Why we treat AI workers as staff.
GRABS comes out of a simple conviction: an AI worker fails as a tool and succeeds as an employee. The difference is a job description, a manager, a personnel file and the ability to be sacked. Build those four things properly and you have a hire, not a gadget.
The method lineage
A role is composed from a competency library, not invented per client. Each competency is defined in the language of human capability: Knowledge, Skills and Behaviours, plus the Tools, Authority and Co-factors that turn capability into work. The chassis underneath every placement is identical: plan, act, check, calibrate, engage, learn. Calibration is the keystone, because confident wrongness is the defining failure mode of these systems, and a competent employee knows the difference between a grounded judgement and a guess, and says so.
Proven like systems
The discipline that makes this credible is psychometric. Criteria are defined with the Critical Incident Technique, behaviour is scored against anchored rating scales, and reliability and validity are measured the way a serious assessment of a human would be. A probation period becomes instrumented evidence of competence, and the handover carries an attestation: a measured account of what the team did and how well. The next engagement is sold on the record of the last.
An HR discipline, applied to AI workers
GRABS is led by Eric McLean, FCIPD. The framing is deliberate: this is a human-resources discipline, competency design, assessment and line management, applied to a new kind of worker. The result is a workforce you manage the way you already know how to manage people.
The TCEL connection
GRABS sits alongside TCEL, the consultancy that sells OGSM, strategy maps and execution discipline to the leaders of complex groups, and which has long held that AI belongs inside the strategy, not on top of it. GRABS is how that sentence becomes a deliverable: a senior interim executive who arrives with an instrumented AI worker team. The portfolio's spine is trusted interim capacity, and a GRABS team is the newest form of it.
The founders.
Four co-founders, one discipline each, and each heading a pod of AI employees. Six permanent people, twenty-four AI employees, all managed the GRABS way. We do not just sell interim AI teams. We are one.
6 permanent people
24 AI employees
1:4 human to AI
Co-founder
Chief AI Officer
AI Capability and Design
Makes sure the AI workers you hire are genuinely capable. Composes each role from the competency library, sets the autonomy ceilings, and calibrates the team so it knows the difference between a grounded judgement and a guess, and tells you which it is.
Heads 6 AI employees
- Role Designer
- Calibrator
- Evaluator
- Competency Librarian
- Prompt Engineer
- Safety Red-teamer
Co-founder
Chief Data Officer
Data Management and Analysis
Keeps your data secure and your numbers honest. Owns per-client isolation, the vault and the audit trail, so your information never touches another client, every action is logged and attributable, and the figures the team reports are measured, not guessed.
Heads 6 AI employees
- Vault Keeper
- Data Steward
- Auditor
- Insight Analyst
- Reporting Clerk
- Integrations Engineer
Co-founder
Chief Operations Officer
Operational Deployment and Delivery
Gets the team working inside your business in days, not months. Runs onboarding, the Monday Report and the 30/60/90 review, so the engagement lands on time and the handover leaves you the vault, the playbooks and an attestation.
Heads 6 AI employees
- Onboarder
- Monday Reporter
- Performance Reviewer
- Handover Lead
- Escalation Manager
- QA Checker
Co-founder
CEO
Commercial Management and Customer Relations
Your point of contact from the first call to handover. Scopes the job, agrees the outcomes and the fixed term, and stays accountable for the result, priced like staffing, with a sixty-second sacking switch if it is not working.
Heads 6 AI employees
- Scoping Analyst
- Proposal Writer
- Comms Scribe
- Customer Success
- Account Steward
- Renewal Chaser
Work with GRABS.
Two ways to build with us. Send work our way as an associate, or, soon, deliver GRABS teams under your own brand.
Associates
Refer a business, share in the result.
GRABS runs on referrals. Associates introduce a business that needs a team and share in the engagement when it lands. No delivery and no overhead: you make the introduction, we run the placement and the line management, and you earn on the result. It suits consultants, fractional executives and advisers who already sit close to the bottleneck.
Become an associate →White label · coming soon
Deliver GRABS teams as your own.
Soon, firms will be able to deliver GRABS teams under their own brand. The competency library, the vault, the Monday Report, the 30/60/90 review and the attestation, run as your service, with GRABS as the engine underneath. White-label partnerships open shortly. Register interest now and we will bring you in first.
Register interest →