HR SERVICES PETERBOROUGH

Practical, straight-talking HR support for growing businesses; without the cost of an in-house HR team.

Are you struggling with staff absence?

Unsure how to handle a disciplinary fairly?

Worried your contracts don’t reflect current employment law?

Growing a business in Peterborough is exciting. It also brings people problems you didn’t have when there were five of you. Recruitment, performance, absence, conduct, grievances, compliance; the decisions come faster and the stakes get higher. At some point you need someone who genuinely knows this stuff. You just may not want to employ them full-time.

That’s where we come in.

We’ve been providing HR support to Peterborough businesses since 2009. Small and growing companies, across varying sectors, all of them wanting the same thing: clear advice from someone who understands their business and picks up the phone.

Why Peterborough businesses outsource their HR

There are around 8,870 businesses in Peterborough, with a further 26,000 across the Greater Peterborough area (ONS UK Business Counts, 2024). Standing out, attracting good people and keeping them is harder than it’s ever been.

For most growing businesses, a full-time HR Manager isn’t yet viable. In this area, an HR Manager typically costs £45,000–£50,000 a year in salary alone, before you add National Insurance, pension, holiday cover and recruitment fees. An HR Director costs considerably more.

Outsourcing gives you that senior-level expertise without the permanent overhead. You get:

• Senior HR knowledge, kept current with employment law as it changes
• Flexibility: engage us on a project, on retainer, or entirely pay-as-you-go
• One consistent point of contact. You’ll always speak to the same person. You’ll never repeat yourself, and you’ll never get conflicting advice from whoever happens to answer
• Face-to-face support. We’re local. We come out and see you
• Bespoke documentation written for your business and your circumstances, not a generic template you’re left to adapt yourself
• A network behind us, occupational health, employment solicitors, payroll. For when a situation needs specialist input

What you actually get from us

When you go looking for HR services, you’re rarely looking for policies and paperwork. You’re looking for:

• Clear advice, in plain English, sized to your business
• A sounding board who won’t judge you for asking
• Backup for the difficult conversations
• Practical answers you can act on, knowing they’re fair and defensible
• Confidence that you’re doing right by your team and protecting your business

Here’s where that typically applies:

1. Employment law compliance: contracts, handbooks, FWA inspection preparation, policies that hold up
2. Day-to-day people issues: absence, performance, conduct, grievances
3. Strategic HR: pay structures, retention, workforce planning, the bigger picture
4. Manager training and coaching: so your managers handle things confidently first time
5. Recruitment: getting the right people in and keeping them
6. Change and restructure: redundancy, TUPE, reorganisation, done properly

How we work with you

There’s no single right answer here. It depends on what’s going on in your business.

Not sure which fits? Start here or just call us and we’ll talk it through.

Local support, actually local

One of the better parts of working with a Peterborough business is that we can be there.

We’re based at Market Deeping and we work across Peterborough, Stamford, Bourne, Whittlesey, Yaxley, Oundle and the surrounding area. When something’s kicking off, we can sit in the room with you rather than emailing a template and wishing you luck.

We don’t sit on the sidelines. We work alongside you; thinking through risk, impact and consequences before a situation escalates into something expensive.

Over time, that relationship is what makes the advice good. We get to know your culture, your leadership style and your commercial goals, which means faster and more relevant answers. You’re not calling a helpline. You’re not explaining your business from scratch every time.

Keeping you ahead of employment law

HR doesn’t need to be complicated to be effective.

Our job is to translate legislation into practical, commercially sensible steps; balancing compliance with common sense so decisions stay fair, proportionate and in line with how you actually run your business.

You’ll get regular updates on what’s changing and, more importantly, what it means for you. Take the Employment Rights Act 2025: we’ll work through what Statutory Sick Pay from day one really means for your business, help you build a proactive absence strategy, and train your managers on what needs to be done differently.

You’ll also get our newsletter, webinars and in-depth masterclasses on the subjects that actually affect you.

Why businesses choose Keeping HR Simple

Credibility matters when you’re handing someone your people problems. Here’s ours:

• 17 years in business, supporting Peterborough employers since 2009
• A 100% employment tribunal-free track record across those 17 years
• Proven experience across varying sectors: digital marketing, hairdressers, schools
• Genuinely up-to-date knowledge of UK employment legislation
• Documentation written for your business, not adapted from a template
• Honest guidance, including when it isn’t what you were hoping to hear

Effective HR is built on hands-on experience, not theory. We understand the realities of running a business here; balancing growth, cash flow, compliance and team morale, usually all at once.

Running a company can feel isolating. Having someone in your corner who knows what they’re doing makes it a great deal less so.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much do outsourced HR services cost in Peterborough? It depends on how you want to work with us. Retained support is an agreed monthly fee based on your headcount and how much support you're likely to need. Project work is scoped and quoted up front. Pay-as-you-go is billed for the time you use. Call us on 01487 815 720 and we'll give you a straight answer.

Do I need to be based in Peterborough to work with you? No. We work with businesses across Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire and beyond, and much of what we do works perfectly well remotely. But if you're local, you get the added benefit of us being able to come to you at short notice.

What size business do you work with? Mostly small and medium-sized businesses, typically from around 5 to 200 employees. If you're big enough that people issues are taking up your time but not big enough to justify a full-time HR Manager, you're in the right place.

Can you help with a situation that's already gone wrong? Yes. A lot of our work starts that way. Call us early rather than late, the options are always better before formal processes have started.

What's the difference between HR support and employment law advice? HR support is the practical, day-to-day management of your people and the decisions that come with it. Employment law is the legal framework underneath. We do both, and we'll tell you when a situation genuinely needs a solicitor rather than us. See our employment law support in Peterborough.

Let's talk

If you're looking for HR services in Peterborough you can actually depend on, we're here.

Seventeen years of experience, clear and pragmatic advice, and the peace of mind that your business is protected.

Call us on 01487 815 720

Get in touch or book an HR Health Check to check your people practices are compliant, consistent and fit for what's coming.