Our Solutions

Explore how Delaney & Partners can help.

From strategic guidance to hands-on support, learn about the solutions we offer to navigate workforce, change, and organizational challenges.

Leadership & Governance

  • Build an HR function designed around the needs of your organization.
    Evaluate how HR is structured, how work is distributed, and where greater role clarity or capability may be needed. We help organizations design effective HR teams that reflect their size, culture, priorities, service expectations, and evolving workforce needs.

    Support includes:

    • HR organizational structure and team design

    • HR role and responsibility clarification

    • Work distribution and capacity assessment

    • HR service delivery and operating model

    • Position and job description redesign

    • Future-state HR structure and transition planning

  • Use workforce changes as an opportunity to make more intentional decisions about the work ahead.

    Move beyond automatically replacing vacant positions. We help organizations establish a strategic, AI-enabled approach to vacancy review, evaluating workforce needs and position investments against organizational priorities, critical work, capacity, and financial realities. Customized tools and decision frameworks bring greater consistency and insight to the process, helping leaders right-size their organizations and align positions with the work that matters most.

    Support may include:

    • Strategic vacancy review process and governance

    • Position criticality and organizational needs assessment

    • Workforce right-sizing and position alignment

    • Role redesign and work redistribution

    • Strategic criteria and decision frameworks

    • Customized AI-enabled vacancy review tools aligned with organizational priorities and institution-specific criteria

  • Help people understand the change, navigate it, and move forward.
    Support the people side of organizational change with thoughtful strategies that consider leadership, culture, communication, and the employee experience. We help leaders translate decisions into clear action while building understanding and maintaining trust throughout periods of transition.

    Support includes:

    • Change readiness and stakeholder assessment

    • Change strategy and implementation planning

    • Leadership alignment and advising

    • Employee and stakeholder communications

    • Facilitated conversations and engagement

    • Transition planning and ongoing support

Organizational Strategy

  • Drawing on more than 25 years of HR leadership, including experience serving as the Vice President of HR for College of the Holy Cross and senior HR executive roles at other higher ed institutions, Marymichele provides steady, strategic leadership during periods of transition.

    Available Support:

    • Interim CHRO

    • HR Organizational Structure Review

    • HR Leadership Transition Planning

    • Onboarding & Transition Support for the Incoming Leader

  • Delaney & Partners brings extensive experience partnering with provosts and academic leaders at the intersection of people, strategy, and institutional priorities. With a strong understanding of the structures, relationships, and complexities unique to higher education, she brings experienced HR counsel to complex situations where people, organizational needs, and academic priorities intersect, helping leaders find thoughtful and practical paths forward.

  • Delaney & Partners bring executive leadership and nonprofit board experience to help organizations strengthen board effectiveness, clarify roles and expectations, and build productive relationships between boards and executive leadership. Their approach helps boards remain appropriately engaged in governance while supporting strong leadership and advancing the organization’s mission and strategic priorities.

  • Strategic guidance through executive leadership changes, including transition planning, continuity, stakeholder considerations, role clarity, and support for successful leadership handoffs.

  • Build the talent you need today while preparing for an evolving workforce.

    Develop thoughtful recruitment, retention, and succession strategies grounded in your organization's priorities and workforce realities. From strengthening talent pipelines to identifying critical roles and planning for leadership continuity, we help organizations make more intentional talent decisions that build stability and position them for the future.

  • Build learning that responds to the workforce you have and the workforce you're becoming.

    We help organizations develop practical learning strategies and targeted programs that strengthen employee capability, connection, and growth. From rethinking development across the employee lifecycle to helping teams navigate a multigenerational workplace, learning experiences are grounded in real workforce needs and designed for practical application.

    Featured Learning Experiences

    • Everboarding
      Move beyond one-time onboarding with a continuous approach to learning, development, and connection across the employee lifecycle.

    • Thriving in a Multigenerational Workplace
      Build greater understanding across generations while strengthening communication, collaboration, and the ability to work effectively across different experiences and perspectives.

    • Customized Workforce Learning
      Develop targeted learning experiences around the needs of your organization, team, or workforce, with content designed to translate into practical application on the job.

  • Turn insight into stronger leaders, teams, and working relationships.

    Assessment is most valuable when insight leads to action. We use established assessment tools to help leaders and teams deepen self-awareness, understand how they work with others, identify development priorities, and translate insight into practical changes in leadership, communication, and team effectiveness.

    Our Assessment Toolkit:

    CliftonStrengths: Identify and develop what people naturally do best.

    • Helps individuals and teams understand their natural patterns of talent and how to apply them more intentionally. Particularly valuable for leadership development, team effectiveness, collaboration, and creating a strengths-based approach to development.

    • Best for: Team development, individual growth, strengths-based leadership

    Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI): Build self-awareness and appreciation for different ways of working.

    • Provides a practical framework for understanding preferences in how people take in information, make decisions, communicate, and approach work. Useful for helping teams recognize differences without treating those differences as deficits.

    • Best for: Self-awareness, team dynamics, appreciating different working styles

    Everything DiSC: Strengthen communication and working relationships.

    • Offers an accessible framework for understanding behavioral and communication styles, helping people recognize their own tendencies and adapt more effectively when working with others.

    • Best for: Communication · Collaboration · Conflict awareness · Team effectiveness

    Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI 360): See leadership through the perspectives of others.

    • Provides leaders with feedback on how their leadership behaviors are experienced by managers, colleagues, direct reports, and other stakeholders. The results create a focused foundation for reflection, coaching, and an actionable leadership development plan.

    • Best for: Leadership development, coaching, targeted development planning

    Hogan Assessments: Gain deeper insight into leadership potential, behaviors, and risk factors.

    • Provides a more comprehensive view of personality in the workplace, including everyday strengths, potential behaviors that may emerge under pressure, and the values and motivators that influence leadership. Particularly useful when deeper leadership insight is needed.

    • Best for: Leadership development, coaching, targeted development planning

  • Item description

Talent & Workforce Development

  • Build compensation practices that are equitable, sustainable, and aligned with organizational priorities.

    We help organizations take a strategic look at how they compensate employees, considering internal equity, organizational structure, financial realities, existing compensation data, and overall compensation philosophy. The goal is a clear and practical approach that helps leaders make more consistent and confident compensation decisions.

    Support may include:

    • Compensation philosophy & strategy

    • Structure & internal equity review

    • Compensation decision frameworks

    • Position & pay practice review

    • Implementation & communications

  • Make sure your investment in benefits is delivering value for both employees and the organization.

    We help organizations evaluate benefit offerings through both an employee and organizational lens, considering competitiveness, utilization, cost, workforce needs, and the overall value of the benefits portfolio. This can include identifying opportunities to strengthen offerings, improve understanding, and make thoughtful decisions about where resources are invested.

    Support may include:

    • Benefits strategy and portfolio review

    • Plan design and optimization

    • Utilization and cost analysis

    • Market and peer benchmarking

    • Employee needs and feedback

    • Vendor and program evaluation

    • Benefits communication and employee education

  • Build a thoughtful approach to employee well-being that goes beyond individual programs.

    Marymichele brings proven experience designing and leading comprehensive workplace wellness strategies, including an approach recognized with the WorkWell MA Award and Healthiest Employer recognition for four consecutive years. She helps organizations move beyond standalone programs to create a coordinated, sustainable approach to well-being that reflects employee needs, organizational culture, and available resources.

    Support may include:

    • Organizational wellness strategy

    • Program & resource assessment

    • Employee needs & utilization

    • Wellness programming & engagement

    • Impact measurement

  • Help employees prepare for retirement while helping the organization prepare for what comes next.

    Marymichele helps organizations take a more thoughtful and proactive approach to retirement readiness, providing practical tools and programming that help employees navigate the transition while supporting broader workforce planning. From pre-retirement education to phased retirement strategies, the focus is on creating a supportive experience for employees while helping organizations anticipate transitions, preserve institutional knowledge, and plan for future workforce needs.

    Support may include:

    • Pre-retirement planning programs & tools

    • Employee retirement readiness education

    • Phased retirement & VERP program design

Total Rewards & Employee Experience

HR Operations, Compliance, & Employee Relations

  • Major HR technology and process changes require more than successful system configuration. Drawing on firsthand executive experience leading HR through a Workday transformation, Marymichele helps HR leaders prepare their teams, rethink processes and responsibilities, manage change, communicate effectively, and build the capability needed to successfully operate in a new environment.

    Support may include:

    • HR change readiness & impact assessment

    • HR team roles & responsibilities

    • Change management strategy

    • Stakeholder engagement & communications

    • Training and adoption strategy

    • Leadership & team transition support

  • Navigate workplace challenges with experience, objectivity, and sound judgment.

    Complex employee situations rarely have simple answers. Marymichele helps leaders understand what is happening, assess the dynamics and risks involved, and determine a thoughtful path forward. Her approach emphasizes early intervention and constructive conflict management, helping organizations address issues before they become more disruptive while supporting leaders through difficult situations when they arise.

    Support may include:

    • Employee relations advising

    • Workplace investigations

    • Conflict management & resolution

    • Mediation & facilitated conversations

    • Leader coaching through complex situations

  • Create clear, practical HR policies that work in the real world.

    Effective policies should do more than satisfy a requirement. Marymichele helps organizations develop and strengthen HR policies and practices that provide clear expectations, support consistent decision-making, reflect organizational culture, and give managers practical guidance for navigating workplace situations.

    Support may include:

    • HR policy development & review

    • Employee handbook development

    • Policy and practice alignment

    • Manager toolkit and resources

    • Policy implementation & communications