Our impact
Results that stayed
We measure success by what still works once we've left - and by the money that stops leaving the business.
CEL Solicitors
PE-backed, fast-growth law firm
£200k
Recruitment agency spend eliminated
2x
Headcount in 6 months
100%
Hiring handled in-house
The challenge
Rapid growth funded by private equity, with hiring outsourced to agencies and no internal talent capability. Every new role carried a fee, and culture was straining under the pace.
What we did
- Built an in-house hiring engine: process, interview frameworks and hiring manager training
- Designed the employer brand and candidate experience
- Embedded people infrastructure to hold the growth
- Handed the whole function to an internal team on exit
“Ruby and her team are world class! Ruby really took her time to get to know me and my business and delivered a tailored plan that was better than I could imagine and completely got our ethos, personality and vision. Under Ruby's guidance we grew rapidly whilst improving our culture - something that is really difficult to achieve - and I couldn't have done it without her.”
Reason Digital
Purpose-led digital agency
£122k
Saved against agency alternative
In-house
Hiring capability retained
0
Ongoing dependency on us
The challenge
A values-driven business scaling into roles it had never hired before, relying on agencies for specialist talent and losing time and money on every search.
What we did
- Mapped the talent market and built direct sourcing capability
- Rebuilt the hiring process around the culture, not against it
- Coached managers to run their own interviews and decisions
- Left an operating rhythm the team still runs
“I took over forty people with no HR or talent support. Talentloop became the people function we'd never had - they're my right-hand team.”
Regional property business
Residential and commercial portfolio management across multiple locations
The challenge
A growing property business left without HR cover overnight, at exactly the point it could least afford the gap. The company's HR Manager resigned with short notice, leaving payroll, employee relations, recruitment and compliance without an owner. The leadership team faced a choice: rush a permanent hire under pressure, or find cover that could hold the function steady while they took the time to find the right person. With live ER cases, an open payroll cycle and a growing headcount across sites, there was no room for a gap in service.
Where we started
An immediate handover call to understand what was live, what was at risk, and what 'good' needed to look like in week one. Within days we had visibility of open cases, upcoming payroll deadlines, and the recruitment pipeline the outgoing manager had left behind.
What we built
A plug-in HR team providing full continuity of service from day one - managing live ER cases to resolution, keeping payroll and benefits administration running without disruption, and maintaining recruitment activity so open roles didn't stall. We ran the function exactly as the business needed it run, while supporting the leadership team through a considered hiring process for the permanent replacement, including input on the role profile, interview process and candidate assessment.
Where we left them
A fully functioning people operation handed over in an organised, documented state to their newly appointed HR Manager, with nothing dropped and no continuity gap. The business made its permanent hire on its own timeline rather than under pressure, and the incoming manager inherited a clean, well-run function rather than a backlog.
The business got the breathing room to make the right long-term decision, without the people function suffering while they made it.
Family-owned distribution business
Multiple sites across the UK and Europe, preparing for the next stage of growth and investment
The challenge
A family-owned distributor whose people infrastructure had been built for the business it used to be, not the one it was becoming. The founding family were stepping back from day-to-day involvement, and the business was preparing for external investment - but the people foundations weren't ready for scrutiny or scale. HR processes were manual, paper-based and time-consuming. Warehouse retention was a persistent drain, with significant money spent simply replacing leavers to keep the operation fully staffed. Recruitment was inconsistent between the warehouse and the office. And an experienced leadership team was carrying the business alone, without a confident management layer beneath them.
Where we started
A structured discovery across leadership, managers and new starters revealed the pattern: strong values and genuine care, but nothing systemised - so the culture depended on individuals rather than infrastructure. That's survivable at one site. It isn't across several, and it doesn't stand up to investor due diligence.
What we built
A full Talent & People Plan, delivered in partnership with the leadership team: a consistent recruitment and interview framework with genuine parity between warehouse and office teams, an HR system and ATS replacing the paperwork, a defined EVP and values embedded from candidate pack to appraisal, a 100-day onboarding programme, regular engagement surveys with department-level action plans, and one-to-one coaching that turned managers from escalators of problems into solvers of them. We also recruited and onboarded their permanent HR Manager, then handed the system over.
Where we left them
A people function that runs without us, owned by an HR Manager we hired and trained, measured through people KPIs the board reviews monthly. Retention in head office and sickness in the warehouse improved significantly and engagement scores doubled within 12 months.
The business kept the values the family built while gaining the infrastructure a growing, multi-site distribution operation needs.
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No obligation. Just the sentence you arrived with, and an honest view of what it's costing you.