How I work
What actually happens, from the first call to handover.
Most consultants describe their approach in words that could apply to anyone. This is the specific sequence — what I ask, what I look at, what you get at each stage, and how long it takes. If any of it turns out not to fit your situation, I would rather say so early than write a proposal around it.
A first conversation
Twenty minutes, no charge, no proposal attached. The purpose is to find out what has actually gone wrong.
Most enquiries describe a symptom rather than a cause. Attrition is usually a progression or supervision problem. A failed appraisal cycle is usually a calibration problem. A notice from the labour office is usually a documentation problem that started three years earlier.
So the first call is diagnostic, not a pitch. I want to know roughly how many employees and in which states, what sector you are in, what prompted you to look for help now, and whether there is a deadline — an inspection, a notice, a funding round, a joining date.
I also want to know who decides, and what you have already tried. Work that has already failed once usually failed for a reason worth understanding before repeating it.
Diagnostic
I look at what you actually have, not what you believe you have. The gap between the two is usually where the problem is.
Employment documents read side by side — offer letter, appointment letter, handbook, and standing orders where they apply. I am looking for contradictions on probation, notice and confirmation, because that is what gets argued about at exit.
Statutory position verified rather than assumed. Registrations for every state you operate in, PF and ESI challans rather than a compliance certificate, and where contract labour is involved, the contractor's actual filings reconciled against the people who entered your site.
Salary structure tested against the wage definition that decides provident fund liability, because a structure built to minimise PF is the most common unquantified exposure I find.
People data read properly. Attrition by tenure, role and manager — not the headline rate, which tells you almost nothing actionable.
What is documented, and what is only remembered. Warnings, appraisal history, performance conversations. In any contested exit, the file is the case.
A written scope
What is being delivered, over what period, on what commercial basis. Nothing starts on a verbal understanding.
Engagements take one of three shapes. A retainer, where I carry part of the people function with you against defined deliverables. A fixed-scope project with an end date — a function built, an audit completed, a system designed and rolled out. Or a standing seat, which is specific to POSH: appointment as the independent external member on your Internal Committee.
The scope names the deliverables, the period, who is responsible for what on your side, and what falls outside it. Work outside the scope is quoted separately rather than absorbed quietly.
If the diagnostic showed that the real problem is one I am not the right person for, this is where I say so rather than writing a scope for the work I can do instead.
Delivery
Remote-first, against deliverables rather than hours of availability.
Most of this work — policy, documentation, compliance review, system design, advisory — is delivered just as well remotely, and building an engagement around monthly site visits that serve no purpose simply makes it more expensive.
I travel where presence genuinely changes the outcome: a domestic enquiry, a conciliation hearing, a plant-floor investigation, a leadership session, and sometimes a first meeting where trust needs establishing face to face.
You get a written update at a fixed interval, not on request. It says what was done, what is next, and anything that has changed my view of the problem.
Where something urgent arises — a notice, an inspection, a live complaint — it goes to the front of the queue, because the early decisions in those matters are the ones that determine the outcome.
Handover
The objective is a function your own team can run. Not permanent dependence on me.
Everything built is handed over with the reasoning behind it, not just the artefact. A policy without the reasoning gets abandoned the first time someone senior disagrees with it.
That means the documents, the compliance calendar, and a briefing for whoever will operate it — usually your internal HR person, sometimes a line manager population.
Where an engagement continues, it continues because there is more worth doing, not because the last piece was left deliberately incomplete.
What I do not take on
A consultant who will take anything is telling you something.
These are stated because they are a genuine filter, and because knowing where someone stops is more useful than a list of everything they claim to do.
High-volume recruitment
A specialist agency will do it better and cheaper. I take retained search for senior and specialist roles where a wrong hire is expensive.
Sectors where I have no depth
Policy, compensation, POSH and statutory work transfer across industries. Where the problem genuinely turns on knowing your sector and it is not one of mine, I will say so.
Work that needs a lawyer, not an HR adviser
I work alongside your counsel rather than in place of them. Where a matter is already before a court, or the exposure is significant, that needs formal legal advice and I will say when it does.
A decision leadership will not make
Some people problems are not HR problems. Where the real issue is a manager nobody will confront or a structure nobody will change, a consultant produces a document and nothing else changes.
Principles
- Deliverables, not availability. Retainers are written against outputs. You know what you are getting and when, rather than buying access to a calendar.
- Verified, not assumed. Compliance certificates, contractor assurances and 'our payroll vendor handles it' are all restatements of what someone else has told you. I look at the underlying filings.
- Honest about fit. If a piece of work is not something I am the right person for, that gets said in the first conversation. It is worth more to both of us than a proposal neither of us believes in.
- Built to hand over. Everything is designed for your team to run without me. That is the point of it.
- Confidential from the first call. Anything you describe is treated as confidential whether or not an engagement follows. I am happy to sign an NDA before any detail is shared.
Start at step one
Tell me what is going wrong. Twenty minutes, no charge.
You do not need to prepare a brief. Roughly how many employees and where, what sector, what prompted you to look now, and whether there is a deadline. Four lines is plenty.