things go wrong."
That belief shaped the plan. If they could elevate the tools, resources and training they gave managers, they could resolve people issues faster. Better still, they could get ahead of them. Managers would be able to spot issues before they arise, have better conversations with their teams, and genuinely understand each individual they lead.
"We wanted to enable managers to solve their own problems. How can we give them more insight, more capacity, more capability to lead their teams?"
They had a second ambition too. Shellharbour likes to promote from within. Doing that well means understanding your whole workforce: who's ready for what, who belongs in the succession plan, and who has hidden talent the organisation hasn't spotted yet. Not just from a skills perspective, but based on how people are wired and the roles they'd thrive in.
In local government, where budgets are scrutinised and change can move slowly, these are ambitious goals. They went after them anyway.
Why their old tool wasn't enough
The council already used a psychometric assessment. It ticked a box, but it wasn't built for what they wanted to achieve.
- It was slow. Long and difficult for candidates to complete, with a slow turnaround on results.
- It was expensive. They paid every time someone went through it, so they had to be selective about who did.
- It wasn't for everyone. With only some people assessed, there was no way to see the whole workforce, spot hidden talent or plan succession with confidence.
- It was consultant dependent. The team couldn't interpret the data themselves, so every insight went through an external consultant.
- The insights weren't useful. Results were broad and overly complex, and didn't speak to the role the person was in or how they'd perform in it.
"We couldn't be trained to interpret the data. We constantly relied on a consultant."
So they wrote a simple brief for what came next: quick, adaptable, and something they could "grab and go with really quickly."
Step 6: Make PI the common language
The next stage is embedding PI science into every people decision: recruitment, selection, succession planning, development planning and future leadership development.
The goal is for PI to become a common language across the council. When everyone from a new starter to the executive team understands how people are wired, decisions about who to hire, who to develop and who to grow into the next leader are made on better quality data. And better people decisions drive the two outcomes that matter most: engagement and retention.
The impact so far
Managers get support in real time
When a manager raises a team issue, a business partner opens the data with them on the spot.
"The business partner can work with the manager, look at it in real time, and then action plan in real time with that data."
No report request, no waiting on a consultant. The conversation happens while the issue is still small.
HR's credibility is growing
When HR turns up with real data and practical action plans, managers see them as partners, not a policy desk. And managers are coming back for more.
"We've found that managers quite like the profiling. I'm a this, I'm a that, what are you? Oh, we're actually really similar."
After one session, managers were asking what they could do next and who to talk to about profiling their own teams. When was the last time a manager asked you for more of an HR program?
Issues are resolved faster, and earlier
Because managers can see what's driving behaviour in their teams, they're resolving employee and manager issues faster, and starting to spot them before they escalate.
"Managers aren't waiting weeks or months to get results or feel confident they can implement strategies. They can do that really, really quickly."
Building towards higher engagement and lower turnover
Faster resolution means fewer issues left to fester, which lifts engagement. Higher engagement, combined with hiring and promoting for fit, means people stay. And with the engagement survey as a baseline, Shellharbour will be able to measure exactly how far they've moved.
What makes Shellharbour progressive
- They knew where their impact came from, and invested in managers to multiply it.
- They listened first, with an all employee engagement survey before changing anything.
- They went first, profiling their own team before asking anyone else to.
- They invested in owning the capability, with training and monthly coaching to embed PI into recruitment and manager conversations.
- They started small on purpose, and let early adopters build momentum.
- They brought everyone along, with 12 workshops reaching every employee and manager over six months.
- They're building a common language, embedding PI into hiring, succession and development so they can grow talent from within.
Could this work for your organisation?
Shellharbour didn't start with a big budget or a grand transformation plan. They started with a clear belief about where HR's impact comes from, a willingness to go first, and a partner to build their capability along the way.
If you're an HR leader who wants to:
- give your managers better tools to lead their teams
- get faster and more accurate in recruitment
- resolve people issues faster, and spot them earlier
- understand your whole workforce so you can promote from within
- reduce your reliance on external consultants
- build a common language for people decisions across your organisation
then let's talk. We'll start where Shellharbour did: understanding your goals, your people and what's getting in the way. No hard sell, just a conversation about what's possible.
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