Indigenous Human Resources Consulting Services
Partnering with Indigenous organizations to build and implement customized people-centred practices that lay the foundation for long-term success and sustainable growth.
Your people are at the heart of your organization’s success. But managing HR — from hiring and performance to policies and planning — quickly becomes complex and time-consuming. Values-based, practical solutions aligned to your goals and objectives help you manage your HR function and support operational stability.
Our Indigenous HR Consulting team works alongside you to assess and build practices that align with your needs while supporting organizational and employee performance, development and capacity. We ensure compliance with applicable legislation and apply best practice policies to build an equitable and effective workplace, supporting strong team performance and meeting operational goals. We begin by listening to understand your vision for the future and the current challenges you are facing today. From there, we collaborate to craft strategies that respect traditions and align HR to your values in ways that make sense. More than that, we’re here to help you create lasting capacity, ensuring your team has the tools, processes, and knowledge to continue growing stronger.
Challenges we help you solve
Ineffective HR policies and practices
Overly rigid or reactive HR practices can suppress communication and erode trust. When policies are inconsistently applied or misunderstood, they lead to disengagement and a culture that values control over connection.
Role clarity
Unclear roles create confusion, duplicated effort, and blurred lines between governance and administration. Staff may struggle to make decisions, while Chief and Council, and/or board of directors may get pulled into day-to-day operations, hindering progress and cohesion.
Capacity, turnover, and access to skilled talent
High turnover and limited access to talent disrupt continuity, pressure teams, and stall progress. Without strong retention strategies, organizations risk losing valuable knowledge, weakening culture, and compromising service quality.
Compensation
Compensation challenges are often systemic, complex, and emotionally charged, particularly when conventional frameworks overlook Indigenous knowledge and lived experience. Inadequate, inequitable, or non-defensible pay structures can drive resentment, disengagement, turnover, and budget strain.
Workplace well-being
Stress, burnout, lateral violence, unresolved conflict, and lack of psychological safety can erode trust and cultural integrity. When well-being is compromised, participation drops, innovation stalls, and cycles of trauma may be reinforced.
What we can do together
Well-defined workplace practices
We help shift from punitive, compliance-based HR to practices grounded in trust, respect, and cultural relevance. Through restorative policy design, dialogue, and conflict resolution, we support clear expectations and constructive, culturally grounded workplace processes.
Building strong organizational alignment
Developing tools such as up-to-date job descriptions, organizational charts, and decision-making frameworks will help reduce ambiguity, clarify responsibilities, and strengthen accountability. This empowers staff and keeps leaders focused on long-term goals and shared outcomes.
Recruitment, onboarding, and retention strategies
We work with you to develop people-first strategies that reflect your values and community. By emphasizing cultural relevance and lived experience, we help attract the right talent, support growth, and reduce turnover through meaningful, capacity-building pathways.
Holistic compensation approach
We help design fair and transparent compensation strategies that reflect Indigenous knowledge, lived experience, and community impact. Our process addresses inequities, strengthens trust, and supports recruitment and retention through values-informed, defensible pay frameworks.
Culture of well-being
We support organizations in building culturally grounded strategies that address burnout, conflict, and psychological safety. Through training, leadership development, and community-informed practices, we help build resilient workplaces where people feel valued, supported, and able to thrive.
Frequently Asked Questions
Policy is best adopted when it is relevant and meaningful to your team members, reflecting common culture, goals and objectives. We work with you to ensure policy is not a set of imposed rules but rather a way to define your workplace, its practices and how everyone works together for their own and the collective benefit of their community or organization. We strongly recommend face-to-face training sessions for all staff so they can learn the reason for the policy, the expectations and how to successfully work together.
Defining roles and responsibilities begins with understanding the organization’s purpose and laying out the roles you need to carry out the work. Most organizations know why they exist however it is common for roles to simply evolve beyond the initial design. Our approach is to confirm your purpose and understand the roles you currently have as well as the gaps preventing you carrying out all aspects of your mandate or purpose. Once the gaps are understood, we look at options based on how roles and responsibilities are divided, balanced, and right-sized to meet the organization’s needs. We propose options for you which might include some immediate and future changes that can be introduced based on the pace of change that best fits your organization.
Contact us
You have a vision for your future. We’re here to help you get there. Take the first step and connect with us to learn more.
Who you'll collaborate with
Cori Maedel
Partner, Consulting - Human Resources
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