head-of-people-steph-thommen

Services

You might call it culture. I call it your internal Operating system.

It’s the infrastructure that makes your company work: how people relate to each other, how decisions are made, how information flows, how problems get solved. It’s the right minimum process that keeps your team going without added bureaucracy.

The outcome is a team that makes good decisions, takes ownership and keeps the business moving without everything coming back to the founder.

How much is your culture costing you?

Fractional Head of People

Flexible People Operations & HR expert support

For funded startups and scaleups that want senior People leadership before they need a permanent headcount.

Ideal when growth is creating tension across:

  • hiring, onboarding or performance starting to feel messy,

  • decisions still flowing back to the founder,

  • culture becoming harder to protect as the team grows,

  • managers carrying more than they have been set up to hold.

I work inside the business to build the People layer your next stage needs: the culture infrastructure that can hold when the founder is not in the room.

This is practical, hands on work. We look at what is really happening, make the smallest useful change, and keep adjusting until the system holds without your intervention.

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How I work

  1. Diagnose: We map how your company really works today (decisions, communication, ownership, how the work flows and where things are breaking).

  2. Design: Together, we design people systems & ways of working that fit your goals and your reality.

  3. Implement & Iterate: We roll out changes in your real operating environment, learn from them and refine until they hold without your intervention. Those are your right minimum structures.

People System Workshop

Design the foundations of your People OS

Culture is infrastructure. It is how decisions are made, what gets rewarded and how autonomous team members feel they can be when the founder is not in the room.

Operating system design is the work of making that visible and usable. A full‑day session with your leadership team to design the foundations of your People Operating System.

You leave with:

  • A clear picture of how things work today,

  • Agreed behaviours and decision rules,

  • A practical blueprint for making your team more effective.

People-system-workshop

Power Hour

Get unstuck on a specific people or team problem

One focused hour to get unstuck on a specific people or team problem.

Ideal when you need straight answers on:

  • A repeating people issue,

  • A messy team dynamic,

  • A broken process in hiring, onboarding, or performance.

power-hour-business-help-steph-thommen