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What tasks does a Consultant in the People department at torq.partners take on and what qualities are particularly important? In this interview, Medea Moir, who joined our team last year, provides exciting insights into her day-to-day work and answers these two questions, among others. She also talks about the development of torq.partners since her start and reports on her professional career, which has taken her from an internal HR department to consulting.
I am a consultant at our HR consultancy torq.people, where I focus primarily on the fields of people operations and tooling.
In the area of People Operations, I support companies as part of interim projects. I take on a variety of tasks: from daily operations to talent acquisition and payroll accounting.
Tooling is primarily about the selection, implementation and optimization of systems. However, this also includes, for example, taking over internal project management for our customers.
My area of responsibility is therefore very versatile and, like a Swiss army knife, I can be used anywhere.
Before I started in consulting, I worked in internal HR and was a torq.partners client for quite a long time.
During my Master's degree, I gained a deeper insight into the processes of consulting and found the project-based work very exciting. I particularly liked the fact that the projects are reviewed and completed at the end. This allows you to directly understand the impact of your own work. This is often not the case in the internal HR area.
Ultimately, both the close cooperation with torq.partners on the client side and the theoretical content of my studies were the reason for my decision to switch to consulting. Initially, I worked in consulting for one of the Big Four companies. However, I then decided to join torq.partners because I really liked the team culture and the agility of a smaller company.
I live in Berlin, so at the beginning I had planned to go to the office twice a week. However, last year I was often on site with my customers, which meant that I was often on the road in Hamburg or Helsinki. In the time between client visits, I mainly worked from home. However, as the number of trips to other cities is likely to decrease, I'm looking forward to going back to the office more often in the future.
I started as a Senior Associate at torq.partners in April 2024 and was able to take on a lot of responsibility in the role right from the start. On the one hand, this was due to the upcoming client projects. On the other hand, I had the opportunity to temporarily fill gaps in personnel, for example as part of vacation replacements, and was therefore able to carry out my first project lead tasks at an early stage. A lot of trust was placed in me. I was able to prove that I was up to this responsibility and was promoted to Consultant after my probationary period. From this point onwards, I officially took on the role of Project Lead for several projects.
I am currently working intensively with our People Tech Practice, as we have a close partnership with an HR platform provider and are implementing the system for their customers as part of this. The tool setup is very professional. Among other things, we work with numerous KPIs and standardizations. In order to further expand our collaboration, we are also aiming to become even more professional internally in terms of tooling.
Through partnerships like these, I am gradually learning how to use and implement almost every HR tool, which is a great boost to my own development.
What struck me most was the strong growth of the company, particularly in the torq.people division. When I started in April last year, we had twelve employees in HR consulting; by the end of the year, we had almost twenty. Our projects have changed accordingly.
Initially, we focused heavily on the area of people operations, which was our "bread and butter business" at the time. In the meantime, we have greatly expanded our range of services and have been able to take on completely new areas through past customer projects as well as new acquisitions, which is really exciting.
I decided to join torq.partners because I really liked the team culture and the agility.
At the top of my list would be the internal departments, especially Operations. I am really impressed by all the Excel tools, dashboards and planning tools that are used there. It would be really instructive for me to gain an insight into how these systems are set up and implemented.
I would also like to take a look at our financial consulting. I would say that the Finance and People departments are closely related. So it would be interesting to see how the projects there work in detail.
Empathy is clearly my top priority. Customers come to us with a problem but are usually unable to name it exactly. Similar to a doctor, they only describe the symptoms. Our job is then to understand the situation and identify the core problem. You could say we are like Mary Poppins: We get an overview of the situation and then take the customer by the hand - on the one hand, to help him or her understand the problem better and, on the other, to work out a solution together. In addition to empathy, confidence and understanding are essential for this.
Organizational skills and an eye for the big picture are almost as important. Especially when you are looking after several customers at the same time, there are always phases when everyone needs support at the same time. At such times, it is important to keep calm, maintain an overview and create a clear structure.
The third point I would mention is lightness and a pinch of humor. Customers often come to us in tense situations. If we still manage to bring a bit of lightness into the process and create a pleasant working atmosphere, that makes a big difference - both for us and for them. That's often half the battle.
I really like working out things like project plans or customer options in detail. I quickly get into deep work mode and can achieve a visible result.
But I also enjoy direct customer contact. Especially when customers come to me with an acute problem. At such times, I'm like a firefighter on the move: I have to react quickly and find a solution to put out the "fire". As soon as I have solved the problem, I can immediately see the impact of my work. I can also use moments like these to reassure the customer that he or she can always rely on me.
Definitely our company offsite last summer! It brought us even closer together as a team. Especially because we often work independently of each other in our day-to-day work due to our projects, such events offer a valuable opportunity to exchange ideas.
During the offsite, we worked intensively on our values in workshops and considered how we can create a positive impact beyond our individual roles. One exercise in particular stuck in my mind: We worked out together what it takes to make torq.partners a safe space. To do this, we reflected on the conscious or unconscious actions that might stand in the way of this goal. From the insights we gained, we derived concrete measures to take on more responsibility in everyday life and actively contribute to the creation of a safe space.
But I also really enjoyed many other events, both within and across teams. These include our Christmas dinner and watching a European Championship match together in the office.
I think our defined values - courage, commitment, respect and responsibility - are all very appropriate. In my opinion, they also stand out from the values of other organizations. For example, I don't know of any other company that is so clearly committed to courage and therefore to daring to break new ground and going the extra mile to do so.
However, for me, commitment and responsibility are the values that characterize torq.partners the most and unite us as a team the most. This is particularly evident in an initiative that was launched in our company last year. In this initiative, we actively address socially relevant topics that lie outside of our day-to-day consulting work in order to create an inclusive and value-based corporate culture. It's great to see how we get involved as a team in order to achieve a positive impact beyond our day-to-day work.
The initiative and the vision behind it were presented by the partners directly in the first all-hands meeting after I started at torq.partners. I was thrilled by how openly it was discussed and how clearly it was clear what a high priority this topic is for everyone. We were shown what measures had already been taken and what further steps were planned. I still remember this meeting today because it showed me that torq.partners doesn't just talk about its values, but actually lives them. It also made me realize once again that the move here was the right decision.
Yes, I am part of a working group that focuses on creating spaces for open exchange. We have noticed that important social issues need a place where they can be discussed in order to initiate change. This is exactly the place we want to create. For example, after the US election last year, we organized a meeting to talk about the consequences. Concrete ideas on how to contribute to a positive development often emerge from such discussions. We then look at how these can be implemented.
We also work closely with the other working groups. If we notice that a particular topic is generating a lot of interest, we invite experts, for example, or organize panel discussions to further deepen the exchange. In this way, new impetus is constantly generated that leads to further progress.
