Who we are

We believe that having great HR in the workplace is essential to help your business grow. Here at The HR Dept North Birmingham, the team provides affordable outsourced HR advice, tailored to your business needs.
Whether it’s dealing with a sensitive employment issue or the challenges of growth or downsizing, we can provide pragmatic advice and support without breaking the bank, backed with the peace of mind of legal indemnity cover.

What services can we offer? Just to name a few…

• Advice Line
• Contracts & Handbooks
• Disciplinary & Grievance
• Investigations
• TUPE transfer
• HR training
• Recruitment

The HR Dept North Birmingham has a team of qualified HR professionals with a wealth of expert knowledge. We are contactable by telephone or email or we can support you with those difficult people issues on site. We pride ourselves on providing local and personal HR support to small business owners.

We have clients ranging from Architects, IT Consultancies, Pest Controllers, Farm Shops, Opticians, Manufacturing, Warehouses, Brewing, Financial Advisors as well as those offering services within the education and wider public sector.

The HR Dept will tell you what you can do, not what you can’t do. So, whether you’re taking on your first staff member or employ up to around 100 people, we can help. We can even support your current HR staff behind the scenes.

We cover a range of local areas including Sutton Coldfield, Erdington, Walsall, Aldridge, Brownhills, South Tamworth, and areas in between.

If you’d like to spend less time managing people problems and more time growing your business give us a call on 0345 053 3669 or 0121 323 5488 to see how we can help.

 

We are proudly part of Enterprise Nation. To get in contact with us via Enterprise Nation click here 

 

Meet the team

Tracey Hudson

Executive Director

Tracey Hudson is our Executive Director. Tracey is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (FCIPD) and holds a master’s degree in strategic human resource management. She has a wealth of HR experience having previously worked in larger corporates as well as SME businesses. She started The HR Dept in Warwickshire in 2005 and enjoys proactively supporting SMEs with their people issues. Tracey has built a strong commercial understanding of business challenges which is why the team always take a pragmatic approach to HR issues.

Sarah Asprey

Managing Director

Sarah joined the HR Dept in 2013 as an experienced, CIPD qualified HR professional who has worked in a variety of businesses and sectors during her career. Sarah understands the challenges facing small to medium sized businesses and has a practical and commercial approach to HR along with experience of dealing with complex cases.

Sarah is Managing Director of The HR Dept South Warwickshire, North Warwickshire, Rugby and North Derbyshire and is responsible for leading the business, ensuring exceptional service to our clients as well as providing our retained clients with advice on complex cases.

Caroline Gibbons

Managing Director

Caroline became Managing Director of The HR Dept North Birmingham in 2023, after she joined the team in 2019 as a HR Manager. Before joining the HR Dept, Caroline specialised in Employee Relations in the Care Industry; prior to this, Caroline has also worked in HR within the Manufacturing and the Recruitment Industries. Caroline graduated from Nottingham Trent University with a BA in Business Management Joint Honours with HR. Caroline is also an Associate Member of the CIPD and is Level 7 CIPD certified.

Jane Godefroy

HR Consultant

Jane joined the team in December 2018 and has focused on supporting clients with day to day advice, complex HR issues and has also the creation and delivery of People Plans. Jane is CIPD qualified and has worked in HR for over 20 years. Jane’s experience has been gained from both large and small businesses, she has an extensive knowledge of all things HR and is passionate about the SME Sector.

Jane understands the challenges small businesses encounter, having worked independently as an HR consultant prior to joining The HR Dept. Jane provides pragmatic advice to clients across the full HR spectrum. She also provides on-site support to clients for specific projects and complex cases. Jane develops and delivers bespoke HR related Management training for our clients and also runs our workshop programme that we deliver at our Warwick site. Jane also became a qualified Workplace Mediator in January 2024.

Stefanie Avery

HR Consultant
Stefanie is an experienced, CIPD qualified HR Professional who joined the team in November 2018. Stefanie has worked in HR for over 10 years and has experience in various sectors. Having worked for both large corporate companies and small businesses, she has extensive knowledge in strategic and generalist HR. 

Stefanie understands the challenges small businesses encounter first hand. She is also passionate about growing the business, leading our team of advisors and supporting our clients as a HR Director. Stefanie utilises her people skills and knowledge by providing an excellent service to our clients.  Stefanie is available for on-site support. 

Vickie Shears

Business Development Director

Vickie joined the HR Dept family in September 2021. As Business Development Director covering five HR Dept offices North and South Warwickshire, Rugby, North Birmingham, and North Derbyshire. She is responsible for engaging with business owners to identify potential HR requirements and providing guidance on the best solution to meet their needs.

With over 25 years of working within the hospitality area, 5 of which were as a small business owner herself, Vickie really understands the challenges faced by many start-ups and SME’s and the importance of having robust HR processes in place, protecting businesses against potential litigation.

In addition, with 5 years’ experience working for a national training provider, Vickie recognises the benefits of having an upskilled and motivated workforce and the impact this can have on building high performing teams.

Vickie is delighted to be supported by a team of highly skilled HR Specialists who offer a personal, professional service that prevents people problems and improves bottom line profits.

Elodie Som

Business Development Executive

Elodie comes to us with experience of delivering client needs and establishing growth within small team start- ups to larger organisations. Before joining the HR Dept, she worked as a Project Manager for the commercial hospitality sector, co-ordinating and consulting design teams on bespoke-made artwork for clients such as Royal Caribbean, Marriot, IHG and Hilton.

She has a love for local business and community and assisted in starting up and managing a Zero Waste store in Warwick in 2019.  This experience has given her an insight into some of the challenges SME’s have when it comes to managing people problems.

Elodie is excited to introduce the HR Dept’s outsourced HR services to a diverse range of local organisations to ensure that they are accessing the right level of HR support, bespoke to their needs.

Milena Maric

Business Manager

Milena joined the team in May 2019 as Business Co-ordinator and is responsible for all clients’ Advice Line and tribunal insurance renewals and also bookkeeping for the HR Dept North Derbyshire, South and North Warwickshire, Rugby and North BirminghamMilena has many years’ experience of working in support and co-ordination roles, amongst them working as a wedding and events co-ordinator and a PA in a busy accountancy practice. She also ran her own hospitality business for three years.

Deji Sorinola

HR & Client Co-ordinator

Deji joined the HR Dept in April 2024 with 4 years’ experience in HR admin, HR consultancy, and involvement within the Construction sector. Deji also has previous experience within Social Care and completed his CIPD Level 5 in 2025. In his current role Deji is the first point of contact for HR Dept inbound calls, ensuring that our clients get the support they need, when they need it.  He is also responsible for ensuring that all new clients receive a great onboarding experience, working with them to ensure that all their HR documentation is compliant with current HR employment law but is personalised to reflect the clients’ organisation and culture.

Sophie Sainsbury

HR Consultant
Sophie joined the team in November 2017. Sophie has 10 year HR experience in various sectors. Sophie provides advice and support to our retained clients on a variety of HR issues including discipline and grievance cases, redundancies, sickness absence, contracts of employment, holiday calculations, employee handbooks and recruitment.
Sophie holds CIPD Level 3 and 5 certificates and is available to provide on-site support.

Stacy Kimberley

HR Consultant

Stacy started her HR career in 2001 and joined us with a wealth of HR Generalist experience in various business sectors, including Manufacturing, IT, Training and Welfare to Work. During her employment and with the support of the HR Dept North Birmingham, Stacy completed her CIPD Level 5 in 2022 and is now an Associate CIPD Member. Stacy has a good commercial understanding of SMEs and is also mediation and mental health first aid trained.

Jasmin Hayer

HR Consultant

Jasmin joined the HR Dept June 2025 as an HR Advisor and is Level 7 CIPD qualified. Jasmin has a wealth of experience across key HR functions, including employee relations, learning and development, and recruitment. Jasmin is passionate about delivering pragmatic HR advice to our broad client base.

Emily Noble

HR Consultant

Emily joined the team in March 2024 as a HR AssistantEquipped with a BA in Business and Management from the University of York, Emily brings a passion for HR. With prior experience in the food production industry, Emily has delved into various HR-related realms, gaining invaluable insights along the way.  Emily is dedicated to further honing her skills, actively pursuing her CIPD Level 5 certification.  

Claire Larsen

HR Assistant

Claire joined the North Birmingham team in July 2023 as an HR Administrator and was promoted to HR Assistant in April 2025. Claire has become a valued member of the team, bringing a wealth of experience in administrative HR processes and supporting our clients in maintaining compliance across all areas of HR admin. In October 2025, Claire successfully completed her Level 3 CIPD in HR support.

Lucy Fisher

HR Assistant

Lucy joined the team in February 2025 as an HR Assistant, bringing with her a strong background in recruitment. Since joining the company, she has expanded her knowledge and gained valuable exposure across various HR functions. Lucy is currently working towards achieving her CIPD Level 5 certification, further strengthening her expertise and commitment to professional development.

Liam Rooney

HR Assistant

Liam joined the HR Dept in June 2025 as an HR Assistant. Liam has previous experience in recruitment and HR administration and brings a strong foundation in HR processes and a passion for continuous learning. Liam supports the team across a range of HR functions and is committed to delivering high-quality service across our client base.

Looking for expert HR support?

We can help you focus on your business by taking care of all your human resources needs.

 

Let us know how we can help or ask about our free initial HR review.

Preventing People Problems

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