Question 1

What does The Magic Coffin actually do?

Accepted Answer

The Magic Coffin is a fractional people and comms consultancy with six services: internal communications, employee experience, people operations, fractional HR business partnering, pay transparency and manager enablement. Built for companies that have outgrown a shared spreadsheet and someone's memory, while still growing towards a full HR department. Engagements usually start with an audit (we call it The Autopsy), or with The Grimoire for new managers, and continue either as a fixed project or a monthly retainer.

Question 2

Do you work with companies outside Sweden?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Current and past clients span the UK, US, Australia, Sweden, Germany and Spain. The full track record covers 36 markets worked across in total. Engagements run remotely by default, with travel for workshops where it earns the trip.

Question 3

How much does this cost?

Accepted Answer

Fixed projects start from €600. Retainers start from €400 a month, with a three-month minimum. Where your engagement lands inside that depends on the pillar and the tier, so every engagement starts with a free 30-minute call, where you get a straight answer including an honest read on fit.

Question 4

We're small. Are we too small for this?

Accepted Answer

Clients usually sit between 50 and around 2,000 people, right at the point where the People function is straining under growth pressure with everyone too stretched to mind it. Pay transparency work starts from 10 people and manager enablement from 20: the EU pay rules apply to employers of every size. Mention your size on the call either way. You'll get a straight, honest answer.

Question 5

What's the difference between a project and a retainer?

Accepted Answer

A project (The Autopsy, The Burial, and their pillar-specific equivalents) has a fixed scope, a fixed timeline and a defined end. A retainer (The Resurrection, or The Night School for managers) is ongoing monthly support with a three-month minimum, because real change takes longer than four weeks to land.

Question 6

Is this a one-person consultancy?

Accepted Answer

Yes, by design. You work directly with the founder from the first call to the final handover: the same person who scopes the work is the one who delivers it.

Question 7

What's a "vampire moment"?

Accepted Answer

The exact point a symptom stops being a one-off and becomes how things are done here: onboarding that quietly fades after week one, an update people skim once and forget, a process that only lives in someone's head. Small and undramatic on their own, which is exactly why growth stalls quietly rather than dramatically, and why the cost only shows up later, once it's already expensive.

Question 8

Do you help with the EU Pay Transparency Directive?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Pay Transparency is one of our six services: job levels, pay bands on gender-neutral criteria, a pay-request process and the scripts your managers use, for companies of 10 to 2,000 people. It starts with The Autopsy, a check of your job adverts, contracts and pay data against the Directive, country by country, from €750.

Question 9

Do you train new managers?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Manager Enablement gives new managers a starter kit (The Grimoire), an eight-week cohort of up to 12 peers (The Coven), one-to-one coaching (The Familiar) and a monthly clinic (The Night School). It suits companies of 20 to 2,000 people promoting their first or next wave of managers. The kit starts from €900.