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People by Design
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Services

What we do

Five projects with a beginning, a middle and an end. And, for companies that need People leadership on an ongoing basis, a Fractional Chief People Officer.

All services

01Project

Performance Cycle

Performance management fails for one of two reasons: nobody defined what good looks like at each level, or the process was designed for the People team rather than for the manager who has to run it on a busy Tuesday afternoon.

Performance

What you get

  • The performance cycle: calendar, stages and owners
  • Evaluation criteria, and a rating scale where one makes sense
  • Templates for goals, self-assessment and manager review
  • A calibration process managers can run
  • A manager guide for the conversations, with real examples
  • Internal communication for the launch
  • Manager training and support through the first cycle

Eight to twelve weeks, with scope and price fixed before we start.

02Project

Culture & Values

Culture is not what is written on the wall. It is the pattern of decisions people can predict: who gets hired, who gets promoted, what gets tolerated. We work on those decisions — and let the statement follow.

Culture

What you get

  • A reading of the gap between stated and practised culture
  • Values defined or revised, with leadership in the decision
  • Each value translated into observable behaviours — and incompatible ones
  • Expected behaviours for people who lead teams
  • Integration into hiring, onboarding, evaluation and promotion
  • An internal launch plan, and rituals that reinforce it

Six to eight weeks, with scope and price fixed before we start.

03Project

Careers & Compensation

Two parts that only work together. Levels without pay rules create expectations the company cannot afford. Salary bands without levels produce decisions nobody can explain.

Careers

What you get

  • The level structure, with expectations described for each level
  • Career paths, including the technical and the management track
  • Promotion criteria and process
  • A written pay policy: how salary decisions are made, and why
  • Salary bands built on market data
  • An annual salary review process, with rules and a calendar
  • A manager guide and employee communication

Twelve to sixteen weeks for both parts together, with scope and price fixed before we start.

04Project

Leadership & People Management Routines

Management quality is the biggest source of variation in a growing company. Two teams doing similar work can have completely different experiences of goals, feedback and accountability — and the difference is almost never talent.

Leadership

What you get

  • The role of the manager: what the company expects, in writing
  • Leadership principles, connected to the values
  • The management routines: one-to-ones, team meetings, goal cycle
  • A manager toolkit: guides, templates and examples for each routine
  • A guide for the difficult conversations — feedback, underperformance, development
  • Manager training on real cases
  • A leadership cadence, where company size justifies it

Six to ten weeks, with scope and price fixed before we start.

05Project

Policies & Benefits

Policies are what the company has decided in advance, so the same question does not get a different answer depending on who is asked. Most growing companies have some of them written, most of them assumed, and no single place where anyone can check.

Policies

What you get

  • The policies themselves, written and approved
  • A handbook that holds them together
  • The templates and forms each policy depends on
  • A named owner for every policy
  • An FAQ for managers and for employees
  • A communication plan for the launch

Six to ten weeks, with scope and price fixed before we start.

06Ongoing relationship

Fractional Chief People Officer

There is a stage when a company needs senior People judgement well before it needs a full internal function. Hiring too early buys an expensive generalist; waiting too long means building the systems twice.

Fractional CPO

What you get

  • A seat in the leadership team and direct counsel to the CEO
  • The People strategy and plan, with agreed priorities
  • The main People projects, led end to end
  • Decisions on organisation, team sizing and talent
  • People metrics and reporting to the board or investors
  • Development of the internal People team
  • Preparation of the permanent leadership hire, when it is time

A fixed monthly commitment — typically one to three days per month — with a minimum term agreed in the proposal.

People Diagnostic

Not sure where to start?

In a few weeks the People Diagnostic assesses how the company manages people today and recommends what to do over the next six to twelve months. Most of our projects start here, and it produces a plan the leadership team can act on.

Start with a diagnostic

What you are buying

We do not sell hours

The approved documents, the templates around them, the training that gets managers using them, and support through the first weeks. Not a number of consulting days, and not a deck.

  • Approved final documents
  • Operational templates
  • A method for using them
  • Internal communication, ready to send
  • Manager training where the project needs it
  • A defined period of implementation support

What a proposal looks like

Before any project starts you receive a written proposal covering the same eight points, so the scope and the price are settled before the work is.

  1. The problem being solved
  2. The expected result
  3. Scope and deliverables
  4. The phases of the project
  5. What we need from you
  6. An indicative timeline
  7. The total investment
  8. What is excluded

Other things we help with

These five are what we do most often, not everything we know how to do. The topics below usually show up inside the projects above or in a Fractional engagement — and some justify a project of their own.

Organisation design and role clarity · Team and hiring plans · Internal policies and the employee handbook · Restructurings, integrations and organisational change · People metrics and reporting

Let us talk about the actual problem

Thirty minutes on what is happening in your company. You leave with our read on the problem and a clear view of what we would do about it.

Book a People DiagnosticSee how we work