Step Up: HR support for businesses with managers
Your business has grown and you're no longer the only one making decisions about people. You've got managers, or people stepping into the role, and they're working it out as they go in exactly the way you did at the start. Step Up gives them the structure to make good calls, and gives you the peace of mind that they're doing it properly.
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Your managers can ring me
Frameworks, not just advice
Policies stay current
The problems have stopped landing on your desk first
There's a specific stage most growing businesses hit and nobody warns you about it. You hire people to take work off you, some of them end up managing other people, and then you discover that managing people is a skill nobody has taught them.
So performance issues get left because the manager isn't sure what they're allowed to say. Probation periods end and nobody does anything about it, so someone who shouldn't have passed is now a permanent employee. A situation gets handled one way in one team and a completely different way in another, and the first you hear about it is when somebody points out the difference.
You need HR to do more than keep you legal at this point. You need it to help you manage people well and consistently, at a scale where you can't personally check everything.
What we do together
Everything in Set Up carries over, so your contracts and handbook stay in place and you keep the phone and email support. On top of that we build the structure your managers need.
That means a proper probation process with clear review points, and templates and guidance so managers know what good looks like at each stage rather than guessing. It means absence and performance frameworks, so issues get spotted early and handled fairly instead of being ignored until they turn into something that ends up at a tribunal.
The part that tends to matter most is that I become the person your managers sense-check things with before they act. That one change catches a remarkable number of problems while they're still small and free to fix.
What you end up with
Everything from Set Up, plus frameworks that give people a consistent experience regardless of which manager they happen to report to. Managers who make better decisions because they've got support and structure behind them rather than instinct. And policies that stay current as the law moves.
What's different once it's in place
People management stops bouncing back to you. Your managers get the confidence to handle situations properly without escalating everything upwards, and you get the confidence that they're handling them the right way.
The business becomes more consistent and much better protected. Most of the expensive HR problems I see started with somebody going with their gut instead of following a process, usually because there wasn't a process to follow.
Between Set Up and Level Up.
Step Up is the right fit while advice over the phone is enough. When you find you need me physically in the business, sitting in on hearings, working alongside managers in person, being a visible presence your team recognises, that's Level Up. Plenty of businesses stay on Step Up for years. Moving between the two is straightforward either way.
What clients say
Excellent
5.0 
Based on 8 reviews
10 years in HR. CIPD Level 5 qualified. 5 stars from every client who's reviewed.
I've been working in HR and people management since 2016. Before that, 10 years as a primary school teacher. I hold a CIPD Level 5 Associate Diploma in People Management, based near Darlington, and I've helped businesses across the North East: from first-time employers getting the basics right to organisations with management layers and complex employee relations work.
Excellent
5.0
Based on 8 reviews
Based near Darlington.
Working across the North East.
I work with businesses across the North East: Darlington, Durham, Bishop Auckland, Stockton-on-Tees, Newcastle and the surrounding areas. For the right client I'll travel further. For businesses that work remotely, I can do that too. If you're within an hour of Barnard Castle, I can be with you in person when it counts.
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