Interim consultancy · Talent, people & partnerships
From January 2027, any employee with six months' service can claim unfair dismissal — with no cap on what a tribunal can award. Every hire you make from July 2026 onwards is already on that clock.
See how it works6 months
New qualifying period for unfair dismissal claims, down from two years. In force January 2027.
Employment Rights Act 2025
£132,000
Average cost of a failed mid-level hire once you factor in lost productivity, management time and rehiring costs.
REC, 2025/26
No cap
Unfair dismissal compensation is now uncapped. Previously limited to 52 weeks' salary or £118,223.
Employment Rights Act 2025
What we do
Experienced interim support across talent, people and partnerships.
Right Hire
Fixed-fee engagement that builds your hiring infrastructure from scratch, trains your managers, and puts you in control — at a fraction of the cost of ongoing agency fees.
Fractional Head of Talent or People
Senior embedded leadership two to four days a week. Available now, no lengthy procurement process, no full-time cost.
Workforce Resizing
Sensitively designed and delivered restructuring across multi-site UK operations. Done properly, with the people considered at every step.
HR Infrastructure
Policy libraries, onboarding programmes, people analytics dashboards, employer brand, ATS implementation. Built to last, not just to look good on a slide.
Right Hire
Most businesses hire on instinct. That was expensive before. After January 2027 it carries tribunal exposure most haven't priced in.
Right Hire is a fixed-fee engagement that builds your hiring process properly — the documentation, the tools, the trained managers — and then hands it over. No ongoing dependency on agencies charging 15 to 20%. No guesswork under the new legislation.
After the setup, drop-in consultancy is available for tricky roles, senior searches or a second opinion. At a day rate that costs less than one agency placement.
Hiring audit
Review of your current process. Surfaces the gaps before they become claims.
Process and documentation
Job templates, interview scorecards, probation frameworks and the policy documentation that protects you under the new rules.
ATS setup
The right recruitment system for your size, configured and ready. So you stop paying agency fees for roles you can fill yourself.
Manager training
Structured interviewing, legally compliant assessment and how to manage a probation period under the new rules.
Drop-in consultancy
Monthly access or ad hoc support available after setup. Less than the cost of one agency placement.
Who I am
Raphael Frascogna
Founder, Strategic Mantra
I have spent 15 years building talent functions, people strategies, employer brands and hiring infrastructure for businesses across every sector. At loveholidays I scaled the talent function through PE-backed hypergrowth, co-owning a multi-million-pound headcount budget with the executive team. At AVEVA I built the first global TA Centre of Excellence and trained 500 managers across multiple territories. I have designed and delivered resizing programmes at Thomas Cook and Johnson Matthey, rebuilt social care recruitment at Peterborough City Council, and run a change programme at Cambridgeshire Constabulary.
More recently I spent three years as CEO of a nationally recognised charitable foundation, building it from scratch to reach 15,000 young people a year. That experience — doing it rather than advising on it — is what Strategic Mantra is built around.
Available now for interim, fractional and project-based work.
No pitch deck. No obligation. Just a conversation about whether this is the right fit.
strategic-mantra.com
