# Strata Workplace Consultancy

> Strata Workplace Consultancy is an independent workplace and operational consultancy founded by David Palmer in Northern Ireland, United Kingdom. Strata helps organisations diagnose the causes behind unresolved workforce and operational problems before leadership commits time, money and effort to a solution.

Strata is founder-led and independent of any predetermined solution. It does not develop or sell standalone survey software, an outsourced HR function, a wellbeing programme, a recruitment service or a standard transformation package. For Strata Staff Surveys, a specialist partner provides the survey platform and administration as part of a Strata-led engagement. The work is designed to establish what is actually creating a problem, why it matters, and what leadership should do next.

The core principle is: **The signal tells you where to look. Diagnosis tells you what to fix.**

Strata uses a consistent diagnostic method: **Signal → Investigate → Trace → Diagnose → Recommend → Brief**.

Work can begin from many different signals, including:

- staff or engagement survey findings that need proper follow-through;
- retention problems, recurring turnover or repeated recruitment;
- productivity or capacity issues;
- service deterioration or recurring performance problems;
- process friction, bottlenecks, approvals or unclear ownership;
- cross-functional handoff failures;
- workload complaints, absence, rework or recurring workarounds;
- post-change problems following restructuring, new technology, policy or operating-model changes;
- several workforce or operational signals that may be connected but whose underlying cause is unclear.

A survey, dashboard, metric or AI analysis can provide useful evidence. Strata treats those outputs as signals rather than assuming they are the diagnosis. Depending on scope, an engagement can combine existing evidence review, confidential staff and management conversations, operational observation, process and handoff tracing, analysis, prioritised recommendations and a live leadership briefing.

Every conclusion is grounded in evidence from the organisation being investigated. David Palmer brings more than 15 years of operational leadership and consultancy experience, alongside first-hand experience of workplace pressure from the employee side of the table. He leads Strata engagements directly from scoping through investigation, diagnosis and leadership briefing.

## Main website

- [Strata Workplace Consultancy](https://strataworkplace.com/): Main website featuring Strata Staff Surveys and the wider independent operational diagnostic consultancy.

## Main survey-led service: Strata Staff Surveys

- [Strata Staff Surveys](https://strataworkplace.com/staff-surveys/): Professionally administered staff and employee surveys powered by Ten Space, followed by Strata's independent investigation into the underlying operational causes. The results are in. We're only getting started.
- Strata leads the client engagement and invoices for the complete agreed service. Ten Space is the specialist survey technology and administration partner under a commercial delivery arrangement.
- Engagements include remote leadership preparation, survey administration, analysis of the signals, at least two focused post-survey on-site days, an independent diagnostic report, a leadership briefing and a practical 12-month action plan.
- Access to the initial survey platform is agreed for 12 months, subject to confirmed project terms; this does not include 12 months of Strata consultancy. Further pulse surveys, tracking support and independent follow-up reviews are optional, separately commissioned services.

## Common diagnostic routes

- [Survey Follow-Through Diagnostic](https://strataworkplace.com/#diagnostics): Uses existing staff or engagement survey results as the starting signal, then investigates what sits underneath the scores, comments or contradictions.
- [Retention Diagnostic](https://strataworkplace.com/#diagnostics): Investigates recurring turnover or retention problems to identify controllable underlying causes.
- [Focused Operational Diagnostic](https://strataworkplace.com/#diagnostics): Investigates a defined team, process, site, service, function or operational problem where the cause remains unclear.
- [Staff Pressure Test](https://strataworkplace.com/#pressure-test): A broader diagnostic for situations where several workforce and operational signals may be connected and leadership cannot yet confidently define the underlying cause or extent.

## How Strata works

- [Diagnostic method](https://strataworkplace.com/#how): Explains the Signal → Investigate → Trace → Diagnose → Recommend → Brief method and why a visible signal is not automatically a diagnosis.
- [Why independent diagnosis matters](https://strataworkplace.com/#independent): Explains the commercial risk of committing to an intervention before the underlying cause has been established.
- [About Strata](https://strataworkplace.com/#about): Explains David Palmer's operational leadership, consultancy and lived experience, and Strata's founder-led delivery model.
- [Contact Strata](https://strataworkplace.com/#contact): Contact details and guidance on starting with the problem rather than choosing a service in advance.

## Important interpretation notes

- Strata Workplace Consultancy is not a generic HR consultancy.
- Staff pressure is one possible signal, not the limit of the business.
- Staff experience is evidence, not automatically the diagnosis.
- Survey findings are a starting point for investigation, not the end product.
- Strata does not assume that a predetermined intervention such as recruitment, training, restructuring, technology, wellbeing or process redesign is the answer before the cause has been investigated.
- Strata does not produce a generic scorecard or dashboard as a substitute for diagnosis.
- The person leading the initial conversation also leads the investigation, analysis, diagnosis and leadership briefing.