HR & ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT CONSULTING
Find Out What Is Actually Happening. Then Fix The Structure.
Organizational development, people strategy, and change management for organizations that have tried this before and watched it not stick. Engagements run from a single assessment to multi-year partnerships.
HOW WE CAN PARTNER
Three Areas, Blended To Fit.
We work in one area or across all three. The mix depends on what the assessment finds, not on a package you picked in advance.
People Strategy
Talent and human capital strategy that involves more than the HR team. Workforce planning, employee engagement, performance management design, succession planning, emerging leaders programs, and the decision-makers who actually have a stake in talent.
Organizational Development
Organizational effectiveness reviewed systematically: organizational design and restructuring, department assessments, cultural and climate surveys, compensation audits and pay equity review, classification studies, HR policy and handbook development.
Change Management
Transformations driven by technology, market shifts, mergers, acquisitions, or strategic realignment. Year over year change strategy, OKR and KPI frameworks, stakeholder management, town hall facilitation, and staff transition support.
Also available: Fractional and outsourced HR support on retainer, for organizations without an internal HR function or between HR leaders.
THE WORK
How An Engagement Actually Runs.
This is the shape most engagements take. The sequence adapts to what you need and the outcomes you are after, so where it starts varies. What does not vary is that we establish what is actually happening before recommending anything.
Align the leadership team first.
Before anything reaches employees, the executive team agrees on the desired outcome and how it connects to organizational goals. Programming that launches without that alignment is the most common reason this work fails the second time.
01
Measure what is actually happening.
A customized employee engagement and feedback assessment, administered anonymously through a third party. Depending on scope this is paired with focus groups, employee interviews, stakeholder interviews across departments, an HR audit, or a compensation and market analysis.
02
Report it back in the room, not by email.
Findings are presented live to leadership in an extended session, then reported out to the whole organization in a town hall. Telling employees what the survey said is what makes the next one worth answering.
03
Build the structure that addresses it.
A multi-year strategic plan with weighted pillars, tracked quarterly. An employee-led committee with real governance rather than a volunteer group. Where the findings call for it: policy and handbook work, a performance review system, revised job specifications, or a compensation structure.
04
Measure again next year.
The same instrument, re-run annually, so you can see movement instead of guessing at it. This is where most consulting engagements end and where the useful part of ours starts.
05
DELIVERABLES
What You Actually Receive.
Consulting is easy to describe abstractly and hard to buy that way. These are the artifacts clients have walked away with, drawn from real engagements.
Assessment
Customized survey instrument, built to your organization
Anonymous third-party administration
Findings report: structural gaps, cultural misalignment, people risks
Year-over-year comparison reporting
Per-division or per-department breakdowns
Live leadership readout session
Companywide town hall presentation
Focus group and employee interview summaries
Strategy
Multi-year strategic plan with weighted pillars
Quarterly scorecard and progress tracker
OKR and KPI framework
Committee charter, governance, and structure
Organizational chart and design recommendations
Company values development
Career path documentation
Emerging leaders program design
Systems & Policy
Employee handbook, and updates for state law changes
Individual HR policies
Performance review system: self, manager, and peer forms
Job specification and classification analysis
Compensation and market benchmarking against peers
Interview scorecard rubrics
HRIS and PEO evaluation and implementation
Onboarding, offboarding, and exit interview templates
WORKING TOGETHER
Three Ways Engagements Are Structured.
Defined Project
What It Looks Like:
A scoped piece of work with a start and an end, typically three to six months.
Best When:
You know what you need: an assessment, an HR audit, a compensation study, a restructuring review.
Retainer
What It Looks Like:
Ongoing advisory at an agreed monthly or quarterly cadence, renewed as the work continues.
Best When:
The work is continuous, priorities shift, or you need senior HR judgment available without hiring for it.
Annual
What It Looks Like:
A yearly assessment, readout, and strategy refresh on a repeating engagement.
Best When:
You want to track movement over time rather than commission a one-off study you cannot compare against.
Engagements have run from three weeks to more than four years. Most sit between three and twelve months, and several have renewed for multiple years.
PAST PERFORMANCE
Clients Keep Us For Years.
We showed you who we have worked with. This is how long they kept us.
51
months
Madison Reed
41
months
HOORAE Media
3
consecutive contracts
City of Richmond, VA
3
consecutive years
Las Trampas School
Berkshire Residential Investments partnered across three years and their employee-led taskforce grew to 55 members across 10 subcommittees. The City of Richmond brought us back twice after the first engagement, moving us from subcontractor to prime. Las Trampas has re-run the same annual assessment three years running, with participation reaching its highest level in year three.
“Our organizational development work continued to flourish as we build on the foundation we established together. We have also been very pleased with the progress that we have made in hiring candidates and are on target with the goals we established in that area. Thank you for your work on our behalf and for your ongoing support and advocacy.”
Stacy Newton
Chief People Officer, Oportun
Berkshire Residential Investments partnered across three years and their employee-led taskforce grew to 55 members across 10 subcommittees.
SECTORS
Where This Work Has Landed.
Consulting engagements across for-profit, nonprofit, union, and public sector. Our strongest fit is social impact oriented nonprofits, and our deepest work has been in entertainment, consumer, biotech, real estate, and municipal government.
Corporate & high growth
Entertainment and media, music, consumer products, apparel and retail, biotech and medical devices, insurance, banking and finance, energy and utilities, security software, manufacturing. Named clients include Madison Reed, HOORAE, Universal Music Group, Interscope Geffen A&M Records, Spotify, Berkshire Residential Investments, Inflammatix, McDonald's, and Creed.
Nonprofit & membership
Social impact nonprofits, philanthropy, disability services, education, membership associations, and labor unions. Named clients include Las Trampas School, the Kataly Foundation, and SAG-AFTRA.
Public sector
Federal agencies, state government, and municipal government. Named clients include the City of Richmond, Virginia, the City of Sacramento, NASA, the EPA, the FAA, the CDC, the USDA, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Federal Executive Board.
PUBLIC SECTOR
Set-Aside Eligible.
TMS Business Consulting, Inc. is certified by the U.S. Small Business Administration as a Women-Owned Small Business (WOSB) and an Economically Disadvantaged Women-Owned Small Business (EDWOSB), and is a certified Women/Minority Business Enterprise (W/MBE).
SAM UEI M871GKP65R57 | CAGE Code 07E13
NAICS 541612, 541611, 541618, 541720, 611430, 921190SIN 541612LOB, 541612HC, 611430
QUESTIONS
Before A Discovery Call.
How long does a consulting engagement take?
It depends on scope. A single assessment with a leadership readout can run four to eight weeks. A defined project such as an HR audit or a compensation study typically runs three to six months. Ongoing advisory work runs on a retainer and renews as the work continues. Several of our engagements have run for multiple years.
What happens on the first call?
We ask what is actually going on and what outcome you need. If there is a fit, you receive a scoped proposal, usually within a week, that breaks the work into phases with deliverables attached to each one. Nothing is signed before both sides have agreed on what success looks like.
Who does the work?
Dr. Tana M. Session, JD leads every engagement personally and authors every report. TMS is a boutique firm and works with specialist partners for survey administration and analysis, which is how assessments stay anonymous: employees respond through a third party, not through us or through you.
Do you work with organizations that have tried this before?
Often. A significant share of engagements start with an organization that has commissioned this kind of work previously and watched the changes fade. That is usually a structure problem rather than a commitment problem, which is why the plan, the governance, and the annual re-measurement matter more than the initial report.
Can you work with our existing HR team, or do you need to lead?
Both happen. Some engagements coach and build capacity in an existing HR function, including coaching a newly hired HR director. Others provide fractional HR support where there is no internal function yet. The assessment determines which.
Do you take government contracts?
Yes. TMS is an SBA-certified WOSB and EDWOSB and a certified W/MBE, with federal, state, and municipal past performance, and holds an active statewide price agreement with the State of Oregon through May 2027. We have delivered as both prime and subcontractor.
CONTACT
Tell Us What Is Actually Going On.
The first conversation is a diagnostic, not a pitch. Bring the problem you have not been able to name.
30+ years
in human resources, including 10 as a senior HR executive.
PHR · GPHR · SHRM-SCP
plus an ICF-approved executive performance coaching certification.
WOSB · EDWOSB · W/MBE
SBA certified February 2025.