Every ambitious organisation knows growth isn’t driven by strategy alone. It depends on the people who bring that strategy to life, the culture shaping how work gets done, and the structures that support such progress. Even the strongest strategic HR plan will struggle without alignment across these foundations. That’s why more leaders are turning to People Health Audits as the essential first step in effective strategic HR management and planning.
A People Health Audit gives a clear, evidence-based view of what’s really happening inside your organisation, moving beyond surface-level indicators to uncover the realities driving performance, engagement, collaboration, and long-term resilience. When paired with a Workplace Wellbeing Audit, it creates a holistic picture of how work happens – and how people experience it – offering a powerful platform for growth.
Here, we explore exactly what these two processes look like in practice, and how they can add tangible value to businesses across every stage.
Why clarity matters in modern people strategy
Many companies have reliable operational HR foundations. Policies, processes, and systems keep daily life functioning, but they don’t reveal whether culture is helping or hindering progress, whether leadership is prepared for the future, or whether teams have a structure that genuinely supports commercial ambition.
This is where gaps often quietly form. Decision making becomes inconsistent, teams drift into silos, leaders feel stretched, recruitment becomes more reactive, and culture feels less cohesive. Without understanding the root cause, it’s easy to see performance slip – and business growth becoming stagnant as a result.
But all is not lost. A People Health Audit brings these issues into focus, highlighting the strengths you can build on and the opportunities to work differently. It gives leaders the clarity to create a strategic HR plan that delivers in practice, and not solely on paper.
What’s involved in a People Health Audit?
hoomph’s People Health Audit offers a deep, practical review of the factors shaping everyday performance, designed to give organisations a grounded understanding of where they stand. Here’s what this might look like in practice:
1. Diving into organisational structure
The audit begins with a review of your organisation’s design, leadership setup, and people team structure (if applicable). This creates the context for understanding how well your people infrastructure aligns with your business goals, so you can make evidence-based decisions about how to optimise roles and responsibilities to drive growth.
2. Examining core HR functions
Our experts then explore the HR functions that most influence performance and employee experience within your business, including:
Talent acquisition and recruitment
Performance and development
Compensation and benefits
Diversity, equity, and inclusion
People processes and HR technology
Documentation and compliance
By understanding how these areas operate and where inconsistencies or limitations exist, leaders gain a grounded view of the systems shaping capability, engagement, and growth, enabling them to prioritise changes that will have the biggest and most immediate impact.
3. Understanding culture and behaviours
A large part of the audit focuses on how people actually work together. This includes assessing whether values translate into behaviours, whether managers are equipped to lead effectively, and whether everyday practices support or obstruct organisational ambition. This often reveals the difference between how leaders think work happens and the reality employees experience day to day, making sure any interventions are designed to meet the needs of your team head on.
For example, while leaders might assume that communication flows smoothly across internal teams, it could be true that information often gets delayed or lost, creating bottlenecks that impact decision-making and performance. Without this insight from the people experiencing those challenges every day, leaders might invest in new tools or training that don’t fix the real friction points, leaving collaboration and productivity unresolved.
4. Turning insight into action
The audit concludes with targeted recommendations and a high-level roadmap, distilling the findings into clear priorities and showing where focus will deliver the greatest impact. The aim is simplicity and direction, with a structured view of where your people strategy already supports progress and where specific changes could accelerate results.
And, if you need support implementing our recommendations, our People Health Audit can be followed up with optional add-on services – from one-off projects to retained fractional HR support – to help you turn insight into lasting impact.
5. Staying on track with follow-up support
To get the most from your People Health Audit, we recommend following it up with implementation support or a second audit around six months later. This keeps momentum alive, helps you track progress, and ensures priorities stay aligned as your business evolves – especially during periods of growth or strategic change.
The insights leaders can expect
The results of our People Health Audit are usually both affirming and revealing. Leaders often recognise themes instinctively, but the audit adds evidence, depth, and context to help act with complete confidence. You may discover your culture is stronger than expected, or that certain behaviours are quietly undermining performance. You might find strong leadership capability but inconsistent management practice, or learn it’s your structure, rather than any individual, that is the root of tension. Some even discover that capability gaps are the only barrier to unlocking their next phase of growth, with everything else perfectly in tune.
Whatever challenges you face, these insights replace guesswork with clarity, allowing leaders to make decisions based on what people truly need, and not what they assume to be the case within their strategic HR plan.
How a People Health Audit strengthens decision making
One of the greatest frustrations for leadership teams is making decisions without a clear understanding of the underlying issues. Investing in training, restructuring, or rolling out wellbeing initiatives only works when the root causes are known. A People Health Audit removes this uncertainty.
By highlighting the relationships between culture, capability, leadership, and organisational design, it shows exactly where change will have the strongest impact. Leaders can prioritise investments, redesign structures confidently, and support their teams with intention rather than reaction. It also creates consistency – a shared understanding of what’s happening across the organisation eliminates fragmented decision making and strengthens collective leadership. Over time, this clarity becomes a competitive advantage.
Where Workplace Wellbeing Audits fit in
While a People Health Audit focuses on how your organisation is structured and operates – covering team design, leadership setup, HR functions, and ways of working – a Workplace Wellbeing Audit, by contrast, examines the human experience within that environment. It looks at emotional, psychological, and relational factors, from workload and manager support to team dynamics, workplace relationships, and mental health stressors.
Taken together, these audits provide a complete picture. The People Health Audit shows whether your organisation is set up for success, and the Wellbeing Audit shows whether your people have the conditions they need to thrive. It's therefore best practice to combine both of these audits, ensuring your people strategy addresses both organisational structure and employee experience for maximum impact.
How to know if your organisation is ready for an audit
Organisations often seek an audit during periods of change – rapid scaling, restructuring, entering new markets, or adapting to new leadership, to name a few examples. But this isn’t the only defining factor. Others want to address issues around engagement, collaboration, or capability, while many simply want clarity before any potential challenges develop.
If you’re unsure whether your people operations truly support your business goals, a People Health Audit is a low-risk, high-value way to gain direction and set the tone for more confident strategic HR management and planning.
A stronger starting point for your strategic HR plan
A People Health Audit gives you more than a snapshot of processes and structures – it surfaces the human dynamics that really drive your organisation. From how teams collaborate to the everyday experiences that energise or frustrate people, it uncovers the levers that matter most. With these insights, you can create a strategic HR plan that is not only evidence based and aligned to business goals but also genuinely empowering, helping your people flourish while your organisation grows.