The CEO managed every HR decision independently: hiring, promotions, conflicts, pay structures. An average of 15–20 decisions per month under pressure, with no shared criteria or written processes. Annual turnover had reached 30%, with direct costs estimated at over €60,000 per year in selection and training alone. The CEO was convinced the problem was the employees, but the causes were structural.

Strategic intake session (90 min) to map existing HR processes and identify priorities. 4-session monthly programme: first session defined selection criteria for 3 critical roles (commercial, production manager, senior warehouse); second built the 30-60-90 day onboarding protocol; third introduced structured monthly check-ins with department heads; fourth established a formal disciplinary procedure protocol.

Turnover dropped from 30% to 12% in 12 months, with estimated annual savings of over €35,000. The CEO stopped attending junior interviews, recovering 6–8 hours per month. Two internal promotions handled with written agreements and transparent communication, without conflict. The production manager began running check-ins with his team independently.

A conflict between two senior collaborators had been ongoing for over 3 months and was paralysing the weekly meetings of a Florence-based firm. The principal had already attempted two informal interventions without results. A long-standing client had been lost due to delays caused by the hostile climate. The risk was that one of the two would leave, with the loss of difficult-to-replace expertise.

Structured individual listening with each party (separate 60-min sessions). Reconstruction of real causes: unexplained role expectations, perceived inequitable distribution of the most profitable clients, communication style incompatibilities in meetings. Construction of a shared protocol with 5 operational rules. Facilitated plenary session with the principal as neutral supervisor. Individual follow-up at 30 days.

The conflict was operationally resolved in 3 weeks. Both collaborators are still with the firm 18 months later. The principal introduced monthly individual check-ins with all seniors as a preventive tool. Average duration of weekly meetings dropped from 2 hours to 50 minutes, with faster decisions and less tension.

The technical co-founder of a Milan startup needed to hire the first Operations Manager, a strategic role. He had never conducted a structured interview, had no explicit evaluation criteria, and the first 6 candidates had been rejected for reasons difficult to articulate. A selection error at that level was worth €40,000–60,000 in direct costs and lost productivity during a critical growth phase.

Strategic brief to define KPIs for the role at 30, 60 and 90 days. Job description revision to attract operationally-minded profiles with a startup mentality. Construction of an 8-criteria weighted evaluation grid: technical skills, experience in similar contexts, ability to manage ambiguity, leadership without formal authority. Accompanying the founder in final interviews with the 3 candidates. Comparative evaluation with structured debriefing.

Hire completed. The candidate achieved 90% of objectives in the first 90 days. The company independently replicated the structured process for the 3 subsequent hires. The co-founder declared having “learnt to select people, not just interview them.”

The owner of a Florence restaurant needed to dismiss an employee for repeated misconduct: unjustified absences, confrontational attitude, two documented incidents of non-compliance with directives. The employment consultant had warned of a real risk of legal challenge due to lack of formal documentation. Months of informal attempts had worsened the situation.

Chronological reconstruction of all documentable evidence: attendance records, written communications, prior informal incidents. Construction of the correct procedural sequence per the Ho.Re.Ca. collective agreement: formal misconduct letter, deadline for the employee’s written response, definitive disciplinary measure. Drafting of formal letters compliant with legal requirements. Coordination with the employment consultant for regulatory aspects and deadline management.

The dismissal was executed correctly. No legal or trade union challenge. The situation closed with a trade union agreement. The owner subsequently built a small internal disciplinary manual to prevent similar situations and manage future misconduct independently.

The owner had changed a senior collaborator’s duties without formal communication, to adapt the structure to a new client. The collaborator had consulted an employment lawyer and was considering an unfair demotion claim. The risk was litigation costing between €25,000 and €40,000 in legal fees and potential compensation, plus the loss of the collaborator and reputational damage.

Analysis of the contractual situation and applicable case law. Construction of a retroactively regularised job change agreement: technically unassailable and formally correct, while economically fair to both parties. Facilitated mediation to find a shared solution avoiding court. Support in communicating with the collaborator to rebuild trust.

The agreement was signed by both parties. The collaborator is still with the agency. The estimated saving compared to litigation was between €25,000 and €40,000. The owner updated all contracts to reflect actual job content, eliminating future areas of legal risk.

The internal HR of a food SME faced a scheduled labour inspection without certainty that the collective agreement applied was correct for all categories (production, logistics, administration). The HR had been with the company for 8 months and didn’t have a complete view of the pre-existing situation. Irregularities not resolved before the inspection would have resulted in significant retroactive sanctions.

Full audit of the collective agreement applied vs actual activity for each category. Verification of 6 risk areas: level classification, overtime and surcharges, business travel, performance bonuses, classification of hybrid profiles, supplementary agreements. Identification of 3 real irregularities and construction of the preventive remediation plan. Preparation of the HR to respond to inspectors’ questions with organised documentation.

The inspection was passed without sanctions. The 3 preventively resolved irregularities would have resulted in estimated sanctions of €12,000 to €18,000. The HR acquired the skills to independently manage collective agreement compliance in ordinary situations. The company implemented an annual calendar of preventive internal audits.

Third attempt in 8 months to hire a commercial area manager. The two previous candidates had proved inadequate within 90 days: the first for poor decision-making autonomy, the second for inability to manage the team. The combined cost of selection errors (search, training, lost contracts) had been estimated at over €80,000. CEO and HR disagreed on criteria and couldn’t align.

2-hour strategic session with CEO and HR to make implicit criteria explicit and align on the definition of a ‘good candidate’. Job description rewrite with measurable KPIs at 30, 60 and 90 days. Screening process revision: from CV-based to scenario-based with sector-specific situational questions. Behavioural assessment with DISC tool on the finalist. Structured post-interview debriefing with shared evaluation grid.

At the fourth attempt the hire was the right one. The manager is still with the company 2 years later, exceeded the first-year commercial budget by 18% and built a stable team of 4 account managers. CEO and HR declared having ‘finally the same language on selection.’

The director had already rejected 12 applications over 4 months for a front-office coordinator without being able to explain the selection criteria even to himself. The unfilled position directly impacted patient experience. The feeling was that ‘the right candidate doesn’t exist’, while the real problem was the absence of explicit, measurable selection criteria.

Profiling session to extract and make explicit the director’s implicit criteria: technical skills, relational soft skills, requirements for adaptation to the specific medical context. Screening process redesign with progressive filters. Construction of 3 practical scenarios to test stress management, communication with difficult patients and organisational ability. Job description revision with objective and measurable requirements.

Hire on the second application after the process redesign. The coordinator exceeded the internal NPS target within 3 months of hiring. The director declared having ‘finally understood what he was looking for.’ The selection process was standardised for all roles at the practice.

Two failed hires in 3 years for the same critical operational role, both with resignations within 6 months. Selection was based solely on the owner’s instinct. The combined cost of the two wrong hires, including training and lost productivity, exceeded €35,000. The owner was convinced that ‘young people don’t want to work’, while the problem was the lack of a structured process.

Retroactive analysis of who had worked in that role in the past: extraction of common characteristics (technical, behavioural and motivational). Construction of a practical test based on a real critical site scenario. Structured reference check with 3 referees and 8 specific questions about behaviour in difficult situations. Evaluation grid with different weighting for technical and relational skills.

The hired candidate became the operational reference for the company’s 3 most complex sites. Promoted to operational manager with authority over subcontractors after 18 months. Zero turnover in the role in the following 2 years. The owner adopted the structured process for all subsequent hires.

The CEO evaluated team performance ‘by feeling’ once a year, at salary discussions. Three employees were convinced they were excellent performers, while he considered them average. Pay conversations lasted hours, ended ambiguously and generated resentment. A key employee had already threatened to leave after the last evaluation session.

Definition of quarterly measurable objectives for each role, built together with managers: number of tickets resolved (support), revenue generated (commercial), deliverable quality (development). Monthly 30-minute check-in with each manager. Shared dashboard with objective visibility for the whole team. CEO training on conducting performance conversations based on data, not perceptions.

Expectations became explicit and measurable. The pay conversation in the next cycle lasted 40 minutes instead of 3 hours, based on shared and incontestable data. The employee who had threatened to leave stayed. Nineteen of 21 employees interviewed declared that ‘work has become clearer and more predictable.’

A creative team of 11 resisted any form of structured evaluation: ‘that’s not how it works here’, ‘creativity can’t be measured.’ A senior collaborator with 8 years of experience was considering an offer from abroad, tired of working without feedback or direction. The principal couldn’t balance creative autonomy and performance management.

Co-construction of the objectives system with the whole team, not imposed from above: evaluation criteria defined by the creatives themselves. Objectives based on qualitative outputs (project quality, client satisfaction, deadline compliance) instead of industrial metrics. Structured peer-to-peer feedback every 2 months. The senior was involved in system design as an internal expert, not a passive subject.

The senior collaborator chose to stay. The system was voluntarily adopted by the whole studio. The principal declared that ‘conversations with the team have changed: we talk about objectives, not problems.’ Average quality of deliverables improved by 20% in subsequent projects.

The operations director had no structured feedback system for the 3 store managers. Service quality was inconsistent between stores: customer NPS at 72 in the best, 41 in the worst. The director spent half his time monitoring individual stores instead of coordinating the network. Managers didn’t know what they were being evaluated on.

Definition of shared, consistent KPIs across the 3 stores: customer NPS, average receipt, conversion rate, team absenteeism. Bi-weekly 15-minute video check-in with each store manager. Non-competitive internal leaderboard oriented towards improvement: each store compares itself against its own historical baseline. Monthly joint session with the 3 managers for practice sharing.

The lowest-NPS store aligned with the others in 4 months. The operations director reduced by 40% the time spent monitoring individual stores. The system became the reference for annual bonus evaluation. The CEO declared having ‘for the first time a clear picture of how the network is performing.’

A logistics company had 45% annual turnover: every year almost half the operational workforce was replaced. Exit interviews revealed that 70% of resignees cited as the main cause ‘you’re only noticed when you make a mistake.’ No recognition of daily work, no positive feedback, no visible growth prospects. The annual cost of turnover exceeded €120,000 in search, training and lost productivity.

Team leader training (3 people) on the structure of specific, timely positive feedback, following the SBI (Situation-Behavior-Impact) model. Introduction of a visible weekly operational objective for each team, communicated every Monday. Monthly recognition system based on explicit KPIs, not manager preference. Individual listening sessions with the 5 employees at highest risk of leaving.

Turnover fell from 45% to 22% in 12 months. The estimated saving compared to the previous year was approximately €60,000 through reduced replacement costs alone. Three employees who had already started external selection processes chose to stay. The company began measuring engagement monthly with a 3-question anonymous survey.

The founding partner couldn’t understand why junior collaborators showed no initiative: ‘I have to tell them everything, they don’t take a step on their own.’ Juniors complained about implicit expectations, frequent direction changes, lack of feedback. Complete stalemate: a low-autonomy worker and a low-delegation manager reinforcing each other. One of the three seniors had already started looking elsewhere.

2-hour workshop with the founder to make implicit expectations explicit: what ‘initiative’ meant in that context, which decisions could be made independently and which required approval. Definition of the ‘autonomy in method, accountability for results’ principle for each hierarchical level. Construction of an individual development plan for the 3 highest-potential collaborators, with visible milestones.

Two collaborators submitted business proposals independently in the 3 months that followed. The third managed a client independently from acquisition to delivery. The senior who was considering leaving withdrew and asked for a meeting to discuss career objectives. The founder declared: ‘the problem was how I delegated, not who I had.’

A network of veterinary clinics was experiencing chronic tension between management and veterinarians: ‘you only think about numbers, we think about patients.’ Internal NPS was at 34 out of 100. Two veterinarians were considering opening an independent clinic. The absence of shared language between clinical and business objectives was creating an identity rift difficult to manage.

Diagnostic workshop demonstrating that clinical quality and economic performance are not contradictory: a well-treated patient generates more economic value than one treated hastily. Definition of shared KPIs integrating clinical quality (post-operative complications, completed follow-ups) and economic indicators (retention rate, average value per patient). Monthly interdisciplinary comparison sessions between veterinarians and management.

Internal NPS rose from 34 to 71 in 9 months. The two veterinarians considering leaving stayed and were promoted to clinical managers with management delegation over their respective locations. The company built a clinical-business governance model replicated in 2 new locations opened subsequently.

The entrepreneur was convinced he had a selection problem: ‘we’re hiring the wrong people.’ He was about to engage a headhunter to replace 3 operational staff. The assessment revealed a different reality: the chosen candidates were adequate, but the onboarding process was non-existent. New hires were inserted into production without guidance, objectives or support, and left within 6 months.

90-minute HR assessment across 7 areas: selection, onboarding, performance management, development, internal communication, compliance and climate. Individual interviews with 5 employees with less than 6 months’ tenure. Mapping of the entire onboarding process from signed offer to day 90. Identification of the 3 critical moments when new hires lost motivation and orientation.

Structured onboarding plan on 30-60-90 days: clear objectives, planned mentoring, formal check-ins. First-semester turnover dropped from 35% to 8% in 12 months. The entrepreneur stopped investing in headhunting for operational roles, saving approximately €15,000 per year. The assessment avoided a wrong investment by solving the real problem.

Two partners had opposing positions on HR management: one wanted to hire 3 people in 6 months, the other wanted to understand first why existing staff weren’t performing sufficiently. The decision had been blocked for months. Meanwhile the climate was worsening: the team sensed the uncertainty and two collaborators had already received external offers. The risk was a decision made hastily under pressure.

Separate assessment with both partners (90 min each) to surface their HR situation perceptions. Gap analysis between the two visions: where they agreed, where they diverged, on what basis. Joint session to build a plan with 5 shared priority actions. The hiring decision became part of a broader strategy, not an isolated bet.

The two partners made a shared decision: 1 targeted hire instead of the planned 3, with parallel investment in internal processes. Two years later the firm is growing, the partners work with a common language on HR management, and 3 of the original collaborators have been promoted internally.

The CEO was about to hire the first HR manager. The idea was correct in principle, but the assessment revealed that basic processes didn’t exist: no onboarding, no written job descriptions, no feedback system. Hiring an HR manager without processes meant inserting someone who would spend the first 6 months building what should have already existed.

Mapping of what existed and what was missing across the 7 HR areas. Identification of the 3 priorities to build before hiring: job descriptions for all roles, a simple onboarding process, a quarterly feedback system. 6-month implementation plan with monthly supervision. Definition of the HR profile to hire based on the actual business phase.

When the HR manager arrived, there were concrete structures to work with from day one. Her onboarding was completed in 3 weeks instead of the typical 3–6 months. The company avoided the classic mistake of ‘hiring an HR to do what you don’t know how to do’ and built solid foundations before the investment.

The founder’s son had inherited a manufacturing company with historical roles never formally documented: duties different from contracts, informal reporting lines, hybrid figures who did a bit of everything. Constant conflicts over ‘who does what’ and ‘who decides what.’ The owner spent hours mediating operational disputes that should have resolved independently. In 6 months, 2 key figures had resigned citing organisational chaos.

As-is mapping in 3 work sessions: who actually does what, not on paper. Reconstruction of the real vs formal organisational chart. Design of the to-be structure with clear roles, defined reporting lines and RACI matrices for the 12 critical processes. Change communication: plenary session to present the new structure, individual meetings with the 6 most impacted staff. 8-week transition plan with verifiable milestones.

Real and functioning organisational chart in 8 weeks. ‘Who does what’ conflicts reduced by 90% in the following 3 months. The 30 remaining staff declared: ‘Finally we know who to go to for everything.’ The owner stopped being the operational dispute mediator. The company hired 2 new staff in 6 months without creating new role conflicts.

The medical director managed every operational problem personally, regardless of urgency: from replacing water cooler bottles to conflicts between doctors. He hadn’t managed a 2-week holiday in 5 years without receiving at least 15 calls. Analysis revealed that 70% of the decisions he was making were technically delegable, but there were no roles with the autonomy and tools to make them.

Mapping of all decisions made over one month: urgent vs important, delegable vs non-delegable. Definition of autonomy levels for each role: what the location coordinator decides, what requires the director. Training of 3 location coordinators on: operational emergency management, communication with doctors, monthly reporting to the director. Construction of a clear, documented escalation system.

In 4 months, 60% reduction in urgent interruptions to the director. The director took the first holiday in 5 years without receiving a single operational call. The 3 coordinators acquired real autonomy and are recognised by the team as reference points. The company opened a fourth location 8 months later without increasing the director’s workload.

A startup had grown from 5 to 18 people in 18 months, but the structure hadn’t kept pace: everyone still reported directly to the CEO, who found himself with 14 direct reports, endless meetings and an inability to work on strategy and product. Execution speed was slowing. Every decision was blocked by the need to involve the CEO.

Design of 4 autonomous functions (Product, Engineering, Operations, Growth) with one manager each, chosen internally. Progressive transition plan: 4 weeks of handover, 2 of parallel running, 2 of full autonomy. Definition of decisions remaining with the CEO (strategy, senior hiring, partnerships) and those moving to the team leads. Weekly 45-minute CEO-team lead check-in.

Functioning structure in 6 weeks. The CEO freed 40% of his operational time, reinvested in strategy and fundraising. The company reached 35 people 12 months later without organisational crises. The 4 internally selected team leads are all still in post 2 years later. The Series A round was completed 9 months after the restructure.