FAQs

If you’re wondering what your symptoms suggest

  • People often think it is when something breaks or the business is in crisis, but it isn’t always that dramatic. The best time to review your structure and make change is when you begin to notice inefficiencies. Some signals to watch for are:

    • Decisions are slow or unclear. Something that should take a week takes a month because it's not clear who decides or owns what.

    • People are confused about responsibilities. You hear "I didn't know that was your job" or people are stepping on each other's toes.

    • Your structure worked at 10 people but you're now 30+. The informal, everyone-does-everything approach that was flexible is now chaotic.

    • The same people are always firefighting. Critical functions depend on one person, and they're overwhelmed.

    • You're losing good people. Not because of pay alone, but because they're burned out, unclear on growth paths, or frustrated with how things work.

    • You're scaling but not scaling well. You have revenue/impact growth, but team efficiency isn't keeping up.

  • Nonprofit staff turnover is significantly higher than other sectors, with research showing that 67% of nonprofit employees are looking for new jobs or will be within a year. The top reasons cited are: too much work and too little support, limited growth opportunities, and unsupportive management. Employees who stay cite flexibility, mission alignment, and a supportive work environment (71%).

    Turnover is often about structure, culture, and how people are led—things you can actually control.

    We can help to address these issues, such as:

    • No growth path. People see a ceiling and no way to progress, even if salary is limited.

    • One person does everything. Burnout is predictable when someone's managing finance, HR, and program.

    • Management isn't management. Leaders aren't trained to lead, so people feel unsupported.

    • Mission-impact gap. People came for the mission but are stuck in broken systems that prevent impact.

  • When someone leaves, the costs go far beyond salary replacement:

    Direct costs:

    • Recruitment and hiring process: $5-10k

    • Training and onboarding: $5-15k

    • Time managers spend backfilling: 20-40 hours

    Indirect costs:

    • Lost productivity during transition: 3-6 months at reduced capacity

    • Institutional knowledge walking out the door (especially in nonprofits where relationships matter)

    • Other staff overworking to cover gaps, leading to more burnout and turnover

    • Donor/client relationships disrupted

    Estimates suggest losing a single employee can cost 50% of their annual salary or more, with some positions costing $30,000+ when all factors are included.

    Investing in structure, clarity, and culture lead to lower turnover, which means:

    • Higher mission impact (less time backfilling, more time serving)

    • Institutional memory preserved

    • Better donor/client relationships

    • Healthier, more engaged team

    This is why fixing organizational issues is an investment, not just an expense.

  • Culture doesn't exist in a vacuum—it's created by structure, leadership, and how work gets done. Signs of a broken culture:

    • People don't trust each other. Silos exist. Teams don't collaborate. Information doesn't flow.

    • High stress, low clarity. People are working hard but don't understand how their work connects to mission.

    • New people leave quickly. They come excited about the mission, but quickly realize "that's not how we actually work here."

    • The mission and the workplace feel misaligned. You're helping communities, but internally there's resentment, politics, or burnout.

    • Feedback isn't safe. People won't tell you what's wrong because they fear consequences.

    • You can't scale culture. What worked when everyone knew each other doesn't work now, and you don't know how to maintain it.

If you’re wondering what to do

  • There's no one-size-fits-all answer. It depends on what needs to change: is it a simple shift to make roles clearer; restructuring existing teams; or merging or creating new functions.

    It can be helpful to consider any change in phases:

    Phase 1 Clarifying what isn’t working and why change is needed

    Phase 2 Designing the new structure and communicate it

    Phase 3 Implementing the move of people into new roles and supporting transition

    Phase 4 Ongoing monitoring, adjust what isn't working, embed the new way of working

    Rushing creates resistance, confusion, and often fails. Going too slow creates uncertainty. The right pace is fast enough to maintain momentum but slow enough that people understand what's happening and can adapt.

  • The uncertainty of change triggers fears that drive people to seek comfort and certainty, sometimes elsewhere.

    You can provide clarity and certainty for staff by:

    1. Including them early. Ask teams what's broken and get their input on solutions. People support what they help create.

    2. Communicating the why clearly. "we're restructuring because decisions were slow and nobody knew who owned what. Here's how the new structure fixes that."

    3. Being transparent about what's changing and what's staying. Uncertainty is worse than hard news. Tell people what's changing, when, and what stays the same.

    4. Supporting people through it. Training, clear role definitions, one-on-one conversations with managers. Make it clear you're investing in people, not just changing org charts.

    5. Celebrate quick wins and seeking feedback. Share what is working and address what isn’t.

  • Both are approaches to identifying issues within an organisation and making changes to increase effectiveness. Some ways in which organisational development is different include:

    • Based on understanding your unique situation not driven by a playbook of strategies

    • Focused on the structure, culture, process and leadership systems, not stretching into external areas such as commercialisation strategies and market differentiation

    • Setting up for the long term as opposed to a point in time project

  • HR (or human resources) encompasses essential functions for the day to day running of an organisation such as payroll, employee records, benefits and policies. Organisational development support involves designing the structure and setup, culture and restructure, team dynamics and managing change. Larger organisations often have capacity for both in their teams. Leaner organisations tend to leverage OD ad hoc as needs arise.

If you’re wondering whether this is the right option

  • Collecting data about what isn’t working creates clear goals on what to fix, and a set of metrics to track before the intervention and after the intervention. What success looks like depends on what your particular context looks like, but could include:

    • Decision time cut by 20%

    • Turnover drops by 10%

    • More staff report being clear on their goals

    • Impact/mission metrics enhanced by 10%

  • We offer three levels of support because each organisation is at a different stage of expertise or maturity.

    1. DIY: You work through the templates and guides on your own and at your own pace. Best if you have an idea of what you want to address, and need some structure and rigour to help you. Most accessible from a cost perspective, particularly if you only want ad hoc support.

    2. AI assisted: This is auggy. Trained on the same knowledge and guidance as the DIY tools, with a little bit of extra support to work through the data and analysis. You will also be provided practical suggestions for action to consider. Available on call at the fraction of the cost of traditional consulting or advisory. Best when you have ongoing needs.

    3. Advisory support: A real human working alongside you to understand your specific situation. Best when you have ongoing challenges and some uncertainty about exactly what that may entail. Customised to your budget and to deliver only what you need.

  • You do need to spend some time, but you can get back so much more.

    Time investment:

    • DIY tools: Work at your own pace (30 mins-2 hours per week)

    • Auggy: Ask questions when you have them (5-15 mins per question)

    • Advisory: Usually 2-3 hours per month plus implementation

    Time you save after:

    • Faster decision-making (you get time back)

    • Clarity on roles (people stop asking what they should do)

    • Reduced firefighting (clearer structure = fewer crises)

    Slow decisions, unclear roles, and staff turnover drain way more time than proactive organization. The time you spend now saves you the wasted time working inefficiently and the time you’ll spend if you delay until something major goes wrong.

  • Each organisation is unique. Our tools work because they're flexible. We know what works for a 10-person nonprofit is different from a 50-person startup. Our guidance adapts to YOUR situation.

    We don't:

    • Sell you a template and say "follow this"

    • Assume one structure works everywhere

    • Ignore your mission, constraints, or culture

    We do:

    • Start with your situation (not a standard playbook)

    • Ask about your constraints (budget, values, stage)

    • Help you design something that works for you

    • Support your specific implementation

If you want to know more about augmentative

  • We work best with:

    ✓ Nonprofits needing to transition from "everyone does everything" to having clear structure
    ✓ Startups building teams as you grow from 5-50+ people
    ✓ SMEs with strong mission but organizational challenges
    ✓ Growing organizations realizing "how we worked at 10 people doesn't work at 40"
    ✓ One-person HR/ops teams doing too much alone
    ✓ Leaders knowing something's broken but not sure how to fix it

    We're probably not the fit if:

    • You're a large enterprise with a big HR department (you need different resources)

    • You're not ready to be hands-on (you want someone to take it off your plate entirely)

    • Your core problem is financial/market, not organisational

    If you're unsure: Send us what you want to address. We'll be honest about whether we can help.

  • auggy is an AI assisted advisor trained specifically on organizational development and transformation expertise. auggy is there to guide you through the process of gathering the right information, and analysing the data to recommend solutions or options.

    auggy gives you:

    • Support to ask the right questions

    • Practical, immediate answers (not generic templates)

    • Tailored advice based on YOUR situation (nonprofits, startups, SMEs)

    • Plain-language explanations (no jargon required)

    • Available 24/7 (ask at 3am if you need to)

    • Costs a fraction of traditional consulting

    • You stay in control (it advises, you decide)