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The work

Workforce risk intelligence

A structured, repeatable read of where risk sits in your workforce — and what it is costing you — before it reaches the P&L.

The definition

What workforce risk intelligence is.

Workforce risk intelligence is the practice of identifying and quantifying the hidden risks inside a workforce — presenteeism, fatigue, psychosocial pressure and performance drag — before they surface as absence, turnover or lost productivity.

Most organisations manage what they can already see: absence rates, turnover, grievances. But those are lagging indicators. By the time they move, the underlying risk has often been present for months. Workforce risk intelligence turns that hidden risk into measurable financial exposure, so leadership can act on forward-looking signals rather than waiting for the cost to arrive.

The HOLMES audit is how that is delivered in practice: strictly non-clinical, governance-led, and built for the board.

How the audit works

Three quiet steps, from data to decision.

The HOLMES audit stays strictly non-clinical and governance-led throughout. In practice, the work moves through three steps.

IMeasure
I translate workforce data into measurable risk-exposure across the organisation, focusing on the real drivers of risk rather than sentiment alone.
IILocate
I identify where risk sits, where performance is being lost, and where hidden cost — including presenteeism — is concentrated.
IIIAct earlier
Leadership receives a forward-looking, prioritised signal, so attention and investment can be directed before risk becomes cost.
To be clear
What it is

Decision support and assurance: measurable, governance-led risk intelligence, built for the board.

What it isn't

A clinical service, wellbeing delivery, an engagement survey or a compliance check.

What it measures

The real drivers of risk, not the symptoms.

Rather than measuring how people feel, the audit measures what actually drives workforce risk and where it concentrates — then translates it into exposure a board can weigh against everything else on the risk register.

  • iPresenteeism and the productivity lost when people are present but not performing.
  • iiFatigue, psychosocial pressure and the strain that precedes absence and turnover.
  • iiiWhere hidden cost is concentrated — by team, function or pressure point.
  • ivThe financial exposure attached to it, and where acting first pays back most.
The scale of it
£100bn
The estimated annual hidden cost of employee sickness to UK employers, much of it invisible presenteeism rather than absence.
IPPR, 2024
Who it's for

Organisations where people are the performance.

The audit is built for CEOs, CFOs, HR directors, boards and risk leaders — particularly in banking, law and fintech, where workforce pressure directly shapes productivity, resilience and margin, and where boards are held to a higher standard on governance.

It is also increasingly used to support the Social component of ESG reporting, moving human-capital disclosure from narrative toward measurable evidence.

A few questions

What leaders usually ask.

It is the practice of identifying and quantifying hidden risks inside a workforce — such as presenteeism, fatigue, psychosocial pressure and performance drag — before they surface as absence, turnover or lost productivity. HOLMES turns that risk into measurable exposure, so leadership can act on forward-looking signals rather than lagging indicators.

An engagement survey measures sentiment. A workforce risk audit measures risk. HOLMES is a structured, repeatable assessment focused on the real drivers of workforce risk, translated into financial exposure and governance-ready metrics.

No. HOLMES is strictly non-clinical and governance-led. It is a decision-support and assurance tool, not HR service delivery, wellbeing delivery or clinical intervention. Organisations use the insight alongside their own HR, occupational health and trusted partners.

It measures the real drivers of workforce risk — including presenteeism, fatigue, psychosocial pressure and performance drag — and where they concentrate, then translates that into financial exposure and ESG-ready evidence. The output is a prioritised, forward-looking signal a board can act on.

Say hello

See what your workforce risk is really costing you.