If you asked me for my elevator pitch I would say that we provide customized, full-service HR support without the overhead of hiring in-house to small employers from 1-500 employees. If you asked me to go on, I would add:
From recruiting and onboarding to performance management, payroll, and compliance, we can handle every aspect of the employee life cycle. Our team works directly with your staff, ensuring seamless HR operations and continuity. With us, you get the expertise you need, flexibility that grows with you, and the peace of mind that your HR is in the hands of trusted professionals who know your business inside and out.
Where my pitch splits from here depends on whether I am talking to a business leader with no current in-house HR setup, or an HR leader that is in search for additional support.
There is a common misconception that fractional support is best for those leaders with no in-house setup, but the reality is that fractional support works well in both situations. Situations where the fractional support team IS the entire HR team and situations where the fractional support team is an EXTENSION OF the in-house HR team.
The difference often comes down to company size and who is currently managing HR.
Businesses 1-75 Employees:
This category of business benefits from our full fractional support offering. They usually have a non-HR person handling HR and that individual may not have the expertise needed. We can effectively handle all aspects of human resources, remotely with our HR team. Clients receive a dedicated Business Partner and Generalist and, depending on service, also has access to our payroll team. The part-time nature of fractional work is sufficient to meet all needs effectively.
For these businesses we serve as the in-house team. There is no difference in daily experience for leaders or employees between us and in-house HR. We handle it all and become the go-to authority for human resource processes.
Businesses 76+ Employees:
Around that 75 mark, and depending upon the environment, businesses likely need to bring in some in-house support dedicated full-time to the business. We suggest this person has experience in HR leadership especially if the business is growing. For that size org, one full-time HR individual is likely all the budget will allow, but the HR needs are often greater than one person can manage if the person should be both strategic and manage the day-to-day. For this business, using fractional support to supplement the HR leader is a highly effective way to ensure first-in-class HR without the overhead of an entire HR team.
Our largest clients (100+ employees) use us as their “employee experience team”. They have an in-house HR leader managing strategy, working with leaders and setting processes that meet company goals while leaving the day to day HR administration to us. Employees and leaders do not feel a difference between their in-house person and us, and the in-house leader gets the extra support they need.
There are 3 common disciplines of HR that clients use us for the most.
Payroll:
Wage and hour claims for small employers can be insanely costly. Many of the clients who have gone through these legal proceedings weren’t even aware they were doing something wrong. Unfortunately, ignorance is not a viable legal defense.
We have an incredible payroll team whose process not only ensures legal compliance, but mitigates even smaller errors that do not necessarily have legal consequence. They ensure checks and balances are in place, require multiple approval levels and maybe the most organized record keepers I have ever seen.
We experience many clients managing payroll through someone who does not fully understand it or using a third party that is simply processing whatever is sent to them without question. Those are clients who usually end up coming to us after a wage and hour claim.
There are many areas in business you can get a way with “winging”. Payroll is not one of them.
Leave Administration:
In California, even employers as small as 5 employees are required to offer certain types of leave. In any state, leaves can be incredibly nuanced and, since legally protected, treating the employee right throughout the process is crucial.
Depending upon size, leave administration can be highly time consuming. Add in managers who definitely do not know what they can do and say during leave, and employees who may be going through a very emotional time, and the whole process can become an exercise in extreme hand holding.
Leaves require not only expertise, but compassion and an ability to educate and guide. There are lots of moving parts that have to be kept track of. Having experts handle the leave process ensures consistency, compassion, and compliance.
Compliance:
Since we are in California, I pull on that experience a lot. Keeping up with compliance here can be a full time job. If you have one person trying to manage all the compliance things, they will have little time for anything else. There is a reason that our first 90 days with a client involves a lot of auditing HR processes. We want to immediately see what may be out of compliance or what can be streamlined for easier adherence to compliance rules.
We often find several key areas where companies are out of compliance. Usually this is out of ignorance, but again, that isn’t a viable legal defense. Using fractional support for compliance means you have experts, who are constantly keeping their skills up to date in this area, handling this very legal aspect of your business. It allows every other leader to focus on other things knowing employees are being treated as required from a legal perspective.
Our contracts are built on hours rather than scope which means clients often use our services for these things and more, but if you were thinking of just marking one thing off your to-do list, these are the 3 areas we find to be game changer for internal teams looking for some breathing room. Using a firm like ours provides added value in terms of incorporating HR strategy along with the daily administrative tasks.
Ultimately, fractional support provides expertise that may not be available in a single in-house hire. It offers assurance that compliance heavy components of the employee experience are handled consistently and efficiently. It frees time for whoever has been managing HR to use to focus on other things that may have kept getting pushed to the wayside. It is a highly viable solution to any business looking to manage HR differently than they currently are.
I would love to chat about how we can support your business. We have a thorough and detailed onboarding process that ensures your business gets the immediate traction it needs to improve HR processes, improves employee engagement and ensures marketplace competitiveness for even the smallest of firms.
You can set up time to chat about your unique needs directly on my calendar here.
Comments