For companies
Compliance and people-function installs for companies whose exposure sits between departments.
Hybrid. On site across Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, San Mateo and Alameda. Remote beyond them.
Why companies call
The EHS or compliance lead left, or the function was never assigned. Permits, filings, claim figures, and agency letters now route to whoever answered last.
An inspection, a citation, a claim, a notice, or a new obligation under Title 8 or the Labor Code. The written record has to match the floor before the date.
Sale, reduction in force, merger, closure, a new entity in a new state. Retention, releases, separation sets, final pay, and the records the buyer inherits.
An injury, a discharge, a complaint, a termination that has to hold. Investigated, controlled, and placed on a dated record before it becomes a citation or a claim.
How the work sits inside the company
HR, finance, operations, facilities, and quality each own their lane. The exposure lives between the lanes: the permit nobody renewed, the tax notice nobody opened, the claim figure nobody checked, the plan nobody adopted.
The practice reads across all of them and brings each department the piece that is theirs, with an owner and a date. HR stays the owner of employee matters. The engagement reports to the executive who sponsors it.
The exposure is rarely in the department that called. One reader, every desk.
Cal/OSHA Title 8 is the operative authority in every safety document. Federal standards are context only. The company signs every certification. The consultant authors; the company adopts.
The work
Two days with the company, on site or remote, and a document and systems review across people and compliance: handbook, leaves, pay practices, classifications, agreements, safety programs, permits, claims, records, HRIS and payroll setup, and the agency mail. The owner attends the readout.
You leave with: the Exposure Map, every finding ranked by consequence, what exists in writing against what exists in practice, and a thirty-day action trail with named owners. Credited in full against any install that follows within sixty days.
The complete people or safety program set, installed in sequence over ninety days, each program with an internal owner trained to run it. Two editions, People and Safety, and both together for regulated operators. The incoming lead, the controller, or the owner inherits a working function, not a backlog.
Includes the operating layer: the company's own AI project set, built on its documents and installed on its account, so the program library, compliance calendar, meeting summaries, agency correspondence, and owner reporting run without the consultant.
After install. Two days each month, on site or remote, the cross-department read kept current, permits and filings, claims and insurance oversight, incident response within twenty-four hours, cover for the vacant specialist seat, and owner or board reporting. Works alongside HR, finance, and operations.
You leave with: a function that holds between visits, and a monthly Decision Record to the person who approves the renewal: what moved, what it is worth, what is next.
Sale, reduction in force, closure, merger, or new entity. Retention agreements with releases, separation sets including the age-disclosure versions, final pay compliance, WARN and Cal-WARN check, benefits continuation, records transfer, and the headcount and risk log through close. Fixed scope by headcount, with a defined close date.
You leave with: a close the buyer can inherit and the seller can defend.
Investment is stated once, in the scoping conversation. The Read and any safety install happen on site; people programs, reporting and the retained cadence run remote wherever the records and the people can be reached that way. Travel inside the four counties is included. Beyond a two-hour drive, terms are set in the engagement letter.
What the Read usually finds
A plan the law has required for years that was never adopted.
A log the permit requires that was never kept.
A claims figure ownership was using that the carrier's own record contradicts.
A notice with a deadline that nobody opened, because nobody owned the mailbox.
No client is named on this page, in conversation, or in writing. Every account is described only by what was found and what was fixed. That is a condition of the work, not a courtesy.
Not for
Which door first
Nothing is sent anywhere. The answers stay on this page and produce the first door this practice would open for a company in your position.
The one door
Write with the company name, headcount, the sites, and what prompted the call. Replies go out within two business days, and the first conversation is a scoping call, not a pitch.
The practice
Dharma Funder. Santa Cruz, California. Nine years as principal of a California people and safety consultancy. Director-level people leadership in SaaS, contract HR Director to a public-company CEO and board, the people side of a property sale run through close. SHRM-SCP, MBA, Six Sigma Green Belt, OSHA 10, HIPAA Privacy Officer. Four languages.
Author of Signal Loss™: Why Capable Leaders Stop Choosing Under Pressure.
The owner inside an account sometimes needs a different conversation: the decision that is sitting unmade. That is the advisory practice at dharmafunder.com. It is named once, when the moment is visible, and it is never bundled into the corporate work.