Founders and small business leaders keep asking, why would anyone contract an HR Consultant or Fractional CHRO? And what is fractional Human Resources anyway?
Yes, sometimes HR leaders say “no” to things that might endanger your organization—and if you have employees, your business is exposed to risk. But strategic HR professionals are business drivers who help keep your business growing and shielded from risk—we know how to say, “Yes, let’s figure it out.”
A founder posted recently on LinkedIn that if HR (which doesn’t generate revenue anyway) were eliminated, business would accelerate, and the money used to pay for an HR team would be better spent getting products to market.
HR pros responded that their function is to keep revenues working for the business instead of losing large sums to non-compliance fines, litigation costs, or damages awards—which can be far greater than the cost of an HR team or consultant fees.
Attitudes like this proliferate among SMB leaders and founders because, when it works well, HR tends to operate quietly in the background until it’s open enrollment time or something goes wrong.
And maybe we’re not always the best at selling our value, but we can be worth our weight in cost avoidance gold. After all, HR’s success is frequently based on things NOT happening.
It’s too Risky to Go it Alone
If you’re a small business or start up with tight margins you still need to protect your investment.
While you may not need a full-time, in-house HR team or CHRO, you do need to have your compliance and policies vetted to protect all the hard work, time, and money you’ve put into building your business.
This is where HR consultants and Fractional CHROs come in.
As seasoned professionals with domain expertise, we know how to protect founders’ investments with the unglamorous, but very necessary, work of reviewing people management fundamentals to minimize risk from regulatory action or litigation.
So, what exactly do HR consultants do?
The same things an in-house HR team does, but scaled to deliver just what an SMB or startup actually needs at each stage of growth:
- Audit for compliance with local and national laws applicable to your business
- Develop HR policies and review or develop documentation like employee handbooks
- Compensation, benefits, and incentive programs
- Workforce planning and recruitment
- Training and development
If a founder or SMB owner has a question or doubt, they shouldn’t ask a generic chatbot, which we all know by now can confidently give inaccurate information. A fractional HR leader or HR consultant is a web search or phone call away and, for a reasonable cost, can save all the hard work, time, and resources put into growing the business.
BLOG AUTHOR
Lloyd Comeau
After 20+ years as an HR executive—for national retailers, multi-state manufacturers, and high-growth startups—Lloyd Comeau has navigated every people problem imaginable. As a certified executive coach, he brings practical, workable solutions, not HR theory and works side-by-side with executive leadership and founders as a trusted advisor.
Growing companies don’t need huge HR departments, so Lloyd leveraged his corporate HR experience to found CapeView HR Consulting and give founders, owners, and SMBs access to big business HR expertise and practical solutions.