Senior People Strategy & Responsible AI Adoption for growing New Zealand businesses

Fractional People Leadership 

Strategic people leadership without the cost of hiring and onboarding a full-time executive

Not ready to hire an HR executive?

CPO-level capability, delivered fractionally, typically at 25–35% of the cost of a full-time executive. No fixed overheads. No long-term employment commitment. Our model is designed for flexibility: a simple engagement structure with a 30-day exit, giving you senior capability with minimal risk and immediate impact.

Ideal when you are scaling, navigating change, or between executives and need steady, senior leadership in place.

What you get instead of a full time hire?
  • Senior-level capability already operational - no recruitment time loss
  • Deep experience across people strategy, governance, workforce design, and responsible AI
  • An independent perspective - commercially grounded and honest
  • Flexibility to scale up or step back as your organisation evolves
  • No fixed overhead, no recruitment risk, no long-term commitment beyond the minimum term

Not sure? Book a 90 min People Strategy Diagnostic session

People Strategy Diagnostic is a 90-minute session for founders and leadership teams.This session gives you an independent, senior perspective on what's actually happening — and what to do about it.

  • A focused 90-minute session with a senior people strategist
  • A written People Priorities Brief delivered within 48 hours
  • Your top three priorities, clearly named and ranked
  • An honest assessment of where your employment risk sits
  • Practical recommendations on next steps — with no obligation to continue

$950 + GST includes the 90-minute session and your written People Priorities Brief. Retainer credit: If you proceed to a retainer within 30 days, this investment is credited in full against your first month.

Woman sitting with hands on temples looking worried

Responsible AI Adoption & Governance

We support you in effectively navigating AI adoption and future-proofing your Workforce Strategy

Unsure about AI adoption?

We support you to integrate AI responsibly, embedding policy and guardrails while facilitating understanding and ongoing accountability with your team

  • AI workforce impact assessment & review
  • Responsible AI governance frameworks
  • AI capability mapping

Managing Risk

We design governance frameworks that will ensure you reduce your employment risks while supporting high performance and keeping your board informed.

  • Employment law compliance systems
  • Policy architecture
  • Risk audits and exposure mapping

Workforce Change

We assist in redesigning processes to navigate change while supporting your people and business to grow for long-term success

Facing major change? We can help

We help redesign systems and integrate change seamlessly. Our employee experience lens ensures change does not destabilise the culture but instead results in positive lasting outcomes. Most change methods optimise for delivery. We optimise for adoption.

  • Workforce planning aligned to strategy
  • Change design and leadership alignment
  • Employee experience lens

WorkTheory's change process

WorkTheory's change model brings together McKinsey 7S to diagnose what's misaligned, Kotter's 8-Step Model to structure and lead the response, and an employee experience thread woven through every stage to ensure change is designed and experienced well

'Phillipa believes that a diverse and inclusive workplace brings out the best in our people, enabling us to provide superior products and services'

- CEO Major NZ Hotel Group  

How we work with you

We start by listening to the organisation and to the people within it. No fluff. No off-the-shelf answers. Just rigorous, commercially grounded people strategy — designed around your organisation and delivered fractionally.

Fractional, Flexible, Strategic

Whether you require a focused strategic reset or ongoing executive partnership, we tailor engagement to your stage of growth. WorkTheory partners with founders, boards and leadership teams to design high-performing, future-ready organisations by aligning people strategies and systems with business strategies to scale with clarity and confidence. We help SMEs with between 20 and 500 staff by designing intelligent systems that strengthen culture, engagement and future-proof your workforce. When your people systems are designed well, everything else works!

WorkTheory is not an outsourced HR but an executive-level people strategy, delivered flexibly when and where you need it most. You gain clear direction, reduced governance risk, scalable systems, stronger leadership foundations and most importantly, time to focus on leading your business.

"The cost of getting your people strategy wrong is always higher than the cost of getting it right."

— WorkTheory Co.

Research from the Journal of Business Strategy supports gaining a competitive advantage with the use of Fractional Executives

A fraction of an executive: new ways to save and compete

M. So and A. Teckchandani: The Journal of business strategy 2023 Vol. 44 Issue 4 Pages 211-218, DOI: 10.1108/JBS-02-2022-0024