The Sound Check
Before anyone changes anything, find out what the company actually sounds like.
3 weeks →People & Organization Advisory · Duluth, Georgia
The sound a company makes when it’s running right.
THRUM is a people and organization advisory in Duluth, Georgia. We build the load-bearing parts of a company — how roles are defined, how decisions get made, what the handbook actually says, and what the benefits actually buy.
thrum (v.) to hum with a low, steady, resonant sound — the noise a machine makes when it is running correctly. (n.) in weaving, the fringe of warp threads fixed to a loom; the foundation threads every other thread is woven onto.
What we are against
HR is infrastructure,
not insurance.
Most of what gets sold as human resources is insulation — built to absorb risk and produce documents nobody reads. It is a cost centre because it was designed as one.
- A 94-page handbookwritten by a lawyer in 2011, which no employee has opened and no manager can quote.
- A laminated posterby the time clock, in one language, in a building where eleven are spoken.
- An open-enrollment PDFthat nobody can turn into an actual decision.
- Titles that signal senioritybut not work — so nobody is quite sure who decides.
- “Please see HR.”Three words meaning: this is now somebody else’s problem.
Manifesto
Listen to your company. Not to the all-hands. Not to the engagement survey. To the machine.
A company that is strung right makes a particular sound. Decisions land. New people are useful in a fortnight, not a quarter. Managers know what they are allowed to decide. Nobody is running a private spreadsheet to get around the official process.
A company that is strung wrong makes a different sound, and everyone inside can hear it. The rework. The meeting that exists to undo the last meeting. The good employee who leaves, whose exit interview says “personal reasons” because the true answer takes too long to explain.
Most of what gets called a people problem is a structure problem wearing a person’s face.
So we do not start with values workshops. We start with the warp — the threads everything else is woven onto. Who decides. What a level means. What the job actually pays. What the handbook says when somebody finally reads it at eleven at night, because something has gone wrong.
We get those strung right, in plain language, in every language your people actually speak.
Then the company hums. And you can hear it from the door.
Six engagements
Every one is a fixed fee and a named deliverable.
Consulting billed by the hour is paid to take longer. Ours is not. A scope, a date and a number, agreed before anything starts.
The Warp
The threads everything else gets woven onto.
5 – 8 weeks →Plain Language
A policy nobody can read is a policy nobody follows — and a policy nobody follows is worse than no policy, because it is evidence.
4 – 6 weeks →What It’s Worth
Most employees cannot tell you what their job actually pays. That is a design failure, not a communication problem.
4 – 8 weeks →The Crossweave
Your handbook is in one language. Your building isn’t.
6 – 10 weeks →The Residency
A people function without the headcount.
Monthly · 3-month minimum →Why Duluth matters
Your handbook is in one language. Your building isn’t.
Gwinnett is the most internationally mixed county in the Southeast, and Duluth sits in the middle of it. That is not a talking point here. It is the operating condition of every client we have.
1 in 4Gwinnett residents born outside the United States
100+languages and dialects spoken across the county
27countries with companies operating inside Duluth’s city limits
1,750+businesses within Duluth alone
Figures: Partnership Gwinnett and the City of Duluth economic development office.
Find out what your company actually sounds like.
A Sound Check runs three weeks for a fixed fee: interviews across every level and shift, a teardown of every people document in the building, and a ranked plan with costs attached. You are not obliged to buy anything after it.