Now offering in-person workshops in the Sacramento Region.
People
Foundations
You keep hiring. Things keep not changing.
People Foundations workshop is two days of methodology-driven work for founders who are done managing people problems that should not exist.
You are not losing good people because of compensation.
You are losing them because the business has not given them a reason to stay. No clear path. No development. No structure that shows them what their future inside the company looks like.
And you are not getting poor performance because you hired the wrong people. You are getting it because no one has defined what right performance looks like or built the system to develop people toward it.
Most founders think the solution is a better hire or that it is time to bring in HR to address people matters. The real solution is the people infrastructure that makes any hire successful and prevents the problems that make you think you need HR in the first place.
The people problems that feel like they require HR to fix are usually symptoms of missing infrastructure. No clear hiring process. No defined standards and expectations. No development system. No path for people to grow. And no performance framework — no system for identifying when someone is not meeting expectations, how to address it, when to document it, or how to handle it consistently and fairly.
This is what People Foundations helps you build and implement.
This workshop is for you if:
New hires are taking too long to ramp and you are not sure why
You have promoted someone and it is not going the way you hoped
Good people are leaving — not for more money, but because there is no path forward
You are the one resolving every conflict, every performance issue, every gray area
You know you need to develop leaders but you have no system for doing it
Your team waits on you for decisions that should not require you
This workshop is built for founders and operators of businesses with 5 to 50 employees in the $500K to $10M revenue range. If you do not have HR, people management, or development systems in place or you have pieces of it but nothing consistent, you are exactly who this is for. You do not need to have anything built before you walk in the door.
If you are on the fence, you are not alone.
“I'll learn it but won't have time to implement it.”
This is not just an educational event. You leave with the frameworks, the tools, and the first steps mapped out.
“I just need to hire the right people.”
Hiring better people into a business without people infrastructure does not fix the problem. It inherits it. The right hire walks into the same missing systems, unclear expectations, and lack of development that the last person did. The hire is not the problem. The foundation is.
“I think I just need to hire an HR person.”
Build the people infrastructure first. An HR person hired before the infrastructure exists spends most of their time reacting to problems the infrastructure would have prevented. When the foundation is in place, you will not need a full-time HR hire as soon as you thought and when you do bring one in, they will have something concrete to run.
“My business is different.”
The team dynamics, the industry, the culture — yes, those are different. The infrastructure principles are not. Whether you run a med spa, a construction company, or a professional services firm, the need for clear hiring criteria, defined expectations, a development system, and a performance framework is the same. The details are specific to your business. The methodology is consistent.
“I've tried things like this before and nothing really helped.”
That is the most common thing we hear. Advice without infrastructure does not stick. A workshop that hands you concepts and sends you home does not help. This is methodology — a system you can put into practice inside your business starting the week after you leave.
“Is this worth $2,000?”
What is it costing you now? Turnover, bad hires, legal matters or performance issues that go unaddressed, good people who leave because there is no path forward — those costs are real and they compound. The workshop is not an expense. It is a correction.
“I already know I need this. I just need to find the time.”
The workshop is two days. Two days to get the people infrastructure framework in place so the next twelve months look different than the last twelve.
What you will learn
Hiring the right people
Most hiring problems start before the interview. You need a clear picture of who you are looking for, what your mission and values have to do with that, and how to build a process that filters the wrong people out before they cost you time and money.
- How your mission, vision, values, and culture connect directly to who belongs in your business
- What an A-player actually looks like — the characteristics, the mindset, and what they are evaluating about your business before they ever say yes
- How to build a candidate profile that attracts the right fit
- A structured interview process: what to ask and what to listen for
- How to stop making hiring decisions based on gut feel alone
Onboarding that actually works
Most onboarding fails because it is either nonexistent or inconsistent. New hires follow someone around and hope they figure it out, or they get handed a document and told to read it. Neither works. And both cost the business more than most founders realize.
- The 30/60/90-day onboarding structure and why it changes everything
- How to connect every new hire to the mission — not just the task list
- Setting expectations clearly from day one so your team is not guessing what good looks like
- What it costs when onboarding fails — and how to stop paying that cost
Align. Develop. Promote.
This is Orbsi's proprietary people development methodology. It is a three-stage system for taking someone from new hire to high performer to leader. Most businesses skip this entirely and then wonder why their team is not growing or why their best people keep leaving.
- What alignment actually means beyond onboarding — and how to sustain it over time
- How to run one-on-ones that build capability and confidence, not just check boxes
- Career ladders: how to build them and how to show your team there is a future inside the business
- Individual development plans: how to use them without turning them into paperwork nobody reads
- Promotion criteria: how to make promotion visible, fair, and based on demonstrated readiness — not time served or need
- What A-players need to stay — and how structure, clarity, and a defined growth path is what keeps your best people from walking out the door
Handling employee issues and corrective action
Every manager will eventually have a hard conversation. Most are not ready for it. The absence of a clear process makes it worse — for the employee, for the manager, and for the business.
- What to do when performance is not where it needs to be
- How to have direct, fair, documented conversations
- Corrective action: what a framework looks like and why every leader needs one
- When and how to separate from an employee with professionalism and documentation
Developing leaders inside your business
You cannot scale if you are the only one making decisions. The goal of this section is to help you stop being the only leader in the building and build a team that can lead without you in every room.
- How to identify who has leadership potential on your current team
- What your business needs to have in place before you can develop someone into a leadership role
- How to build internal leaders without just promoting your best individual contributor and hoping for the best
- What it looks like to step back and what has to be true before you can
What two days actually looks like
This is not a lecture event. You will not sit through slides for six hours and leave with a notebook full of concepts you have no idea how to apply.
People Foundations runs across two full days. The content is methodology-driven and specific to the problems founder-led businesses face at the people layer. You will work through how the frameworks apply to your own business — not just hear about them in the abstract.
You will leave with:
A clear picture of where your people infrastructure gaps are
The language and frameworks to start building
A direct path to the next step — whether that is building it yourself, building it with Orbsi, or ongoing advisory support
Why this is different from everything else you have tried
Not theory.
Methodology.
Not generic.
Built for founder-led businesses.
Not a document you come home to.
A framework you can use starting Monday.
Most programs teach you what to do with people. Orbsi teaches you what to build and what it takes to lead from it.
Danielle, Orbsi's founder, is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist with 15+ years of leadership and operations experience, including leading large multi-location businesses and teams. That background is in the room with you for two days. The people and leadership content goes beyond tactics.
Orbsi's methodology is built on one foundational belief: infrastructure and leadership development are not a sequence. They are parallel. You can build every system in the business and still not let go because the identity has not shifted yet. You can do all the inner work and still have nothing for your team to run from. The founders who make the transition well do both at the same time.
That is what this workshop is built around.
Your team is ready for the infrastructure. The question is whether you are ready to build it.
Seats are limited. Our next People Foundations workshop is held in person in Folsom, CA. Exact location to be announced.