- 01 Compensation bands your board will accept
- 02 Offers, onboarding and probation that hold up
- 03 First-time managers who do not learn on your team
- 04 Policy that satisfies diligence without theatre
Fractional HR practice · by referral
Nobody plans to become the people person.
Someone you trust sent you this link. That is the only way anyone arrives here, and it is why this page confirms rather than sells.
At PRISM that part of the job belongs to Erin H. Robertson — for founders of growing startups and partners at law firms who never planned to lead, hire or manage.
- 01 Retained, not project-billed
- 02 One senior person, no juniors
- 03 Confidential by default
Who it is for
Two rooms, one unglamorous problem.
The work has outgrown the founder's inbox and the managing partner's memory, but it has not yet earned a full-time department. That gap is where things quietly break.
- 01 Associate progression and partner-track clarity
- 02 Lateral onboarding that survives year one
- 03 Sensitive matters handled with privilege in mind
- 04 Compensation conversations, professionally staged
The practice
Six facets. One people function.
01 / 06
01 — Foundations
Structure & compliance
Placeholder. Contracts, handbooks, classifications and the documentation that makes diligence uneventful.
02 — Intake
Hiring & onboarding
Placeholder. Scorecards, interview loops and a first ninety days that actually produces a productive hire.
03 — Reward
Compensation design
Placeholder. Bands, equity philosophy and a review cadence that removes the annual negotiation ambush.
04 — Growth
Performance & progression
Placeholder. Levelling, review cycles and promotion criteria people can read without having them explained.
05 — Risk
Employee relations
Placeholder. Grievances, investigations and exits handled calmly, documented properly, closed completely.
06 — Continuity
Culture & retention
Placeholder. Engagement signals, manager capability and the quiet work of keeping the people you fought to hire.
Drag, swipe or use the arrows
How it goes
Read the room. Build the thing. Stay.
01
DiagnosticTwo weeks
Placeholder. Interviews across levels, a document review, and a candid written assessment of where the exposure actually sits — not where it is assumed to sit.
02
BlueprintSix to ten weeks
Placeholder. A sequenced plan with owners and dates, ordered by risk and by what unblocks the next stage of growth. Every phase ends with something in operation.
03
EmbeddedOngoing, retained
Placeholder. Days per month in your tools and your meetings, and availability for the conversation you would rather not have alone.
The practitioner
A practice, not an agency.
Placeholder biography. Fifteen years building people functions inside venture-backed companies and professional services firms, most of it spent in the room where the difficult decision was being made rather than in the deck describing it afterwards.
PRISM is deliberately small. A handful of retained clients at a time, every hour delivered by the person you met on the first call. No account managers, no template libraries, no work handed down.
In practice
12+ years senior
Client size
40–400 people
At one time
Four clients
Based
Placeholder City
Working with
EU · UK · US remote
Engagements
Six-month minimum
What is said afterwards
“Placeholder testimonial about clarity arriving before the crisis did.”
Placeholder NameCo-founder · Placeholder Co. · engagement of eleven months
Before you write
The five that always come first.
What does a fractional engagement actually look like?
Placeholder answer. A fixed number of days each month, agreed in advance and spent on the sequenced priorities from the blueprint — plus availability between sessions for the things that cannot wait until the next one.
How is this different from hiring an HR manager?
Placeholder answer describing the seniority difference, the breadth of exposure across many organisations, and the fact that the engagement is designed to eventually hand over to the in-house hire you will then be ready to make.
Do law firms get a different version of this?
Placeholder answer. Partnership structures, lockstep and merit systems, and privilege considerations change the shape of the work — though the six facets underneath stay the same.
What does it cost?
Placeholder answer. A monthly retainer scaled to the days committed, quoted after the intro call, with the diagnostic priced separately and credited against the first three months.
Can PRISM help with something urgent this week?
Placeholder answer. Short standalone engagements are accepted for investigations, restructures and sensitive exits, subject to availability — say so in the first line and it gets read first.
Next step
Start with a conversation.
Placeholder closing line. If it is not the right moment, that will be said plainly on the call — PRISM would rather be the second conversation you have this year than the wrong first one.