- Compensation bands your board will accept
- Offers, onboarding and probation that hold up
- First-time managers who do not learn on your team
- 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.
- Retained, not project-billed
- One senior person, no juniors
- Confidential by default
Who it is for
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.
Two rooms, one unglamorous problem.
- Associate progression and partner-track clarity
- Lateral onboarding that survives year one
- Sensitive matters handled with privilege in mind
- Compensation conversations, professionally staged
Structure & compliance
Placeholder. Contracts, handbooks, classifications and the documentation that makes diligence uneventful.
Hiring & onboarding
Placeholder. Scorecards, interview loops and a first ninety days that actually produces a productive hire.
Compensation design
Placeholder. Bands, equity philosophy and a review cadence that removes the annual negotiation ambush.
Performance & progression
Placeholder. Levelling, review cycles and promotion criteria people can read without having them explained.
Employee relations
Placeholder. Grievances, investigations and exits handled calmly, documented properly, closed completely.
Culture & retention
Placeholder. Engagement signals, manager capability and the quiet work of keeping the people you fought to hire.
The practice
Six facets. One people function.
01 / 06
How it goes
Read the room. Build the thing. Stay.
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.
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.
Placeholder. Days per month in your tools and your meetings, and availability for the conversation you would rather not have alone.
The practitioner
Erin.
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 practice12+ years senior
Client size40–400 people
At one timeFour clients
Working withEU · UK · US remote
EngagementsSix-month minimum
Placeholder testimonial about clarity arriving before the crisis did.Placeholder Name · co-founder · engagement of eleven months
Placeholder testimonial about the difficult conversation finally having a shape.Placeholder Name · managing partner · two years retained
Next step · thirty minutes, no obligation
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.
Placeholder line about what to send: the shape of the company, the thing that is breaking, and when you noticed. Three sentences is plenty.
What does a fractional engagement look like?
Placeholder. A fixed number of days each month, agreed in advance and spent on the sequenced priorities — plus availability between sessions for the things that cannot wait.
How is this different from hiring an HR manager?
Placeholder. Seniority and breadth, and an engagement designed to hand over to the in-house hire you will then be ready to make.
What does it cost?
Placeholder. A monthly retainer scaled to the days committed, quoted after the call, with the diagnostic priced separately and credited against the first three months.
PRISM
A fractional HR practice · one senior person · reached by referral
© Placeholder year · confidential by default