Uprooted HR
Decolonizing traditional HR one system at a time.
Most HR policies weren't written with your people in mind. They were copied from somewhere, built for compliance, and quietly reinforce the same dynamics you're actively trying to dismantle everywhere else in your work. Uprooted HR exists to change that.
I help organizations examine and rebuild people practices shaped by systems that weren't designed for everyone, so how you evaluate, support, and develop your people reflects what you say you believe.
The result isn't just better policies. It's a fresh understanding of what's possible in the workplace and what it actually looks like to build something human-first.
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Your policies are a mirror. They reflect what your organization actually values- not what it says it values.
Most HR policies were inherited, copied from templates, or written with legal compliance as the primary goal. That's not a criticism. It's just the reality of how most organizations build their people infrastructure. The problem is that policies built for compliance rather than care quietly reinforce the same dynamics around power, productivity, and whose needs get centered that your organization is trying to move away from.
This offering is for organizations ready to look honestly at what their policies are actually saying to their people.
Together we will assess what policies you currently have, identify what needs to be revised, what needs to be added, and what needs to be let go entirely. What you'll leave with is a people policy infrastructure that actually reflects your values- one that protects your employees, advances equity, and makes it clear that how you treat people isn't an afterthought.
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Most performance management systems weren't designed to help people grow. They were designed to document failure.
Annual reviews that show up as verdicts. Improvement plans that signal the end before the conversation has even started. Vague criteria like "culture fit" and "professionalism" that have historically been used to penalize people for not conforming to white, Western, corporate norms. This is the inheritance most organizations are working with, and most don't realize how much damage it's doing.
Uprooted HR builds performance management processes that start from a different question entirely. Not "how do we document this person's deficiencies" but "what does this person need to thrive, and are we actually giving it to them?"
A process built with Uprooted HR will include:
Strengths-based evaluation language that names what someone brings as explicitly as it names what needs to grow. Mutual accountability that flows in both directions: employees assess whether they're being set up to succeed, not just whether they're succeeding. Clear criteria defined in advance, specific and observable, with no room for coded language. Regular check-ins that normalize feedback as a relationship rather than a once-a-year verdict. And when a formal process is necessary, it's called a Performance Enhancement Plan- because the goal is growth, not documentation for termination.
What you'll leave with is a performance management process your people can actually trust. One that holds managers accountable, centers employee dignity, and reflects the organization you're trying to build.
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Sometimes the thing your organization needs doesn't fit neatly into a category. That's okay.
If you're navigating a people challenge that feels specific, urgent, or hard to name- and you're not sure whether what you need is a policy, a process, or something else entirely- reach out and tell me what's going on. I take on needs-based projects when the work is aligned with the values that drive everything I do.