About Michelle
I’m Michelle, the founder of Rethink – Workforce and People Strategy Ltd, and someone who has spent her career helping organisations create the conditions where people can thrive. I’ve worked across the full spectrum of people, culture and organisational development roles — from external consulting at PwC, where I spent a decade, to senior in‑house leadership positions in OD, HR and transformation. Whatever the setting, my work has always centred on one question: how do we build workplaces that genuinely improve people’s lives: those of employees and the people they serve through their work?
I’ve been fortunate to work in organisations with a strong social purpose — from national programmes focused on improving outcomes for children, to welfare reform, to leading talent strategies that supported digital transformation across the NHS. I’ve helped local authorities tackle sickness absence, supported housing and care organisations to attract and retain the right people, and led multi‑employer change programmes that delivered real, measurable impact. Along the way, I’ve won awards for innovation, high‑impact change management and learning design, and built a reputation for evidence‑based thinking, practical delivery and a considered, strategic approach.
I’m a Chartered Fellow of the CIPD, a Member of the British Psychological Society, a qualified Prosci Change Management Practitioner, and a trained coach and mentor. I’m endlessly curious about how work is changing, and during my time on the senior leadership team of a global HR Think Tank, I chaired an editorial and research committee of leading academics — exploring emerging research, debating new ideas and diving deep into the early impact of AI on workforces worldwide.
Alongside my consulting work, I run an online Arts Award Centre for young people aged 11–25. Our strapline — Building Confidence, Creativity, Leadership and Futures — captures what matters most to me. We’ve recently been awarded Champion Centre status for the positive impact we’ve had on home‑educated learners, many of whom have had unmet needs in school related to neurodiversity and/or mental health. Helping young people recognise their strengths, believe in their potential, and feel valued for who they are, is one of the most rewarding parts of my week.
Rethink exists because I care deeply about purposeful organisations — those trying to make a difference, solve challenging problems and create better futures. If that sounds like your organisation and your passion, I’d love to help you build the workforce, culture, capability and leadership needed to achieve it.
Case Studies
Leadership Development and Culture Change at NHS Digital
Michelle designed and delivered a cross‑NHS stakeholder engagement exercise to understand how leaders at NHS Digital were perceived and what cultural and behavioural shifts were needed. The insights — including direct stakeholder quotes and key themes — directly informed the design of a new leadership development programme. The programme combined rich, practical content that built strong levels of leadership capability with the energy for change created through the stakeholder work, giving leaders both the skills and the motivation to shift behaviours.
Michelle intentionally intertwined the programme with wider culture‑change activities she was leading across the organisation, giving leaders visible opportunities to role‑model new behaviours and lead key elements of the change. Each participant also delivered a year‑long project out in the NHS, focused on improving customer experience through the consistent display of improved leadership behaviours.
One year later, 86% of the original stakeholders reported a positive shift in leadership behaviours at NHS Digital, and 75% said their overall perception of the organisation had improved.
NHS Digital reached the finals of the CIPD Awards for "Best Change Management" and "Best L&D" due to the innovative approach and the significant and swift impact across a large number of NHS organisations.
Employee Health & Wellbeing at 10 Northern Local Authorities
10 Northern Local Authorities were suffering from persistently high sickness absence levels and had tried all of what they considered to be the "usual" approaches to try to reduce the levels, such as return to work interviews, early referrals to Occupational Health for certain health conditions and employee-manager action planning discussions at key trigger points. They had also introduced more novel strategies such as providing free gym memberships and health checks.
Michelle led the design and implementation of a complex and extensive analysis, exploring possible links between absence levels and a wide range of factors, some of which could be influenced or controlled by the organisation and some which could not.
The project highlighted strong links between, for example, team size and absence levels, between the quality of manager-employee relationships and absence and between the speed employees could get a GP appointment and absence levels. There was no identifiable link between absence and commonly regarded "healthy behaviours" such as level of exercise or the amount of fruit and vegetables the person ate.
As a result of the analysis, the Council's moved focus onto re-structuring, to reduce team sizes. This not only reduced absence levels but improved performance and engagement outcomes too.
Michelle was awarded the PwC prize for Innovation for this work. It was reported in many HR and Occupational Health publications and Michelle was invited to share the findings at several HR and OH conferences.
Talent Management in the care sector, at Anchor
Like many businesses in the Housing and Care sector, Anchor was suffering from very high levels of colleague turnover. There was also an insufficient flow of talent being promoted internally, low levels of employee engagement and high employee absence.
Based on a Talent Management Maturity Diagnositc tool that she co-designed with 100 NHS Trusts, she co-created a similar tool with Anchor's Business Partner team. The tool looked at factors such as whether the business area was undertaking any workforce planning and how well developed their approach was, whether the business area was routinely assessing their talent beyond minimal performance review scores, how well the business area was growing their talent, and practices in place (or not) to move talent to where it was most needed or most suited the individual.
Alongside the development of the diagnostic tool, Michelle led the development of an in-house Change Management development programme and ensured all the HR Business Partners completed the programme. This equipped them to develop and implement not just the Project Plans to move their business areas towards greater maturity but also the Change Management plans to build motivation for change, and change that was sustainable. Via the programme the business partners also received on-going coaching and mentoring to develop their change management approach.
Within a year employee engagement levels increase to Anchor's highest ever levels, internal promotions increased significantly and turover and absence levels fell. Anchor was awarded the Gold Standard of the Inclusive Employers Award, in part due to improved inclusion via the newly implemented practices.