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About Our Founder
If your organisation is navigating post-industrial action recovery, preparing for the Employment Rights Bill, or struggling to translate ER policy into cultural change—you’re not alone. And there’s a strategic pathway forward.
Cilinnie Ngo-Pondi is the Founder and Principal Consultant of The Good Work Lab, a consultancy pioneering restorative employee relations approaches in unionised, regulated environments. With over 25 years’ experience across higher education, healthcare, and public service, she has led ER transformations that reduced formal disputes by 35–60%, rebuilt fractured union partnerships, and delivered measurable legal cost avoidance of £60k–£120k annually.
After designing systems that transformed ER functions in some of the UK’s most complex organisations, Cilinnie was invited to introduce her Six-Step Industrial Relations Strategy at the CIPD Annual Conference 2025. She has also worked directly with the CIPD to contribute to the government consultation on the Employment Rights Bill—helping shape the regulatory framework that organisations must now implement.
The Philosophy
Rules alone cannot build trust. Policy alone cannot create safety. Organisations that will thrive in the next era of employee relations will not be those who simply comply—they will be those who intentionally define the relationship they want with recognised trade unions, then systematically remove every structural and cultural barrier in their way.
Cilinnie believes the future of good work depends on bridging the gap between law and culture. In mature employer–union partnerships, legislation forms the foundation, but genuine progress demands standards and behaviours that go far beyond statutory requirements.
The Six-Step Industrial Relations Strategy
At The Good Work Lab, Cilinnie has developed a strategic model that enables organisations to move from compliance to collaboration:
- Diagnose the Landscape – Assess ER maturity, power dynamics, and partnership readiness using proprietary diagnostics (LeadER™, UnionSense™).
- Define the Relationship – Agree a shared vision for partnership with leadership and unions.
- Design the Framework – Create the structures, forums, and agreements that operationalise that vision.
- Develop the Capability – Build the ER, HR, and leadership skills needed to sustain effective industrial relations.
- Deliver with Integrity – Implement through transparent, restorative, and legally sound practice.
- Debrief and Learn – Embed reflective learning after each dispute or negotiation to continually evolve the relationship.
Through this model, Cilinnie equips organisations to move beyond reactive dispute handling and into strategic, restorative industrial relations—where fairness, accountability, and psychological safety become part of the system, not the exception.
Typical outcomes include: - 35–60% reduction in formal ER cases within 18–24 months - 50% faster resolution times - Measurable improvement in manager confidence and union partnership maturity - Legal cost avoidance of £60k–£120k annually - Audit-ready governance and tribunal-defensible processes.
Who This Approach is for
This model is designed for organisations that:
Credentials & Recognition
Qualifications
LLM (Masters in Employment Law), LLB (Hons.), FCIPD, ACIArb, CEDR Accredited Mediator
Sector Contributions
→ Speaker, CIPD Annual Conference 2025
→ Contributor, CIPD government consultation on the Employment Rights Bill
→ 25+ years leading Employee Relations transformations across NHS, higher education, private and public sector
Specialism
Employee Relations transformation | Trade Unions and Industrial relations strategy | Employee Relations Governance redesign
Ready to Explore What’s Possible?
If you’re navigating post-industrial action recovery, preparing for the Employment Rights Bill, or ready to move beyond reactive Employee Relations firefighting:
→ Start with a free 45-minute Discovery Session
We’ll assess your current Employee Relations maturity, identify your biggest risks, and map a tailored transformation pathway—no obligation, no sales pitch.
→ Download the Free Employee Relations Maturity Self-Assessment
A 15-minute diagnostic tool used by HR Directors to benchmark their ER function against sector best practice.
See how organisations like yours reduced formal disputes by 35–60%, rebuilt union partnerships, and achieved measurable ROI within 18–24 months.
About Good Work Lab
Good Work Lab is a specialist industrial relations and restorative employee relations consultancy serving unionised private and public sector organisations across the UK and internationally. We integrate employment law expertise, organisational psychology, and digital diagnostics to enable organisations resolve conflict, embed fairness, and strengthen workplace culture.
What We Do
We work with organisations facing persistent employment relations challenges—high dispute rates, grievance recurrence, union tensions, investigation quality concerns, and cultural fragmentation. We also support private sector organisations with no prior experience of trade unions as they prepare for trade union access rights. Rather than treating symptoms, we diagnose root causes using AI-driven, pseudonymised diagnostics, then design and implement sustainable restorative systems that embed accountability, psychological safety, and dialogue into your organisation's DNA.
Our Core Services Include:
AI-powered maturity mapping, bias and disproportionality analysis, industrial relations diagnostics, and early warning systems for conflict risk.
Restorative employee relations design, policy reform, union engagement strategy, and legal-cultural alignment.
Phased rollouts, manager capability building, restorative governance frameworks, and post-engagement sustainability.
Sector-aligned training and certification in restorative just culture principles and practice.
Licensing of proprietary diagnostic instruments and restorative frameworks for internal deployment.
Audit-ready, defensible investigation support is required to ensure procedural fairness, legal compliance, and stakeholder trust.
Our Expertise
Our team brings deep, sector-specific knowledge across higher education, health, public service, and regulated industries. We combine:
Proven Outcomes
Our clients consistently achieve measurable improvements:
Our Approach: Restorative Employee Relations
We work within a restorative employee relations framework that moves beyond traditional disciplinary models. This approach prioritises accountability, psychological safety, dialogue, and inclusion—creating organisations where conflict is addressed early, fairly, and constructively. Rather than adversarial processes, we embed systems that encourage learning, transparency, and co-ownership of solutions.
Every intervention is tailored to your sector, legal context, union relationships, and organisational maturity. We don't impose one-size-fits-all solutions; we diagnose your specific challenges and co-design sustainable change with your leadership and workforce.
Who We Serve
We work with organisations across the UK and internationally, with particular depth in:
We also support international clients in Africa, the Caribbean, and Commonwealth nations, drawing on experience with ILO standards and cross-cultural employment relations.
Why Good Work Lab
We combine rigorous diagnostic capability with practical implementation expertise. Our diagnostics are grounded in data and psychology, not opinion. Our recommendations are legally sound, culturally sensitive, and designed for real-world adoption. And our commitment to restorative principles means we practise what we preach—building fairness and dialogue into every client engagement.
If your organisation is ready to move beyond reactive crisis management to proactive, sustainable culture change, we're here to help.