Any company will have to navigate complex and sensitive personnel situations at times. Whether you need support with conflict resolution, navigating underperformance, managing an investigation, or handling an exit, I’ll help you handle the situation with confidence.

I can also serve in an HR Business Partner capacity, providing personalized support to your managers and business leaders as they think through hiring, org design, engagement, feedback, coaching, and the overall development of their direct reports.

The programs, initiatives, cultural norms, and values at your company allow someone to feel connected to your business and their colleagues. We’ll talk about how to weave these in throughout the employee experience.

While compensation, benefits, and career growth will always be important to your employees, you can’t overlook the smaller moments that define the culture and make your workplace (in-person or virtual) feel special.

We’ll also think about measuring the connection employees have via NPS surveys, pulse surveys, and engagement surveys.

Whether you’re hosting a special event for clients or a company offsite, I’ll work with you from initial brainstorm all the way through seamless execution.

Hiring the right team is one of the most important things you’ll do for your business. I’ll help you first think through org design (roles, responsibilities, reporting line structures) and then help you establish a foundational hiring process.

This could look like helping you set up an Applicant Tracking System (ATS), partnering with hiring managers on clear hiring guides/candidate profiles/job descriptions, designing an effective interview process/interview rubric, and interviewing candidates. *To note, I do not source, but I can help the team interview and assess candidates in your pipeline.

Documenting your company’s processes and cultural elements will help you scale consistently. This can look like a manager playbook, a standard operating procedure, or an employee Intranet so the team can self-serve information.

I can also support your team with internal communications. The best leaders lead with transparency, but this requires thoughtfulness. Whether you’re designing an All Hands strategy or crafting comms about an important or sensitive change to the business, we’ll think through the message, medium, audience, and timing so it’s well received.

Part of maintaining a culture of high-performance is setting clear expectations. This starts with leveling. Roles are assigned a level and each level has specific performance requirements.

I recommend that smaller companies start with a core framework that outlines general company expectations by level across functions. From there, you can get more granular and think about the competencies required within each sub-department and how those competencies evolve with each level.

These frameworks help employees understand what’s expected at their current level/more senior level and help managers support performance and development conversations.

Onboarding is critical – it sets the tone for the experience someone will have at your company. This includes the training, resources, and communications that are packaged together so new hires are engaged, supported, and set up to quickly add value.

It’s also important to build a consistent and repeatable onboarding workflow to manage new hire tasks – this includes checklists for both the manager and the incoming hire, 30/60/90-day goal templates, and more.

We’ll also discuss offboarding – the internal workflow and the experience – so company departures are handled smoothly.

What do you look for when hiring a people manager? How do you set up managers for success, communicate their responsibilities as managers, and train them to excel in that role? These are questions I can help you answer.

Strong managers are essential for the health of your business. Great leaders know how to build psychological safety, motivate a team, delegate, coach, performance manage, and maintain a high bar so goals are met.

I can support with manager trainings, playbooks, hiring criteria, and more.

*This is an area I’m particularly passionate about!

Having a performance management strategy is one of the most important foundational elements when building and maintaining a high-performing team.

Performance management done well includes setting clear expectations and then offering continuous communication, feedback, and goal-setting so you employees can reach their individual and team goals.

Setting Expectations: In order to excel, your employees need clarity around expectations. From goal-setting and OKRs to job descriptions and leveling frameworks (see leveling section), the first step in strong performance management is defining what’s expected.

Development Plans and Goal-Setting: The process of having your employees set individual short-term and long-term goals so they can grow their careers and make an even bigger impact on the business.

Assessing Performance: 360 reviews and calibrations to assess overall performance. We’ll discuss the right strategy for your company and I can support all the way through training and implementation.

Promotion Strategy: Building a promotion philosophy and a process to evaluate and reward eligible employees.

Underperformance: Creating a clear and consistent plan for managers to address underperformance – from coaching to formal feedback.

Talent Assessments: Typically for bigger teams, there are several frameworks that help leaders assess talent and determine customized development plans for each person such as the 9-box (Performance/Potential) or Skill/Will matrix. I can help you run these exercises to assess your team.

From handbooks to leave policies (e.g. Parental Leave, Medical Leave, etc.) and PTO, I’ll design policies that are compliant, competitive, and look out for the business. And I’ll help you put a plan in place to manage those policies long term (hint: if you’re in several states, we’ll probably want to partner with a leave vendor).

HR compliance is something many early-stage companies overlook. I’ll assess your current state and help you operate your People function compliantly.

There are dozens of People tools and external vendors that you can leverage to support your people function and overall employee experience. Having the right tools, integrations, and automations will help you scale. Together we’ll determine your HR tech stack and vendor partners. I can also support with implementation.

This can include HRIS/Payroll, PEO, compliance vendors, leave vendors, benefit brokers, performance management/engagement tools, compensation benchmarking, and more.

I’ll assess your current Total Rewards strategy and packages and advise on how to stay competitive, whether it’s your health benefits or compensation. I can also support projects like coordinating a smooth open enrollment period.

While I don’t go deep in the Total Rewards vertical, I’ll set you up with the appropriate tools (e.g. compensation benchmarking) and vendors (e.g. top benefits broker; a compensation consultant) who will serve as your longer-term partners.