Many US businesses have subsidiaries, affiliates or branch offices in the UK. It's easy to assume that because the UK and US share language, they must also share law, culture and management practices. That's just not so.

Turun UK Ltd is one such company.

Turun UK is a leader in patient safety products & services, based in London, with senior management in London, UK, and in Lincoln, Nebraska, USA.

The company specialises in the development, marketing, sales, installation and support of patient welfare solutions. Its customers are NHS and private hospitals and care homes. Turun’s solutions for hospitals cover patient location monitoring, room occupancy and door access. For care homes Turun adds falls monitoring using tags and infra-red detection.

Senior management in Turun UK and in its parent company, the Brasch Group Inc, wanted HR and OD support.

Turun has a UK-wide presence with development staff in Lincoln and marketing and management in London. Sales, training and installation staff are located across the UK.

Managing people in the UK and the USA has many similarities, but also many differences. The fundamental management issues are identical: hiring, managing performance, training and development, succession planning, restructure and dismissal. However, the processes and statutory requirements differ between the US and the UK. TimelessTime needed to ensure that managers (both in the USA and the UK) were aware of UK employment legislation, cultures and norms allowing managers to manage UK staff effectively whilst being supported by senior management colleagues in the USA.

TimelessTime’s support is described by one word – flexibility. With a business day spanning around 14 hours TimelessTime consultants need to be prepared to respond to questions and to give responses any time between about 08:00 and 22:00hrs UK-time. To accommodate this, excellent IT systems are essential, with voice and data applications available anywhere. Where one consultant is not available another can cover using flexible all-informed telephony and universal records access.

And because managers are dispersed, face to face meetings are few. Most meetings are done using GoToMeeting, the Cisco online application sharing screens and audio.

TimelessTime began work supporting Turun UK Ltd and the Brasch Group Inc in 2011 - one of many HR and OD support relationships.

Since then TimelessTime has provided day to day HR and OD support to senior management, extending the working day where needed to accommodate managers in Nebraska, some six hours behind UK time. In addition, it has provided a host of discrete change projects covering pay, benefits, bonuses, employment and sub-contractor contracts and recruitment.