Client work is confidential, so the case studies here are fully anonymised. Every one describes a real engagement and what actually changed.
Featured case study · Organisational design
From building to operating: redesigning a structure without losing the room
Every business that builds something eventually has to run it. A mid-sized infrastructure business had reached exactly that point. The structure that had served a period of rapid build-out no longer matched the work ahead, which was about operating reliably and winning customers. At the same time, the cost base had outgrown the funding available. Something had to change, and everyone knew it.
What was really going on
The obvious answer would have been to trim headcount from the existing chart and move on. But the real problem was deeper than cost. The organisation was full of specialists, which meant minimum service levels dictated headcount in team after team. Ownership of the issues customers feel most was split across departments, so accountability blurred. And the leadership layer had grown around the build phase rather than the operating business the company needed to become.
The work
Holly designed and facilitated a full-day structure offsite for the senior team. The preparation mattered as much as the day itself: a draft structure prepared in advance gave the group something concrete to challenge rather than a blank whiteboard, and the room was chosen deliberately so the conversation could be open about every role in the organisation.
The day moved from context and design principles, through structured challenge of the draft, to role-by-role decisions on what would change, what would map across, and where genuine selection processes would be needed. A decision log captured what was settled, and a parked list held the important questions that belonged to another day. Just as importantly, the legal safeguards a collective redundancy process requires, from statutory consultation and employee representation to objective selection criteria and redeployment routes, were planned in from the start rather than patched in afterwards.
How it landed
The team left with consensus on the new structure, subject to consultation, a full action list with owners, and a sequenced communications plan built around honesty with the people affected and reassurance for everyone else.
A restructure is not a cost-cutting exercise with a new org chart attached. Design for the business you are becoming, prepare a draft worth challenging, and build the legal and human safeguards in from the start. That is what lets a leadership team make hard decisions in a day and still trust each other at the end of it.
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More case studies
Case study · Talent management
Turning growth into careers people can actually see
A growing technology consultancy had built an enviable team, but the questions that matter most to talented people had no shared answer: where can I go here, what’s expected of me, and what will it pay? Progression and reward lived in leaders’ heads. That works at ten people; at twenty and beyond it becomes a fairness and retention risk.
Holly worked with the leadership team to design a career framework covering every discipline in the firm: levelled roles with room to move between specialisms, salary bands benchmarked against the market, and a line-management structure that gives every person a genuine manager. The performance side stayed deliberately human, with a few personal goals per person agreed in 1:1s and built around development rather than measurement for its own sake.
The result is a shared map of progression the whole firm can trust: clear expectations, foundations for fair and transparent reward, and career conversations that happen in the open.
Find out more about Talent Management and Employee Experience →
Case study · HR systems
Building the backbone for a stronger culture as the team scales
A technology consultancy of around twenty people was growing fast, and wanted the way it looks after and develops its people to grow with it, not stay stuck in an ageing HR system that no longer fit how the business worked.
Holly led the move onto a modern cloud HR platform as far more than a data transfer. Getting the fundamentals right is what lets a business manage, reward and develop its people well: consistent, fair leave and working-pattern policies, clear approval routes, and people data managers can genuinely trust. She worked through the messy exceptions that quietly breed a sense of unfairness: part-time and zero-hours arrangements, pro-rated entitlements, balances that didn’t reconcile.
The result is a people function set up to strengthen culture rather than chase paperwork: fair and consistent for every employee, trusted by leaders, and ready to carry performance and development as the team grows.
Let’s talk about your people
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