Services

HR consulting for companies where every decision still goes through the founder

Wills Business provides HR consulting and organization design to mid-sized companies and family groups in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. The problems we are called for are structural. The company has grown to [100 or 300 or 500] people and the organization chart still describes the company at 40. Titles were given to keep people, not to define jobs. Pay is decided one negotiation at a time. Good managers leave because nothing is theirs to decide. We work with the owner and the leadership team to design the structure, operating model and people systems the company needs for its next stage, and to land the change without losing the people who matter.

Thirty minutes. No deck. A senior consultant replies.

Who calls us about people and organization

Owners who have become the bottleneck. Every hire, price, discount and purchase over a small limit comes to you. The second layer waits, or leaves. You want to delegate and do not have a structure that makes delegation safe.

Executives merging, splitting or professionalising a group. Two companies becoming one, a family group separating its businesses, a first professional CEO joining a founder-run firm. You need a target organization, an operating model and a plan to get there, agreed before people start guessing.

Companies whose HR function is administration only. Payroll runs, contracts are signed, and nothing else happens. No grading, no pay structure, no performance system, no succession for key roles. You need HR consulting that builds the system, and an HR team that can then run it.

What you get

Deliverables depend on the scope. A people and organization engagement typically includes:

An organization diagnosis: where decisions actually get made, spans of control, duplicated and missing roles, and where the structure works against the strategy.
Organization design: the target structure for the next few years, the reasoning behind it, the roles at each level, and the transition path from today.
An operating model: which decisions sit at group, company and function level, who is accountable for what, how the leadership team meets and decides, and how the owner's role changes.
Job architecture, grading and pay structure: job descriptions for key roles, a grading framework, salary bands benchmarked to the market in Egypt, Saudi Arabia or the UAE, and the rules for moving between bands.
Performance management: objectives that cascade from the strategy, an appraisal cycle managers will actually run, and a link between performance and pay that the owner can afford.
Succession and talent plans for critical roles, including the roles that currently depend on one person.
A change management plan: what is changing and why, in the owner's words; who is affected; the sequence of announcements; how managers are equipped to explain it; and how the change is measured afterwards.
An HR function design, where needed: what the HR team should do beyond administration, the roles it needs, and the policies to write first.

Deliverables are produced in English, Arabic or both, and presented to the leadership team or family council by the consultant who did the work.

How the work runs

Scoping (week 1). We agree the question, the companies and levels in scope, who is involved and how confidential the work is, and the fee. You receive a written scope.
Diagnosis (weeks 2 to 4). Interviews across the leadership team and the layer below, a decision-rights review, a look at how pay and titles were actually set, and a survey where the scope calls for it.
Design (weeks 4 to 8). Structure, operating model and people systems designed in working sessions with the owner and leadership team. Options are tested before one is chosen.
Change plan and handover (weeks 8 to 12). Announcement sequence, manager briefings, first appraisal cycle scheduled, HR team briefed on what it now owns.
Follow-up (optional). A check on adoption at set points after handover, scoped separately.

What goes wrong without it

Structure by accident. The chart is a record of who was hired when, not a design. New roles are created around people and nobody can say what the company would look like without them.
Titles instead of pay. A manager becomes a director to stay. Two years later there are nine directors, no bands and a pay bill nobody can explain.
The professional CEO who lasts a year. Hired to run the company, but the owner never wrote down what he or she would stop deciding. Both are frustrated by month six.
A change announced, then abandoned. The new structure is emailed on a Thursday. Nobody explained it to the managers who have to make it work. It is quietly ignored.
HR outsourced to a spreadsheet. Contracts, leave and payroll are handled, and every question about grading, performance or succession goes to the owner.

What is out of scope

We do not recruit or place staff, run payroll, provide outsourced HR administration or deliver training courses. Where recruitment or payroll providers are needed, we help you write the brief and select them. We design the system; your HR team runs it.

Operations consulting when the structure question began as a process problem.
Governance and family business when family members work in the business and the rules for that are unwritten.
Strategy consulting when the organization has to be designed around a new direction.
Consulting in Egypt for organization and HR work in Cairo and Alexandria.

Frequently asked questions

What do HR consulting services cover? Organization design, operating model, job architecture and grading, pay structure, performance management, succession planning, change management and the design of the HR function itself. In plain terms: who does what, who decides what, how people are paid and assessed, and how a change is landed.

How do you differ from other HR consulting firms in Egypt and the Gulf? Many firms in the region sell recruitment, payroll outsourcing or training and attach advice to it. We do none of those, so the advice is not shaped by what else we can sell you. The work is done by the senior consultant you met on the scoping call, with the owner and the leadership team in the room.

What is organization design, and when does a company need it? Deciding the structure, roles and decision rights that fit the company's strategy and size, rather than the ones it accumulated. A company needs it when growth, a merger, a new CEO or a generational transition means the current structure is holding it back.

What is an operating model? The description of how the company runs: which decisions sit where, how the leadership team works, how functions and business units relate, and what the owner does and does not decide. The organization chart shows the boxes; the operating model says how they work together.

Do you do change management consulting on its own? Yes, when a change has already been decided, a merger, a new system, a new structure, and it needs to be landed. We plan the sequence, equip managers to explain it, and measure whether it has taken. For system changes we usually work alongside the digital transformation scope.

How much does HR consulting cost? Fixed fee per scope, quoted in writing after the scoping call. The fee depends on the number of companies, levels and countries in scope and on how much of the people system exists today.

Tell us where the organization is stuck

Thirty minutes on a call. Describe the symptom, the decisions that queue at your desk, the managers you are losing, the structure nobody can explain, and we will tell you what a diagnosis would involve, how long it would take and what it would cost.