CASE STUDY · PE-BACKED B2B
Too Large for a Generalist. Too Small for a Full Team. How Consolidated Timber Holdings Built the People Capability Its Strategy Demanded.
AT A GLANCE
CLIENT
Consolidated Timber Holdings
SECTOR
Timber
Key Outcomes
SIZE
270 employees
STRUCTURE
PE-backed
ENGAGEMENT TYPE
Embedded Team Model
Full people function built and operational across six specialisms.
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A restructuring project delivered inside the existing engagement, without additional procurement or process.
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DURATION
Ongoing, 12+ months
People plan developed and year-one delivery underway.
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CONTACT
Richard Martin, CEO
People KPIs providing leadership visibility where none existed before.
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Consolidated Timber Holdings is a PE-backed timber business with 270 employees, navigating a period of significant strategic and operational change. The business had outgrown its people function: too large for a small generalist team to service adequately, too commercially pressured to wait for a slow, expensive permanent build. Ballast embedded a full fractional people function inside the business, providing CPO leadership and specialist execution across HR management, recruitment, learning and development, and communications. Over twelve months, CTH moved from a people function that could not carry the commercial agenda to one that is actively shaping it.
THE ORGANISATION
A Business at a Strategic Inflection Point
Consolidated Timber Holdings operates across multiple sites with a senior leadership team comprising a Financial Director, Chief Marketing Officer, Group Procurement Director, Group Operations Director, two Sales Directors, and a Technical Director. The business is PE-backed, which means the pressure to move at pace and demonstrate progress is structural, not occasional.
At the point of engaging Ballast, CTH needed to evolve its strategy and align the organisation against it. That meant reorganisation, stronger leadership capability throughout, and the deliberate building of a performance culture: three significant workstreams, each requiring sustained senior input, running in parallel.
THE CHALLENGE
Not Failing. Simply Not Sized for What Was Needed.
WHAT WAS NOT WORKING
The people function at CTH was not failing. It was simply not sized or structured for what the business needed it to do. At 270 people, CTH sat in a difficult middle ground: too large for one or two generalists to cover everything adequately, too small to justify building a full in-house team across every HR specialism. The result was a function that could handle the day-to-day but could not lead the kind of strategic and organisational agenda the business needed to deliver.
The consequences were tangible. A cost base that had become misaligned with current business levels. Insufficient customer focus embedded into how the organisation operated. Pressure on the profit and loss account and balance sheet that would not ease without structural and cultural change. The strategy was clear enough. The organisational capability to execute it was not there.
"We were bereft of a people plan and had an HR department that wasn't able to service the needs of the evolving organisation. We were too small to incorporate all of the HR specialisms needed to move the agenda forward, but too large to just have one or two individuals who could realistically cover all elements of HR."
RICHARD MARTIN, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER · CONSOLIDATED TIMBER HOLDINGS
WHY IT MATTERED
Left unaddressed, the trajectory was clear. A cost base that would continue to erode commercial performance. A leadership team without the capability framework to drive the change the business required. An organisation that could not keep pace with its own strategic ambitions. The pressure was not dramatic. There was no single trigger moment. But the cumulative weight of a people function that could not carry the agenda was becoming a commercial problem, not just an HR one.
THE DECISION
A Solution Built Around This Specific Business
THE OPTIONS CONSIDERED
CTH considered two alternatives before engaging Ballast. The first was keeping the work internal, relying on the existing team to extend their remit. The honest assessment was that the team, however capable as individuals, did not have the collective range to deliver what was needed. The problem was not effort but depth and breadth.
The second option was a larger outsourced provider. The offering was credible, structured, and capable of covering most of what CTH needed. Most, but not all.
"Ballast's approach was more boutique, with a solution built around our specific needs. The other outsourcing organisation was larger, which meant a very structured, off-the-shelf offering, which covered 90%+ of our needs, but not quite everything."
RICHARD MARTIN, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER · CONSOLIDATED TIMBER HOLDINGS
WHY BALLAST
The Ballast model offered something the alternatives could not: a solution scoped specifically to CTH, with a senior CPO lead directing a specialist team, under one point of accountability. Not a marketplace of individuals. Not a templated service. A coordinated function built around the commercial agenda in front of this particular business. A business navigating reorganisation, leadership development, and a performance culture reset simultaneously could not afford a solution designed for a different business's version of the problem.
THE ENGAGEMENT
Embedded from Day One. Adapting as the Need Evolved.
EMBEDDING INTO THE BUSINESS
Ballast embedded a fractional people function spanning six areas: CPO leadership, HR management, HR advisory, recruitment, learning and development, and communications. From the outset, the approach was to make the transition visible and deliberate. A series of communication and engagement sessions ran across the business, ensuring employees understood the new operating model, who the team were, and how to work with them. The team was inducted properly. It was also required to move quickly, stepping in during a period of HR management transition with only a limited handover from the outgoing post-holder.
ADAPTING AS THE NEED EVOLVED
As the engagement developed, it became clear that more physical presence was needed across CTH's core offices. The initial operating model was right for the early stage of the engagement. It was not sufficient as the work deepened and the relationships with managers and teams needed to be more consistent. The model adapted. A plan was built to increase visibility and presence where it was required. The structure followed the need, rather than the other way around.
This is what the Ballast model is designed to allow. When CTH needed more, more was provided. When a short-term restructuring project required additional specialist resource, it was deployed through Ballast without a separate procurement process, directed by the same lead already embedded in the business.
THE TURNING POINT
The development of CTH's people plan marked the point at which the engagement shifted from responding to what the business needed to actively shaping where it was going. For the first time, CTH had a forward-looking framework for its people and organisational agenda, owned by the business, with the capability to execute it already in place. Year-one elements are now in active delivery.
RESULTS
From a Function That Could Not Carry the Agenda to One That Is Shaping It.
AREA
OUTCOME
People plan
Developed and year-one delivery underway
HR specialism coverage
Full breadth across six functions
Performance framework
Annual goals and monthly one-to-ones in place across the business
Leadership visibility
People KPIs produced regularly for the first time
Restructuring
Additional specialist resource deployed through Ballast without separate procurement
The commercial pressures that had been building now have an organisational response behind them. The cost base is being addressed. Leadership capability is developing. The performance culture that had been described as a priority but not yet built is taking shape in practice. CTH now has coverage across HR specialisms it has never had before, data on its organisation that it previously lacked, and a plan with the capability to execute it, without having had to build a permanent function to get there.
LASTING IMPACT
Built to Stay
The people plan now sits inside the business, owned and led by CTH's own leadership team. The performance framework, the KPI structure, the ways of working embedded over the course of the engagement are not dependent on Ballast's continued presence to function. They were built to stay.
That is the measure Ballast applies to every engagement. Not whether the work was delivered while the team was present, but whether the organisation is stronger and more capable when the work is done.
"Nicola and the Ballast team have transformed our HR function at CTH, providing a depth and breadth of solution that we couldn't have afforded or had the time to initiate if we had not decided to work with Ballast."
RICHARD MARTIN, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER · CONSOLIDATED TIMBER HOLDINGS
THE MODEL
What Changed for Consolidated Timber Holdings
People function built across six specialisms, operational and embedded within the business.
People plan developed and being actively delivered for the first time in CTH's history.
People KPIs giving the leadership team consistent, meaningful data on the organisation.
Performance discussion process introduced, with goal setting and structured one-to-ones at every level.
Flexible model that adapted as CTH's needs evolved, including a restructuring project delivered without additional procurement.