Hermitage Consultancy

Your People Partner. Your recruiter. Your secret weapon.

If you run a small or medium-sized business, you'll know the truth nobody talks about: running a team is the hardest part of running a business.

Hiring the right people. Keeping the good ones. Dealing with the awkward conversations, the sickness, the performance issues, the leavers. It all lands on your desk - usually at the worst possible moment, and usually when you're already stretched.  That's where Erin Coleclough comes in.

Meet Erin. Your People Person.

Erin runs Hermitage Consultancy, a People Partner and recruitment business based in Dorset and serving SMEs across the South of England. With 22 years of recruitment experience and a 95% placement retention rate, she's the person local founders and MDs call when anything people-related lands on their desk.

Think of her as a People Concierge - one trusted person for recruitment, HR support, and team development. No faceless agency. No corporate fluff. No jargon. Just straight-talking support from someone who genuinely loves the work.

If you have staff, you'll need her.

What Hermitage actually does

Most businesses treat recruitment, and HR as separate problems. They call an agency when they need to hire - paying 15-20% of salary each time - and they panic about people issues when they land on the desk, leaving them vulnerable and open to risk.

Hermitage works differently. Erin combines three things under one roof:

• Recruitment - finding and placing the right people, with a free replacement guarantee from the day they leave (not the day they started)
• HR support - the day-to-day people stuff, employment law guidance, performance and probation conversations, the awkward bits
• Learning & Development - interview training for managers, retention workshops, and making your business the kind of place people actually want to stay

All at a fixed monthly price. No surprises. No 15% recruitment fees eating your budget. Just one trusted partner who knows your business and is on hand when you need her.

Who Hermitage is for

Erin works with SME founders and MDs - the people who are brilliant at running their business but don't have an HR department, don't want one, and don't have time to become an employment law expert.

If you've ever:

• Lost sleep over a hire who didn't work out
• Been burned by a recruitment agency before
• Had a manager quietly check out and not known what to do about it
• Wondered whether your contracts and policies are actually up to date
• Watched a good employee walk out the door and felt powerless to stop them

...then this is for you.

Three packages. One trusted partner. No bullsh!t.

Hermitage offers three retained packages - Attract, Grow, and Retain - designed around the size and stage of your business. Whether you're a 10-person team building your first proper hiring process or an established business of 150 protecting your best people, there's a package built for where you are.

All packages include recruitment, monthly HR support, bespoke interview guides, and a free replacement guarantee. For most clients, the recruitment saving alone covers the cost of the retainer. Everything else - the HR support, the training, the toolkits, the guarantee - comes on top of that.

Start with the Free Talent Audit

Not ready for a full conversation yet? Start with Erin's Free Talent Audit - a short online questionnaire that gives you an honest read on where your people risks are hiding.

You fill it in. Erin reviews it personally. You get a tailored report back within two working days. No call required. No sales pitch. No follow-up unless you ask.

It takes less than 10 minutes - and it might just be the most useful thing you do this quarter.

Get in touch

Hermitage Consultancy - Recruitment, HR and L&D, all in one place.

Call 01202 167598 with Evonex Connect, email hello@hermitageconsultancy.com or visit their website here.

You do not need to figure this out alone.