HR & People Operations

No, and that distinction matters. Recruiters earn placement fees, typically 15 to 25 percent of first-year salary, which rewards filling seats fast. We charge a fixed fee for advisory work and never touch placement commission. Our job is to design the role properly before you go to market: the level, the scope, the salary band, the interview process, the onboarding plan. We will help you brief external recruiters or manage a direct search yourselves. If your last three hires left within eighteen months, the problem usually sits upstream of recruitment. We fix that part. Recruiters then have something honest to sell.

Often, yes, but not by sprinting harder at a broken process. Most stalled pipelines we inherit have the same three faults: vague job specs, six-stage interview loops, and decision-makers who cannot agree on the bar. Fix those and time-to-offer typically drops by three to five weeks. We run a hiring sprint in two to four weeks: tighten the spec, cut interview stages, train the panel, and rewrite the offer process. If you genuinely need volume hiring (say, fifteen plus roles in a quarter), we will tell you honestly whether you need an in-house recruiter rather than us. We are not the cheapest answer to every hiring problem.

Usually, yes. Growth pressure and retention problems wear the same clothes. When founders tell us "we just need to hire faster", we ask one question: of your last ten hires, how many are still here and performing? If the answer is below seven, you have a retention problem funding itself through constant recruitment. Hiring three people to replace two leavers plus one growth role is exhausting and expensive. We start by sizing the actual gap (genuine growth versus churn replacement), then build a structure that holds the people you already have. Hiring against a leaky bucket is the most common founder mistake we see.

We refer that out, deliberately. Tribunal claims, TUPE transfers, complex grievances, and regulated sector cases (financial services, care, education) need a qualified employment solicitor. We work alongside two firms we trust and will make the introduction directly. What we handle in-house: contract templates, performance management frameworks, settlement-track conversations, redundancy planning, and the people side of restructures. If a situation escalates mid-engagement, we will say so within 48 hours and bring legal counsel in. Founders sometimes want one provider for everything; we think that is how mistakes happen. Our boundary here is firm and, frankly, it protects you.

Week one is mostly listening and reading. We spend two days with you and your senior team mapping the current structure, recent hires, recent leavers, and the next twelve months of plan. We read your contracts, handbook, last two engagement surveys (if you have them), and exit interview notes. By end of week one you get a written diagnostic: what is working, what is broken, and the three things to fix first. No PowerPoint theatre. The diagnostic shapes weeks two onwards. If we think the engagement is wrong-sized for your problem (too big or too small), we say so before week two starts.

Yes, this is one of our most common arrangements. The fractional retainer gives you one to two days a week of senior HR capacity for a quarter, renewable. Typical use: you are 25 to 80 people, too small for a full-time head of people (75K plus salary, plus on-costs), too big to leave it to the founder and an office manager. David runs the engagement directly. We handle the live people decisions (hiring sign-off, performance issues, structure questions, comp reviews) and build the systems your future in-house hire will inherit. Most clients renew once, then either bring the role in-house or step down to monthly check-ins.