Every question we get asked, answered properly.

Fractional HR is senior HR leadership hired on a part-time, retained basis instead of a full-time salary. You get an experienced HR director or chief people officer for a fixed number of days a month, with the authority to own the people agenda, sit in leadership meetings and make decisions rather than hand over recommendations. The work is continuous and embedded, which is what separates it from project consulting.

A consultant is scoped to a project and delivers a document. A fractional HR leader holds an ongoing portfolio: strategy, escalations, manager coaching, compliance oversight and board reporting. The practical test is what happens when something unexpected lands on a Tuesday. The consultant is a change order; the fractional leader is already accountable.

Outsourced HR usually means an administrative help desk: policy questions, templates, payroll support. Fractional HR means a named executive who knows your business and owns outcomes. Many companies need both, and the cheapest configuration is usually administration outsourced and judgement brought in fractionally.

Most engagements sit between 20 and 500 employees. Below 20, the need is usually project-shaped and a diagnostic is enough. Above 200 to 400, depending on how distributed and regulated you are, senior HR demand becomes continuous and a full-time hire starts to make more sense. The threshold is about volume of work, not headcount alone.

No. Roughly half our clients have nobody in an HR seat. The other half have a generalist or coordinator who is drowning in administration with nobody senior above them. In that second case the strongest configuration is the fractional executive owning strategy while the existing person runs the operating rhythm.

Yes, and it is one of the most cost-effective arrangements available. The fractional executive provides direction, calibration and escalation cover, while the internal team handles the daily work. It is materially cheaper than hiring a full-time HR director to do both jobs.

With a clear brief, two to three business days is realistic because the bench of vetted executives already exists. The usual delay is the client's own calendar for the kickoff session, not availability.

Pricing sorts into three tiers. A fractional HR consultant runs a few thousand dollars a month for eight to sixteen hours. A senior HR director typically sits at three to six thousand for around twenty hours. A fractional CHRO runs six to ten thousand for two to three days a week. If a quote falls far outside those bands, ask which tier of person is behind the invoice.

At the senior end, almost always. A full-time CHRO carries base salary in the mid two hundreds of thousands in most North American markets before bonus, equity, benefits and support staff. A two-day-a-week fractional CHRO costs a fraction of that. At the junior end the maths can reverse, because a generalist's workload is continuous.

Three months is standard, because the first 30 days are diagnosis and nothing meaningful lands before day 60. Longer terms should earn a lower rate and come with a documented exit. Anything open-ended in either direction is a contract worth reading twice.

Usually yes, with notice, and this is one of the genuine advantages over a salary. Ask for the pause and exit mechanics in writing at signature. A provider who resists documenting them is telling you how the relationship will end.

Full-cycle recruitment, litigation support, and large system implementations are typically separate, because they have different economics and different specialists. A good agreement names those boundaries explicitly so nobody is surprised mid-quarter.

Our Strategic HR Diagnosis is a fixed $1,750: six hours of structured work, a document audit and a costed 90-day roadmap. We charge for it because it is real work, and it exists so that you can size a retainer against evidence rather than a guess.

Reading, mostly. Contracts, handbook, payroll configuration, recent terminations, and the org chart as it is rather than as it is described. Alongside that, interviews with leadership and a sample of managers. The output is a risk register ranked by exposure plus a 90-day roadmap with named owners.

Between one and three, structured as monthly capacity rather than a fixed weekly schedule. Early months tend to consume the full allocation. Later months often run lighter as the systems start holding without intervention.

The CEO or founder in almost every engagement, with a dotted line to the board or investors where one exists. Reporting to the person who owns the business outcome is what gives the role authority to say no.

Three things at 90 days: leadership meetings include a people item with data attached, managers escalate earlier instead of sitting on problems, and there is a people narrative you could hand an investor without editing. Beyond that, agreed metrics such as regrettable attrition, time to hire and compliance gaps closed.

The pattern that works is one on-site day a month for leadership and difficult conversations, with the rest remote. Presence matters most in moments of friction, which is why fully remote HR leadership often underdelivers on employee relations.

Say so in the first 30 days. A bench-based provider can substitute a different executive without restarting the commercial relationship, and the evidence gathered in diagnosis stays with you rather than the individual.

Eight items account for most of what we find: offer letters that are not contracts, no documented probation process, untested overtime classification, vacation and leave calculations copied from elsewhere, unsigned handbooks, terminations without a paper trail, no accommodation process, and nobody owning the compliance calendar.

Provincial for most employers, with federally regulated industries such as banking, telecom and interprovincial transport following the Canada Labour Code. For remote employees, the law of the province where the person actually works generally applies, which is how distributed teams accumulate obligations they never noticed.

Frequently, yes. The expensive gaps are usually a missing termination clause, a probation clause that does not survive scrutiny, or restrictive covenants drafted for a different jurisdiction. A single properly drafted template set, reviewed once by counsel, is one of the cheapest risk reductions available.

Annually at minimum, plus immediately when legislation changes or headcount crosses a threshold that triggers new obligations. The practical rhythm is a quarterly compliance calendar review with a named owner, because unowned policy documents expire quietly.

No. We build the HR process, the documentation and the management discipline around it, and we work alongside employment counsel when an issue is genuinely legal. Most compliance work is process rather than advice, which is why it does not need a legal retainer.

Yes, and it is the most common reason companies call us. Buyer diligence reviews contracts, classification, terminations and documentation. Finding the gaps yourself, six months before a transaction, is considerably cheaper than finding them in a data room.

Usually when you cross thirty to fifty employees, or earlier if you are hiring quickly in more than one jurisdiction, or if a manager has already produced a problem you cannot resolve cleanly. Before that, a diagnostic plus a fractional arrangement is almost always cheaper than a salary.

A generalist if the work is administration: onboarding, payroll coordination, policy questions. A fractional leader if the work is judgement: performance, org design, compensation and escalation. Most companies need the second one first, because the problems that hurt are managerial rather than administrative.

Move to a quarterly rhythm: three short written notes per person per quarter and a thirty-minute conversation, compiled annually. It costs each manager around two hours a quarter and it produces the documentation that annual reviews pretend to create.

Documentation first, then process, then the conversation. Statutory minimums are the floor, not the answer, and without a valid termination clause the exposure becomes common law notice measured in months. This is the moment to involve senior HR and counsel together rather than in sequence.

It changes the quality of the candidate pool before a role opens. Companies that publish how they hire, what they pay and what working there is like stop paying a premium in time-to-hire. It is one of the few HR investments that shows up directly in recruiting cost.

It replaces the drafting and summarising share of the role, which is often why a part-time generalist was needed. It does not replace judgement on performance, restructuring and compliance, and those are the expensive parts. Used well, AI makes a senior HR person faster rather than unnecessary.

Health and accommodation information, disciplinary records, individual compensation, and any identifying detail attached to a performance or termination decision. Write the list down once, approve specific tools by name, and require human sign-off on anything that becomes a policy or a decision record.

You need accurate records more than you need software. A payroll system that holds the truth plus a small HRIS for leave, documents and reviews is usually enough. Buying an enterprise platform before the processes exist just moves the mess into a more expensive interface.

Start with jurisdictions, not features. Multi-province or multi-state payroll narrows the field quickly, and integration with your accounting and benefits is the next filter. We assess, configure and migrate payroll as a fixed-scope project rather than an open-ended retainer.