One Circle is an online platform for HR consultants that connects companies with freelance HR experts, on-demand and across the world.
In this article, I’m kindly joined by One Circle’s founder, Emma El-Karout.
Read on for our discussion on:
- Emma’s background and her motivation to start the One Circle platform for HR consultants.
- What does One Circle do? Which problem does it address and how it is differentiated from other competitors in the space?
- Who is the typical OneCircle HR consultant? Where they are from and how do they help clients?
- Tips on interesting people that HR businesses should check out to grow faster.
- The biggest challenges facing the HR profession.
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EMMA EL-KAROUT ON THE NEW ONE CIRCLE PLATFORM FOR HR CONSULTANTS
Over to Emma and growing an international HR consulting network . . .
What’s your background? What’s your motivation to start One Circle?
EMMA: I’ve worked in HR for as long as I remember; my lengthy global experience as HR Director is what inspired me to launch One Circle.
Born and raised in Lebanon, I did my MBA and was fortunate to work with MNCs in the Middle East that serviced the Middle East, North Africa, India, and pockets of Europe.
My scope of work allowed me to see a massive opportunity in helping companies grow, smart and sustainably; while at the same time impacting positively on employment, gender bias and age discrimination.
One Circle grew in response to my own experience of the limitations and restrictions in the current consulting and employment models, as well as in anticipation of future work trends towards greater individualisation of career management.
As a mum, I spent more and more time away from my family while my corporate career peaked. I felt plugged into my employers 24 hours each day with technology making it impossible to truly disconnect. Life became work, and work took over both life and family.
I was expected, as head of HR, to be at the reach of everyone in the organisation, and at any time.
I, fortunately, had the opportunity to press pause, distance myself from the race for a while, and ask the burning question: is there a better way than this?
Surely life was about realising one’s passions and using one’s skills without having to compromise on personal family responsibilities.
The biggest obstacle, I felt, to feeding the hunger for exciting work while at the same time being able to provide adequately and lead a healthy family life, was the employment model of 9 to 5, every week, every month, every year.
Then repeat next year.
Ultimately, it is important for our well-being to balance home and working lives in a way that suits us. Not the way corporates package “work/life balance”, which is really an excuse to intrude into people’s personal lives.
Spiritual, mental and physical wellness requires an interconnectedness of important relationships to work in harmony.
There is no work/life – there’s just Life.
A life built around the idea of having more time to do what you love. Flexibility to manage one’s own schedule, work when needed or wanted, choosing projects that have the most value.
One Circle was created to make this life choice a bit easier.
My objective is to improve and enhance the quality of life through diverse work options, thus uplifting broader society by opening up global work opportunities, regardless of gender, age, location or social standing.
I’m particularly focussed on retaining experienced workers in the economy post-retirement.
What does One Circle do? What problem does it address?
One Circle is an online platform connecting companies with freelance HR experts, on-demand.
One Circle makes possible managing and collaborating with clients in a reliable, safe manner while providing HR professional mavericks with challenging projects and income generation potential. All the while increasing visibility to clients as well as transparent reviews and track records.
One Circle is an HR platform for HR consultants that strips out the stress of pitching for projects, selling oneself, or developing business.
It’s a new disrupted world of work possibilities; it will shape a new way for organizations to manage their people function and allow HR professionals to embrace a new way of working.
Though One Circle, HR consultants directly engage with businesses requiring specialist talent on demand. Completely virtual, One Circle provides businesses access to quality HR consultants, from around the world and across the employee life cycle, all in one place.
Our professionals can work from anywhere, alone or together, to deliver on specialist HR projects.
How do you differentiate yourselves from other competitors in your space?
We are a unique niche HR platform that offers access to specialist HR talent; it’s an integrated website whereby businesses can exchange information in a secure manner as well as manage their projects, chat with their consultants, and pay the project fees, all from their own personalised dashboard.
How does One Circle work? Is It A Platform For Local Or International HR Consultants?
Through a 5-step registration process, Consultants register and create personal profiles which companies can browse and select for their HR projects. Once selected, the project is managed over the platform between client and consultant.
One Circle provides the space only, not actual input to projects. Once completed, payment is released to the Consultant with One Circle providing related assurance to both parties.
There are 2 levels of membership, free and paid. The paid membership opens up a variety of value-adding benefits.
In line with our goal of giving local talent access to global work opportunities, One Circle’s consultants come from 17 different countries. There is no limitation in terms of company location – truly global opportunities.
Who are your clients?
Our clients are SMEs and businesses based anywhere in start-up or high growth mode looking to scale up big and quick. They need specialized HR support but are not necessarily able to afford the cost or able to employ them full-time.
Can you describe your consultants’ profiles? Where they are from and what kind of work they can assist clients on?
Our HR consultants are specialists across every touchpoint of the Employee Experience lifecycle. They are from anywhere in the world and able to work on projects on-demand.
We have consultants spread out across the globe and more than 50% of them are HR mavericks with more than 20 years of HR experience.
What would you say are the biggest challenges facing the HR profession?
We work together with our partners to develop a marketing strategy that includes ads, email campaigns, blogs, articles, videos, and inbound marketing through case studies among others.
At the risk of sounding melodramatic HR is going to be forced into its own total transformation through the changing world of work.
Almost all HR theory and legislation is founded on the precept of the regular fixed employment model – whether for a limited duration or open-ended, people get paid for time and not for outcomes, outputs or value. The 4IR is turning this on its head and predictions are that freelancers will outnumber traditional employees by 2030.
The biggest challenge facing HR is how to adapt current people practices to adequately flex existing HR models to accommodate this new way of working – remote, on-demand, and flexible.
Contact One Circle About Their New Platform For HR Consultants
Thanks Emma.
One Circle is an exciting new development on the HR consulting scene and one that fits into the evolving nature of work and consulting services.
If you are a consultant, I recommend you go to the One Circle website and pre-register on the website; they go live soon.
You can email Emma directly on emma@onecirclehr.com.
Otherwise, follow One Circle on social media: on Linkedin, on Twitter at @onecircle4 or on Instagram at @onecirclehr.
I wish Emma and the One Circle team all the best for the future!
While you’re here . . .
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I write the Get More HR Clients blog on marketing for HR consultants and marketing for HR Tech companies as a former HR professional who has moved across to the marketing side of business.
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Enjoy the show!
Ben
