Discovery Call
Jan Laurent, Founder of The HR Lab
Founder & Principal Consultant — The HR Lab LLC
JanLaurent.
Positioning
12+ years building HR operating systems at the enterprise level — not advising on them from the outside.
The HR Lab exists because most organizations already know what's broken. What they need is someone who knows how to fix it — and can leave the system running when the engagement closes.
Juris Masters — Employment Law, FSU 2022
SHRM-CP
B.S. Human Resource Management
Certificate in Project Management, UMass 2025
12+ Years Shared Services HR
ServiceNow HRSD
Multi-Union Environments
3 Countries
88
The onboarding gap
88%
of organizations lack an onboarding process that actually prepares employees for their roles
Visual Planning, 2024
42
The knowledge loss problem
42%
of a departing employee's work cannot be covered when processes are undocumented
IDC / Tallyfy Research
56
The systems mismatch
56%
of HR leaders say their organization's HR technology does not meet their current needs
HR Works Industry Trends, 2024
The founding philosophy

Built from the inside
of HR operations.

Most HR consulting firms assess from the outside. They produce reports identifying the same problems the HR team already knows about — and leave without building anything.

The HR Lab operates differently. Jan has spent 12 years inside shared services HR at the enterprise level — designing and running the actual systems, navigating multi-union environments, implementing ServiceNow workflows, and building the operational models that made large organizations run consistently.

The engagement delivers documented, operational systems — not a list of recommendations your team has to figure out how to implement.

"Your team already knows what's broken. What's missing is the structure to fix it."
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Principle 01
Diagnose before prescribing
Every engagement begins with a current-state audit. Nothing is built on assumptions. The remediation plan comes from what is actually happening in your operation — not what is supposed to be happening.
Principle 02
Build for the people doing the work
SOPs that sit in folders do not work. Every system we build is written and formatted for the people who will execute it — not the people reviewing it. Usability is a design requirement.
Principle 03
Leave the system — not the dependency
The engagement closes with a handoff your team owns completely. The goal is never ongoing reliance on outside support. It's a foundation that runs without us in the room.
Principle 04
Compliance is built in, not bolted on
FMLA, FLSA, ADA, PII governance — embedded directly into the workflows, not added as a checklist at the end. A JM in Employment Law informs every compliance design decision.
Operating experience

The environments
Jan has operated in.

The operational depth Jan brings to an engagement comes from 12+ years inside the function — not 12 years advising on it.

That translation — from enterprise-scale operational experience to practical, right-sized systems for growing companies — is what The HR Lab is built to deliver.

"I've run the systems I'm now helping others build. That's the difference."
Environment
Multi-country, global HR shared services
Led HR delivery across Brazil, Canada, and the United States — navigating regulatory differences, time zones, and service delivery consistency across three countries simultaneously.
Environment
Multi-union workforce operations
12+ years building and maintaining HR processes inside multi-union environments — where compliance, agreement alignment, and SOP precision are non-negotiable.
Environment
ServiceNow HRSD builds from the ground up
Case management architecture, workflow automation, SOP integration, and performance reporting built and deployed in ServiceNow at enterprise scale. Not configuration — full builds.
Environment
High-volume, fast-moving shared services
Built the operating models for HR service delivery teams where volume, speed, and accuracy are all measured — and where system failure has immediate, visible consequences.
How it works

What to expect from
a consulting engagement.

Every engagement is different in scope but consistent in approach. The process is designed to minimize disruption to the operation that is still running while producing documented systems your team can use the day the engagement closes.

01
We start by mapping what's actually happening
Not what the org chart says is happening. Before anything is built, Jan audits your current workflows, team structure, systems, and failure points. The remediation plan comes from that — not from assumptions brought into the room.
02
You get a fixed scope, not a running tab
The engagement is a defined engagement with defined deliverables. You know what you're getting and when. No scope creep, no vague advisory retainers that compound without results.
03
The engagement closes with a handoff your team runs
Before-and-after documentation. A team walkthrough of everything built. A 30/60/90-day implementation plan with ownership assigned to your people.
Ready to start

Your team already knows what's broken. Let's build the fix.

The discovery call request takes under 5 minutes. Jan responds within 2 business days.

Request a Discovery Call See the Engagement