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Practice area
Who does what, who decides what, what each role is paid, and how the next person is hired without it taking six months.
“I cannot take a week off without the place falling over.”
Businesses grow past their structure without anybody noticing. The roles were invented when there were four people and nobody has revisited them at nineteen; two people are doing half of each other's jobs; and every decision above a certain size still walks into the owner's office. The symptom is usually a sentence about holidays: I cannot take a week off.
This work sets out the roles the business needs at the size it is now rather than the size it was, what each is worth in this market, who reports to whom, and — the part that actually changes anything — which decisions stop coming to you and what has to be true for that to be safe. It is done through short conversations with everybody, because the shape of a small business is in what people tell you they spend their week on rather than in the organisation chart. When there is a hire at the end of it, we run it properly: what the role is for, where those people are, how they are assessed, and what the first ninety days look like written down and handed over on day one.
What we would actually look at
The engagements
Days are chargeable days. Weeks are the elapsed time, which is always longer. The fee is the first multiplied by the day rate and there is nothing else in it.
| Engagement | Days | Over | Fee |
|---|---|---|---|
| Roles, pay and who decides | five to nine days | four to six weeks | $11,000 to $19,800 |
| A hiring run, start to finish | six to twelve days | six to ten weeks | $10,800 to $21,600 |
$11,000 to $19,800
The roles the business needs at the size it is now, what each is worth in this market, who reports to whom, and which decisions stop coming to you.
The first week: A day of short conversations with everybody, and a day with the payroll and the calendar.
What you are left holding: A one-page structure, a written role for every position on it, and pay bands with the reasoning under each.
$10,800 to $21,600
One position, run properly: what the role is for, where the people are, how they are assessed, and what the first ninety days look like.
The first week: A half-day working out whether you need this hire or a different one, which is a real answer and has ended two of these before they started.
What you are left holding: The written role, the questions, the scoring, and a first-ninety-days plan the new person is actually given.
How that fee is arrived at
The day rate is $2,200 and it is on the fees page. That multiplication is the whole of the pricing model: there is no retainer hidden inside it, no percentage of anything and no success fee.
Where this stops
We are not your human resources function and we do not advise on employment law. Structure, roles, pay bands and how a hire is run are management questions and they are ours. Classification, leave entitlement, terminations, discrimination and anything with a filing deadline are not, and the distance between those two lists is shorter than it looks. For those, an employment attorney, and we will say so the moment a conversation gets there.
Worth reading first
The hire that most often fails in a small business is the first one with authority. It fails for structural reasons, not because the wrong person was picked, and most of them are fixable before the advertisement goes out.
No. We are not attorneys and nothing we say is legal advice. We will tell you when a question has become a legal one, which is genuinely useful and is where we stop.
People and hiring · from $10,800
The assessment takes about four minutes and gives you a written summary of what your answers suggest and which engagement addresses each thing. It is indicative and not professional advice, and it is a better opening than a blank contact form. If you would rather skip it, the telephone works and the first meeting is ninety minutes and free.