What does your employee relations environment look like right now?
Most business owners couldn't answer that question with confidence — and not because they're not paying attention. It's because employee relations risks rarely announce themselves clearly until it's already a problem.
By then, you're managing a grievance, defending a claim, or trying to work out how a situation that seemed minor six months ago became this.
The ER Intelligence Audit is a structured employee relations audit designed to give you that picture before it reaches crisis point.
Most ER problems had warning signs. You just didn't have a system to see them.
I've spent 25 years in senior HR roles — Head of HR at Saint-Gobain UK & Ireland (British Gypsum), Head of HR Business Partnering and Employee Relations at Nottingham City Council. Now working with US and UK businesses as a fractional HR consultant.
In that time, I've seen the same pattern more times than I can count. A formal grievance arrives, an EEOC charge lands, a great employee walks out — and when you trace it back, the signals were all there, often for months. A manager who had been inconsistent in how they handled complaints. A policy that only existed on paper, not in practice. Exit interview data that nobody had looked at properly.
Most ER consultants come in after the crisis to manage the case. My work is different. I work with businesses to understand what their employee relations environment looks like in reality, and where the risks are.
An employee relations audit is how that starts.
Is it the right fit?
The ER Intelligence Audit is for business owners and senior leaders who:
- Have a growing team and aren't sure their HR infrastructure has evolved with it
- Have had one or two people situations recently that felt harder than they should have done
- Are operating in a regulated or high-turnover environment where ER exposure is real
- Want an honest assessment of their people risk — not a checkbox exercise
It works well for organizations between 20–250 people, across sectors. You don't need to have an existing HR team — in fact, many clients come to me precisely because they don't.
Not sure whether this is the right starting point? I have a free 16-question ER Health Check on the site. That's a good place to get a quick read before committing to a full audit.
Eight areas, one clear picture of your employee relations risk.
The audit looks at eight domains of your employee relations environment. I assess each one through document review and structured conversations — you don't score anything yourself. At the end, every domain is rated using a traffic light system — Red, Amber, or Green — and you receive an overall ER Intelligence Score out of 100.
Are your contracts, policies, and employment records fit for purpose and legally current?
Are your ER processes being followed consistently in practice, not just on paper?
Do your managers have the skills and confidence to handle people issues early, before they escalate?
Do you have any real mechanisms for picking up on emerging people risk before it becomes a formal case?
If a serious allegation is made tomorrow, are you equipped to investigate it properly?
Are you seeing the patterns in your ER data — repeat issues, particular teams, specific managers?
What is your exit data telling you, and are you listening to it?
Is there anything in how senior leaders operate that is creating ER exposure for the business?
What people ask before getting started.
Do we need to have had HR problems to benefit from this?
Not at all. The businesses that get the most from this audit are often the ones doing it proactively — before anything has gone wrong. No recent issues doesn't mean no risk.
We already have an HR manager. Is this still relevant?
Yes. An internal HR lead may be heavily engaged with other activities and in the day-to-day. An external assessment tends to surface things an internal review may miss, and gives the HR manager something concrete to take to leadership.
How disruptive is it for our team?
Minimal. The document review is done by me. The conversations are short — typically 30–45 minutes — and scheduled around your availability.
Is everything confidential?
Completely. Everything shared with me — documents, conversations, and findings — is confidential. The report is for your use only.
Ready to see where you stand?
Book a discovery call and we'll talk through what the ER Intelligence Audit would look like for your business.
Book a Discovery Call