Every engagement starts as one of these sentences, said out loud in a first conversation. The industry changes. The condition rarely does.
From the first conversation through the final deliverable, you work with the people who scoped it. You are never handed from the team that sold the work to the team that does it. Large firms bill a partner and deliver an analyst.
The person who interviews your department heads is the person who writes the recommendation and presents it to your board.
Every engagement is quoted as one price against a written scope. No hourly meter, no surprise invoice for the extra council meeting.
We design the classification structure and we build the learning system that supports it. Recommendation and implementation are the same engagement.
Both principals hold an M.A. in Organizational Psychology. What you get is theory applied to your organization, not last client's deliverable with your logo on it.
Most agencies know something is wrong and disagree about what. The assessment settles that in weeks, not budget cycles — and it ends with a roadmap sequenced by dependency, so you fix things in an order that works.
Half the assessment fee credits toward any engagement contracted within 90 days — or through your next adopted budget cycle, for public agencies.
Class specifications, salary schedule, internal equity, market position.
Competencies, career pathways, promotion criteria, succession exposure.
Platform, content inventory, ownership, completion versus capability.
Engagement, role clarity, span of control, leadership alignment.
Process, documentation, field-to-office workflow, knowledge capture.
Named for what they are, not what we branded them. Each practice can be bought on its own, and most engagements borrow from two.
All engagements are fixed-fee against a defined scope. Typical engagements range from $10,000 to $65,000. Organizational Assessments begin at $6,500.
The platform vendor’s own account of the troubleshooting workflow app that connects field technicians to the office — written by Microsoft, not by us.
Read the case study → Published by RealWearThe hardware vendor’s customer story on the same program: hands-free guidance delivered at the equipment, so a technician learns the judgment call while making it.
Read the case study →One program, documented independently by both technology vendors as a customer story. It is the rarest thing on a small firm's website: capability validated by somebody with no incentive to flatter us.
Workforce-intensive organizations, where capability lives in people rather than in documentation. Different sectors, the same constraint.
75 to 600 employees. Water and wastewater, transit, utilities, and general government.
What we usually findClass specifications a decade behind the work. A salary schedule adjusted many times and redesigned never. Advancement that happens by vacancy rather than by pathway.
Where engagements startOrganizational Assessment, a classification and compensation study, or supervisor development.
Equipment dealers, warehouse integrators, and industrial services companies with 30 or more technicians.
What we usually findRamp time to productivity measured in quarters. Critical knowledge held by a few people nearing retirement. Training that exists as files on a shared drive.
Where engagements startOrganizational Assessment, technical workforce training, or digital workflow automation.
Distributed crews doing certification-bound, safety-critical work away from direct supervision.
What we usually findCertification tracked for compliance rather than capability. Field judgment learned by riding along, when there is someone to ride along with. No defined progression between technician levels.
Where engagements startCompetency modeling, technician advancement curricula, or knowledge capture.
Direct service, workforce development, and community-based organizations.
What we usually findProgram quality that depends on individual staff rather than a repeatable model. Onboarding compressed into a week. Funders measuring outcomes the training was never designed to produce.
Where engagements startOrganizational Assessment, program staff capability design, or supervisor development.
The vocabulary changes between a water district and a warehouse integrator. The condition underneath — knowledge held by too few people, advancement without preparation, a system nobody adopted — does not.
Leads a newly created organizational development unit at a regional council of governments, built from nothing. Ran a first-ever total rewards strategy: roughly 40 classifications benchmarked, salary range gaps of 3 to 19 percent identified, and a three-year market realignment approved by executive leadership and the board.
Also: performance management redesign including a platform migration, competency modeling integrated into hiring, the agency’s first climate study, and Cornerstone LMS implementation lead.
Leads training development and technology for a West Coast material handling company across 28 branches. Took the augmented reality program for service technicians from pilot to production — published as a customer case study by both Microsoft and RealWear.
Also: a company eLearning library built from zero to 170+ modules across 12 pathways, a learner tracking system that took annual completion signoffs from 0 to 2,600, SharePoint learning environments, and Power Platform workflow builds.
Either way the first conversation is the same: what is happening, what you have tried, and what it would take to fix it properly.
The front door · 2–5 weeks
The Organizational Assessment is a structured diagnostic across five domains. Scoring criteria are co-developed with you before fieldwork begins, so the findings are measured against your standard rather than our opinion. It ends with a written findings report and a roadmap sequenced by dependency.
Read down a domain to see what we examine and the signal that usually brings us in. Read across to see which practice does the repair. Filled marks are primary, outlined are supporting.
Class specifications, salary schedule, internal equity, market position.
“Every reclass request is decided case by case.”
Competencies, career pathways, promotion criteria, succession exposure.
“Advancement happens by vacancy.”
Platform, content inventory, ownership, completion versus capability.
“We own a platform with eleven active users.”
Engagement, role clarity, span of control, leadership alignment.
“The survey produced a slide deck and no decisions.”
Process, documentation, field-to-office workflow, knowledge capture.
“The process lives in one person’s inbox.”
We build the scoring criteria with you before any fieldwork. You know exactly what “adequate” means in each domain, and so does your executive team, before a single finding exists.
Document and data review, interviews with leadership and department heads, focus groups where useful, and a look at the systems people actually use rather than the ones they were issued.
Each domain is scored against the agreed criteria, then we map what depends on what — because rebuilding performance reviews on top of wrong job definitions wastes a year.
A written findings report, a prioritized roadmap sequenced by dependency, and an executive presentation you can take to a board or council packet as-is.
A diagnostic is only worth what its method is worth. Ours comes out of organizational psychology training rather than a proprietary framework.
Scoring criteria are co-developed with you and locked before anyone is interviewed, so findings cannot drift toward a conclusion someone wanted.
A score means an observable behavior at a defined level, not an impression. The same anchor is applied by both principals.
Staff at every level, not only the sponsor. The people doing the work usually know what is wrong; they are rarely asked in a structured way.
Evaluation records, classification and salary data, completion, vacancy, and turnover history — regression and categorical methods where the sample supports them, plain description where it does not.
Where individual capability is the actual question, we use simulation and structured multi-rater observation rather than a survey.
Both principals hold an M.A. in Organizational Psychology from Claremont Graduate University — research methods, applied multiple regression, categorical data analysis, and assessment centers. One holds the ODCP certification. The methods above are the ones we were trained in, not ones we named for a brochure.
A few weeks and a fixed fee that sits well below the threshold most California agencies can award directly. No solicitation, no selection committee, no waiting for the next budget cycle.
50% credits toward any engagement contracted within 90 days — or through your next adopted budget cycle, since we know when your money actually appears.
A scored assessment against criteria your own executives approved is the fastest way to settle a disagreement about priorities — and the easiest thing to hand a governing body.
Tell us your agency type, headcount, and the two things that prompted the call. We will come back with a scope, a fee, and the procurement route that fits your policy.
Practices
Open any service to see what it includes, what you end up holding, and the condition that usually prompts it. Most engagements combine two or three across practices — which is the point of having them under one roof.
All engagements are fixed-fee against a defined scope. Typical engagements range from $10,000 to $65,000. Organizational Assessments begin at $6,500.
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Ongoing organizational development and learning advisory, with a set amount of principal time each month. It is the natural continuation after a first engagement — the expertise stays available without adding a position.
$3,500 – $7,000 / month
Fixed monthly fee against a defined amount of time. Usually follows a first project.
That is what the assessment is for — and if you already know, say so and we will scope it directly.
Who we work with
Different sectors, one constraint: capability lives in people rather than in documentation. The depth comes from having done this work inside these organizations as staff, not as a visiting adviser — which is why the findings below tend to land before we have finished the sentence.
Water and wastewater, transit, utilities, and general government. HR is a small generalist team, nobody is dedicated to pay analysis, and every structural decision is made in public with a union reading it.
Where engagements usually startOrganizational Assessment, a classification and compensation study, or supervisor and manager development.
Class specifications a decade behind the work.
A salary schedule adjusted many times and redesigned never.
A performance process everyone completes and no one values.
Advancement that happens by vacancy rather than by pathway.
A learning system purchased during a compliance push and unused since.
The pattern is consistent enough that we can usually guess which two you will recognize first.
Equipment dealers, warehouse systems integrators, field service and industrial services companies. The real skill sits with a handful of senior people, and the work happens nowhere near a desk.
Where engagements usually startOrganizational Assessment, technical and field workforce training, or digital workflow automation.
Ramp time to productivity measured in quarters.
Critical knowledge held by a few people nearing retirement.
Training that exists as files on a shared drive.
No defined progression between technician levels.
Manual processes between the field and the office.
Most of these are structure problems wearing a training problem’s clothes.
Fiber and wireless build crews, utility line contractors, and infrastructure maintenance organizations. The work is certification-bound, safety-critical, and performed miles from the nearest supervisor.
Where engagements usually startCompetency modeling, technician advancement curricula, or field knowledge capture.
Certification tracked for compliance rather than capability.
Field judgment learned by riding along, when there is someone available to ride along with.
No defined progression between technician levels.
Safety training that satisfies the auditor and changes no behavior.
Crew leads promoted for technical skill and never taught to lead.
The certificate says qualified. The ride-along says otherwise.
Direct service, workforce development, and community-based organizations. Program quality is produced by people, funded against outcomes, and delivered by staff hired for commitment more often than for credential. Our earliest consulting engagements were here, and the sector still gets the same method the paying work does.
Where engagements usually startOrganizational Assessment, program staff capability design, or supervisor development.
Program quality that depends on individual staff rather than a repeatable model.
Onboarding compressed into a single week before a caseload starts.
Funders measuring outcomes the training was never designed to produce.
Supervisors carrying a full caseload and a team at the same time.
Institutional knowledge lost with every grant-cycle turnover.
Mission covers a great deal. It is not a substitute for a system.
A technical field workforce, a formal classification and pay structure, and a governing body that must approve any change. All four practices apply at once — which is exactly why most firms can only serve part of it.
Where the training problem is really a job structure problem: unclear levels, no defined path forward, and new software landing on an untrained floor.
Shared services across several member agencies, inconsistent classifications, and no single HR authority to settle them. Structure work here is mostly translation.
Early-stage companies whose job structure has not settled yet. Organizations whose real need is executive coaching or culture work alone. Anyone needing a national salary survey across dozens of markets. And ERP or HCM implementation management — we build workflow tools on the Microsoft stack, but we do not run a vendor’s enterprise rollout. We will point you somewhere better rather than stretch.
Describe the workforce and the problem. If it is not our work, you will hear that in the first conversation rather than the third.
The principals
Both principals hold an M.A. in Organizational Psychology and work across all four practices. We each have a center of gravity, not a territory — which is why you get one firm rather than a referral arrangement between two specialists.
Ten years of progressively responsible public sector HR, currently leading a newly created organizational development unit at a regional council of governments — building the function’s infrastructure, programs, and team from the ground up, and supervising analysts across performance management, talent development, and the agency-wide training function.
Led the organization’s first comprehensive multi-year total rewards strategy: roughly 40 classifications benchmarked, salary range gaps of 3 to 19 percent identified, and a three-year market realignment secured through executive and board approval. Identified equity risk in a proposed merit scale, modeled an alternative from actual evaluation data, and presented it directly to the Executive Director and COO — the more equitable structure was adopted and formalized as a standing planning process. Range beyond that: performance management redesign spanning process, platform migration, and evaluator capability; competency framework integration into hiring; the agency’s first agency-wide climate study and the pulse survey program it became; Cornerstone LMS implementation; and full procurement lifecycle management for outside consulting engagements.
Leads training development and technology for a West Coast material handling company operating 28 branches, directing a team of content developers across sales, technical, processing, administrative, and operational functions. Works inside a company whose workforce is technical and rarely at a desk. Came to it from diagnostic consulting rather than from training delivery — change management and organizational engagements for community organizations, program evaluation and executive transition work through a nonprofit management center, and leadership assessment center work using behaviorally anchored rating scales.
Independently piloted the augmented reality program that put Microsoft Power Apps on RealWear headsets for technicians working high-voltage systems and confined spaces — accelerating response times and reducing escalations, and published as a customer case study by both vendors. Built the first company eLearning library from zero to more than 170 modules across 12 pathways, and a learner tracking system that took annual completion signoffs from 0 to 2,600 by putting digital touchpoints between learners, trainers, and supervisors across classroom, hands-on, and on-the-job learning. Range beyond that: SharePoint environments for HR, training, and systems; an AI work-capture pilot across three departments; a 24/7 support center program; e-learning and video production; and sales training design.
The principal who interviews your department heads writes the recommendation and presents it to your board. Large firms bill a partner and deliver an analyst.
Every engagement is one price against a written scope. Hourly billing rewards slowness and invites renegotiation; we would rather argue about scope once, in writing.
We design the classification structure and build the learning system that depends on it. No vendor handoff between the recommendation and the thing that has to work.
The honest limit: two people can only run so many engagements at once. We will tell you our real availability in the first conversation, and if the timing does not work we will say so rather than stretch a schedule around a signature.
There is no account manager to route through. The first call is with the people who would do the work.
For California public agencies
Vacancies that will not close. Reclassification requests that never end. Supervisors paid a rounding error above their crews. Each is usually blamed on the budget or the labor market, and each is usually a structure problem underneath — which means it is fixable once, instead of managed forever. Here is what we change, and what you can point to a year later.
Select a condition you recognize. Most agencies recognize four of the six.
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Structure work only gets adopted if it makes life easier for five different people at once. We design for all five, deliberately.
Decisions have written rules behind them, so they stop routing through you individually — and the ones that reach you arrive with a defensible answer already attached.
Every pay recommendation arrives costed under several scenarios, with the ongoing obligation separated from the one-time cost. No midyear surprises traced back to an HR study.
Method, comparison set, and cost visible in the packet, in plain language — enough to defend the decision publicly without a study session to decode the report first.
Who can be assigned what, who is ready for the next step, and what it takes to get there — so crews can be staffed against the structure instead of around it.
A change may still be negotiated, but it does not arrive as a surprise and the reasoning is legible to the people it applies to. Fewer grievances start here.
The two people who scope your project are the two people who do it. One is doing this work inside a California agency right now; the other builds the learning systems a new structure depends on. You are not buying a bench, a template library, or a junior team learning your agency on your budget.
Recommendations are written knowing a union will read them. Anything requiring negotiation is flagged up front, rather than discovered at adoption.
Every engagement produces an executive summary and presentation built for a board or council packet, not a consultant deck reformatted the week before.
Salary analysis compares you against comparable California employers using the same public data your peers rely on, with every comparison choice documented and defensible.
Pay recommendations arrive costed under several scenarios, because the finance director’s question is the one that decides whether it gets adopted.
We work comfortably at 75 to 600 employees, where nobody on staff is dedicated to pay analysis and the HR team is three people doing everything.
One principal is doing this work inside a California agency right now. The constraints are not theoretical to us.
The usual reason none of this gets fixed is not disagreement about the problem — it is that fixing it looks like a nine-month procurement. Most California agencies can award under $50,000 directly, and an Organizational Assessment sits well below that. The first phase can start this quarter instead of next fiscal year.
From $6,500 — well under the line in every jurisdiction we have worked in.
Written scope, fixed price, and a short justification memo. No formal bid, no selection committee, no second budget cycle.
A full solicitation response with approach, staffing, references, insurance, and a phase-by-phase schedule.
A first engagement sized to fit the limit your own purchasing policy sets for direct awards. We confirm that number before you spend a meeting on it, and provide the written scope, price, and justification language your analyst needs.
We respond to formal solicitations, including the standard attachments — approach, staffing, references, insurance certificates, and a phase-by-phase schedule. As a two-principal firm we bid only where we would genuinely do the work ourselves.
Where your policy lets you use another agency’s already-competed contract, we will work within it. Tell us which one and we will confirm the fit before you build a staff report around it.
A monthly agreement with a fixed fee and a set amount of principal time — useful when you need this expertise on hand without adding a position. Usually follows a first engagement.
General liability and professional liability, with additional insured endorsements and certificates issued to your risk manager before work starts.
Yes, and it is included rather than a change order. Board presentation, executive summary, and staff report support are scoped into every engagement that produces a recommendation.
We write recommendations with your bargaining agreement in front of us and flag anything that will have to be negotiated. We do not sit at the table, and we do not pretend the table is not there.
Phases are billed as they complete, so a scope can be split across fiscal years at a phase boundary without restructuring the agreement.
Assume yes, and we write them that way — nothing hidden in a confidential appendix, and no finding we would not defend in an open meeting.
Half of it, toward any engagement contracted within 90 days — or through your next adopted budget cycle, because we know when your money actually appears.
Send the situation and your agency type. We will tell you which route is cleanest and what a scope would look like.
Notes from practice
Short arguments drawn from the work — the things we end up saying in first calls often enough that they are worth writing down once.
When requests pile up, most organizations add another analyst. But a backlog almost always means the job descriptions no longer describe the work, so every request has to be decided from scratch. Fix the descriptions and most of the queue answers itself.
Platforms bought to track compliance get blamed later for low engagement. Before you replace one, find out what material exists, where people actually look for answers, and who owns it. Replacing it without fixing that produces a second unused system.
Vendor demos are persuasive because they show a working process — someone else's. Decide how often reviews happen, how ratings should work, and what a manager is genuinely accountable for first. Then the demo becomes a fit test instead of a design session.
That expertise lives in judgment calls made at the machine — what a sound means, what is most likely to have gone wrong, when to stop and call someone. Capturing it means filming the work and asking about the decisions, not asking a senior technician to write a manual in their spare time.
Organizations hear that in exit interviews and conclude they need more senior roles. Usually the path already exists and the rules are unwritten, so promotions look arbitrary from the outside. Publishing what each level requires changes the exit interview long before the org chart does.
The scoping conversation is the fastest way to find out whether it is structural or situational.
Contact
Send us the situation in a paragraph — the pile of re-leveling requests, the review cycle nobody believes in, the learning platform with eleven active users, the technicians who take two years to get productive. We reply within one business day, and we will tell you honestly if you do not need to hire anyone.
One of us will reply within one business day, usually with two or three questions and a suggested time for a forty-five minute call.
Most California agencies can award smaller contracts directly, without a formal bid. We size first projects to fit that limit, and we will confirm the number in your purchasing policy before you spend a meeting on it.