A business process consultancy maps, redesigns and documents how clients work. Analysts spend weeks inside client sites, so site conduct, documentation standards and sustained team skill are the people priorities.
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Share your requirementsA business process consultancy studies how a client works, draws the flows, finds delays and duplication, and redesigns steps, forms, roles and controls. Work is done through interviews, observation, workshops and walk-throughs, then written up as process maps, standard operating procedures, checklists and training notes. A lead consultant manages the project and the client's senior team, process analysts do most of the field work and writing, and a documentation specialist or designer may shape the final pack. Analysts spend days or weeks at client sites, sit with staff who may fear change and need to work within the client's rules and hours. Projects end with a handover and, sometimes, a support period. Related reading: HR for professional services. The difficulty is that process work seldom looks like a result until it is adopted, and an analyst's craft, patience and judgement are hard to measure yet decisive in whether the client uses what was delivered.
These are the places the people side of this kind of business tends to give way. The rest of this page works through them.
HR here has to work for each of these groups, not only the office. The set-up below is written with all of them in mind.
GullyHR runs talent acquisition for permanent roles in business process consultants. For each role we agree the job description with you, find and screen candidates against it, and support the offer through to joining. Tell us the role and the number of people, and we start there.
We recruit permanent employees. We do not supply contract or temporary staff.
Every business interviews, but few have a written process that works the same way for every role and every interviewer. GullyHR designs yours, from the role brief to the offer, trains your managers to run it, and can run it for you on the roles you hand us.
We agree what the role must deliver, the must-have and nice-to-have skills, and how each will be scored.
Screening call, assessment, interview rounds and decision points, sized to the role and the number of people you hire.
Structured questions for each role family and a rating guide, so two interviewers judge the same answer the same way.
A short briefing for your managers on what to ask, what to avoid and how to give a clear yes or no.
Who approves, how the offer is made, and how candidates are kept informed from first call to joining.
They follow the client's rules, hours and moods, with little contact with their own manager.
Client employees worry that the study means job cuts, and give guarded answers.
A thick pack is delivered and never opened, and the consultancy's reputation suffers.
Each analyst has their own style for maps and SOPs, and the client sees inconsistency.
Several clients start together, and analysts are stretched across sites.
When an analyst moves to a new client, the story of why a step was designed that way goes with them.
Analysts are chosen for analysis but must also listen, persuade and facilitate.
Factories, hospitals and warehouses carry rules and risks that analysts are not briefed on.
Start with the topics that matter most here: Learning and Development; HR Operations and Governance; Onboarding and Probation. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for professional services, not in general.
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
An HR function that runs the same way every month.
A first day that is the same for the fifth joiner as the first.
How many people, in which roles, by when — and what they will cost.
Structure, reporting lines and who is allowed to decide what.
Requisition to joining, the same way every time.
Records, attendance, leave and the day-to-day HR that must simply work.
Salary structure, payroll inputs and a month that closes on time.
Goals, reviews and ratings that hold up in a conversation.
Named backups for the roles that cannot be vacant.
Communication, recognition and the conditions people actually work in.
Two routes — one for complaints, one for conduct — kept separate.
Policies a manager can apply, and obligations with owners and dates.
Induction, records, incident reporting and follow-through.
Who leaves, when, why — and which of them mattered.
Resignation to relieving letter, in a defined order.
Records that survive people, and approvals that do not queue.
A short monthly pack management actually reads.
The pieces a business process consultants business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
Templates and a style guide for maps, SOPs and checklists, so every analyst produces the same quality.
Templates and a style guide for maps, SOPs and checklists, so every analyst produces the same quality. Keep it in the documentation process.
Site rules, safety, hours, dress and conduct, and who to call, written before the first day.
Site rules, safety, hours, dress and conduct, and who to call, written before the first day. See the onboarding process.
A view of projects against analysts, with a limit on simultaneous sites and a bench plan.
A view of projects against analysts, with a limit on simultaneous sites and a bench plan.
Practice in interviews, workshops and handling resistance.
Practice in interviews, workshops and handling resistance. The learning process shows how.
Training for client staff, a trial period and a review after three months, so the pack gets used.
Training for client staff, a trial period and a review after three months, so the pack gets used.
A short note with every deliverable on why each step is as it is, and who to ask.
A short note with every deliverable on why each step is as it is, and who to ask.
Before changing anything, find out what is true today. These checks take an afternoon and tell you which of the topics above to start with.
Share your requirementsConfirm with a qualified professional. What applies to you depends on your business, your state and your arrangements, and it changes. This page describes practice. It does not state a legal position.
The services below fit this kind of business best. Each starts by recording where you stand, and every later report compares against that. We do not promise outcomes.
A style guide, templates and handover notes for consultant deliverables.
Site briefings and a first-week route for new analysts.
Facilitation, listening and workshop skills for analysts.
Measures that include adoption and client use, not only delivery.
Start with a free conversation, or see the paid HR Diagnostic.
Understand the business, its workforce, current processes and HR challenges.
Find the missing, weak, inconsistent or person-dependent processes.
Create the structure, processes, policies, SOPs, dashboards and systems needed.
Help HR and department managers actually adopt the new system.
Digitise repetitive and approval-based workflows where it is worth doing.
Track hiring, attendance, employee cost, performance, training and attrition.
Strengthen the people-management system continuously, not once.
From the GullyHR blog: one on HR in professional services, and one on each of the topics this page points to.
Why associates and managers leave consulting, accounting, legal and advisory firms, and how to ask about progression, workload and partners at exit.
6 min readRead article
A founder's guide to hiring freshers and running a first-year programme: campus or open drives, a screening round, a training plan by quarter, mentors and checkpoints.
6 min readRead article
Every growing company reaches a point where the founder approving everything stops being speed and starts being the bottleneck. Twelve signs it has happened, and what to fix first.
9 min readRead article
A first-week plan for bringing in an outside specialist: what access to give, how to protect client data, and the confidentiality steps to settle on day one.
7 min readRead articleMore on the GullyHR blog.
Agree templates and a style guide, review each deliverable against it and share good examples. Consistency builds reputation.
Explain the purpose early, listen first, share findings openly and involve staff in the design. Brief analysts on this before they go in.
Train the client's staff, run a pilot, review adoption after three months and name an owner at the client. Build this into the proposal.
A written note with rules, safety, hours, contacts and conduct, plus a call with the lead. Confirm site obligations with a qualified professional.
Offer variety of projects, skills training and a route to lead. Pay fairly and give them real voice in the design.
We would look at the documentation standard, how analysts are briefed and how handover is done. A documentation style guide with a site briefing note is a likely opener. Scope, timing and fee are set out in writing afterwards.
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