The senior person you call when the people side of your business needs structure. Strategic people-and-structure work for businesses growing through the messy middle, paired with development for the leadership team that runs it.
Built by Arran Russell · 15 years inside a business that scaled from 25 to 100+
This is what sits between.
The business has got bigger. Forty people, maybe sixty. The founder is doing the senior people work themselves because there's nobody else who can. Hiring's stopped working. The team has no idea what good looks like. Culture used to be strong because it was small, and now it isn't either.
You've thought about hiring a Head of People. The cost doesn't fit yet, the volume of work doesn't fill the role, and you're not sure they'd be senior enough anyway.
What you actually need is someone who's done this before, who can come in, build the structures the business is missing, and develop the leadership team to run them. Not a fractional hire. Not a 12-month transformation. A senior partner you work with on a defined piece of work that finishes.
That's this.
The symptoms of a business that's grown past its startup wiring. You don't need all of them. One or two is usually enough.
Hiring has stopped working. Roles are vague, the wrong people get through, and the right people leave six months in. You don't have a system, you have a series of urgent searches.
Your team has no idea what good looks like. No career framework, no progression conversations, no real clarity on who's a strong performer and who isn't. The single most-asked question is "what does my future here look like?" and nobody has an answer.
Culture used to be strong because it was small. Now it's diluted, you're not in every conversation, and the feel of the business is changing without anyone choosing it.
Performance management is whatever each manager decides it is. Inconsistent. Defensive. Sometimes legally exposed. Definitely not the system you'd choose if you were starting from scratch.
You're doing all the senior people work yourself. Hiring decisions, exits, restructures, the awkward conversations. Because there's nobody else who can.
You've thought about hiring a Head of People. You can't justify the cost yet, or the volume of work doesn't fill the role, or you're not sure they'd be senior enough. So nothing happens.
Not capabilities. Specific structural pieces. Each one a defined deliverable your business will actually use the week after I leave.
The proposition you can put in a job ad and live up to. Not posters and values workshops. Build: Culture and EVP.
The system that gets you the right people, faster, with fewer six-month exits. Build: role design, hiring scorecards, interview structure, the Ideal Colleague framework, candidate experience.
The thing every employee is asking for, and the tool every manager has been winging without. Build: career development frameworks defining each level and what progression means.
Honest findings from your team, translated into a plan you can act on. Build: a proper employee survey (not a corporate engagement audit) plus a 12-month people plan built on the results.
Because everyone knows the rules and managers stop making it up as they go. Build: performance frameworks covering how performance gets measured, talked about, and addressed.
For the harder, project-shaped work that comes up periodically and needs an experienced operator in the room. Build: restructures, senior exits, and the changes you've been putting off because nobody on the team can run them.
Half the job done by one person rarely sticks. The EVP feeds the way your leadership team talks about the business. The career framework gives managers a tool they can use. The recruitment process builds in the standards the training is teaching. They're not two products glued together. They're two halves of one job.
The full engagement is the headline because it's where the work compounds. Project-only routes are the entry points. The ongoing partnership is a small post-project add-on, not a primary product.
The structure and the team to run it. Project work delivered alongside or before a Bespoke Programme for your leadership team.
One named deliverable. 4 to 8 weeks. For owners who want to start with one specific thing before going further.
The bridge between single project and the full engagement. Often becomes the full engagement once the work starts.
Once the work is done, if you want me on hand for what comes next — the resignation, the awkward feedback, the hiring decision — here's what that looks like. One scheduled session a month. Async access. 3-month minimum, then rolling. Post-project only.
This offering is new. You're getting a lower price now in exchange for three things: honest feedback as we go, willingness to be a reference if it works, and a public case study if you're up for it. When the founding spots are gone, full pricing applies.
I'm not a founder, and I'm not from an HR background. I was the senior exec inside a business that grew from 25 people to well over 100, the person the founder relied on to develop the management layer beneath them. Most of the structures I'd now build for you, I built there first.
The EVP. The recruitment process. The career frameworks. The performance system. Hiring two hundred people, restructuring teams, handling senior exits, shaping the culture as it changed. That's the work I'm offering to do for your business now, at a fraction of the cost of a full-time hire.
Set The Tone exists because most small businesses don't have access to this kind of senior people work. They're stuck between an HR generalist who'll do compliance and a six-figure consultancy who'll deliver a deck. This is the thing in the middle that actually fits a 40-person business.
This isn't compliance HR. If you need employment law, payroll, or tribunal support, you need a different kind of provider.
This isn't a fractional CHRO for a 200-person business. The work is sized for businesses in the messy middle, between 30 and 80 people. Bigger than that, you genuinely do need a full-time hire.
This isn't a one-off training day. If your only need is a workshop, the Foundations Programme is the better fit. If your structures are sound and your managers need development, look at Bespoke Programmes.
If your problem is structural and you don't yet need a full-time hire, this is the right place.
If you're on the fence, email me. Tell me what's going on in your business and I'll give you an honest answer about whether this could help. If it wouldn't, I'll tell you that too.
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