Services from Vinehouse

» Workshops

» How We Work

» Who We Work With

» Consultancy

» Free Performance Improvement Calculator

» Calculate How Much Your Difficult People Cost



Nancy really knows her subject. This comes through not only when she discusses the theory but in the way she works directly with delegates on their "problem people" by providing truly insightful stories of how her techniques have worked in the real world. If you want practical, usable and powerful techniques for dealing with all kinds of difficult people, whether it's a bully, cry-baby, ditherer, habitual pessimist or all of the above then attend one of Nancy's workshops.
Joe Gregory
Cabal Group

Liked the idea that although there were 10 people on the course it was tailored to everybody as an individual.
John Singleton

The most sensible approach to objectives I've seen in 13 years of HR work
Caroline Kelley
HR Professional

The Services We Offer

These are the main services we offer at Vine House. To find out more, just click on the links.

  • Objectives and Measuring Performance
  • Performance improvement consultancy, coaching and workshops
  • Speaking Engagements

    Objectives and measuring performance

    Nancy Slessenger will write your objectives for you or help you to do it. Yes, it's true. Most of our clients hate writing objectives. Do you? So we have found a way to make the process not only quick and easy, but also much more effective than before. Nancy will work with you and your people to produce a pick list of standard objectives which you can pick from and modify to suit each individual and their situation. Or Nancy will train you how to write them, or she will work with your top team to get theirs right.


    Nancy will write performance definitions for you or help you to do it. Many organisations now use categories like 'not met' 'met' 'exceeded' and 'distinguished' to categorise performance at the end of the year. Often they find it hard to make these judgements consistent. We will help you to get that right. And if you like, Nancy will do it for you, making sure you have a set of definitions that mean your managers can assess performance and your people are clear what each level means and why their performance has been categorised as it has.

    We offer these services in several different formats:

  • We can write objectives and performance definitions for you, starting with the material you already have and in conjunction with you and your people
  • We can train people through workshops to write their objectives
  • We can coach individuals through writing objectives

    Our most popular service:

    We work with the top team and get their objectives right. We do all the leg-work, sending through the drafts for their approval and comments.
    We work with a few people in each job and produce objectives templates for each job that people can pick from and modify to suit.
    We present these at a workshop.

    Green Arrow CLICK HERE to find out about the next open workshop on Objectives and Appraisals

    Back to top

    Performance improvement consultancy, coaching and workshops

    Are these areas where you would like some help?.

    Our purpose is to help you improve your performance or the performance of others. The key areas we can help you with are:

  • Improving underperformance. Many organisations have people who are just not producing what they should. Where do you start? How do you get their output up and the problems down? We help you to do just that.
  • Giving Feedback. Giving feedback effectively can improve performance by up to 39%. How would that help you and your organisation? Most people either don't do it or do it in a way that actually reduces performance.
  • Dealing with difficult behaviours. Sometimes problems are more around the way people do things, rather than what they achieve. (Of course it can be both.) We help you to deal effectively with all kinds of behaviour problems from bullying to negativity and just plain awkward.
  • Time Management. Too much to do and not enough time to do it? Too many people making too many demands on your time? Not enough hours in the day? Stressed to breaking point? We help you to solve those problems with straightforward, easy to implement strategies and techniques.
  • Confidence. Is it that you just need more confidence but don't know where to get it? We do and we can help you to develop it yourself.
  • Recruitment. Have you recruited people that just didn't work out? Would you like to know how to gather the information you need in order to make effective recruitment decisions? Would you like some easy ways to get it right more of the time? We can help you with all of those.
  • How to make the most of your training budget. How many of us have infinite training budgets? Would you like to get more out of yours? We can show you how and help you to make improvements that will get more from what you are already doing.

    We can do any of this as consultancy, coaching you to do it yourself or by designing and running workshops to train you and your people. Most often we us a combination of techniques to give you the best result.

    Green Arrow CLICK HERE to find out about the next open workshop on difficult behaviours, which also covers how to manage people with them.

    Back to top

    Speaking Engagements

    Nancy gives talks, presentations and workshops for professional associations and at corporate conferences. Usually Nancy presents to groups of managers and HR professionals. Her talks are highly interactive, thought-provoking and fun, even when dealing with apparently boring topics, such as objective-setting. They are packed with practical tools that people can use immediately. Each talk is designed with the specific audience in mind and she is always happy to talk to some of them before hand to make sure their needs will be met.

    Green Arrow CLICK HERE to contact us for more information

    Back to top