Fractional CHRO Services for Small and Mid-Sized Businesses
Your company has outgrown handling HR between other jobs, but a full-time Chief Human Resources Officer costs $180,000 to $260,000+ in base salary before benefits. A fractional CHRO closes that gap. You get a senior HR executive on a part-time, ongoing basis, someone who knows your people, your managers and your history, at a fraction of the cost of a full-time hire.
Here is where we differ from most fractional CHROs. Many of them advise leadership and leave the work to you. We handle employee issues directly: complaints, investigations, accommodation requests, leave, discipline and terminations. Your executives get their time back, and the work is done by people who know what holds up when it is reviewed later by an agency, a plaintiff's lawyer or a jury.
Based in the Philadelphia suburbs, we serve employers across Pennsylvania and nationwide, including multi-state employers.
👉 If you’re facing a sensitive situation or growing beyond your current structure, contact us to schedule a confidential consultation. If you want to know why SMBs turn to an outsourced CHRO, read this article.
What Is a Fractional CHRO?
A fractional CHRO, also called an outsourced CHRO, is an experienced HR executive who serves as your company's senior HR leader on a part-time or retained basis. Unlike an HR consultant brought in for a single project, a fractional CHRO stays with you, owns the HR function and is accountable for results. Unlike a PEO, a fractional CHRO does not become a co-employer of your workforce or take over payroll and benefits; the focus is leadership, compliance and employee relations. (Our pricing page compares the two models side by side.)
For a fuller picture of how the model works, see What Is HR Outsourcing? and what outsourced HR actually does day to day.
👉 Want to know more? Schedule a confidential consultation.
Why Growing Companies Hire an Outsourced CHRO
An Outsourced CHRO becomes your company’s senior HR leader — the person responsible for ensuring that every aspect of your It usually starts small. A manager tells an employee on intermittent leave that the team "needs someone it can count on." A supervisor fires a poor performer whose file holds one write-up from two years ago and a glowing review from last spring. An employee mentions anxiety in a one-on-one, and no one recognizes it as the start of an accommodation request. A complaint about a well-liked manager sits in someone's inbox for three weeks because no one is sure who should handle it.
Each of those decisions felt reasonable at the time. Each one is also how employment lawsuits begin. By the time a demand letter or an EEOC charge arrives, the facts are fixed: the emails were sent, the comments were made, and the documentation either exists or it doesn't. The question is no longer what happened. It's what you can prove, and the people asking are a plaintiff's lawyer, an agency investigator and, eventually, a jury.
Meanwhile, the costs you can't see keep adding up. Owners and executives lose hours every week to employee problems they were never trained to handle. Managers promoted for their technical skills repeat the same mistakes because no one has shown them a better way. And your best people are watching. When a difficult coworker goes unaddressed or a complaint goes nowhere, they don't file a charge. They quietly leave.
So ask yourself: if an employee reported harassment tomorrow, who would investigate it, and would the file hold up? Would your last termination survive a lawyer's request for the personnel record? How many hours did your leadership team spend on employee issues last month?
If those questions are uncomfortable, you're not alone. Our post on the HR risks growing companies ignore shows where these problems hide, and what weak managers are really costing you puts numbers to them. An outsourced CHRO catches them early, before a routine decision becomes the centerpiece of someone else's case.
👉 If you need strategic HR leadership without the cost of a full‑time executive, contact us for a confidential consultation.
What Our Fractional CHRO Handles
Employee Relations and Investigations
Discipline, Performance and Terminations
ADA & FMLA Administration
Labor Law Compliance
Executive Coaching
EEOC Charges and Agency Complaints
Our model brings every core HR function under one senior leader, so nothing falls between the cracks of separate vendors, a part-time generalist and an overloaded operations manager.
When an employee complains about a manager, a coworker or pay, we take the complaint, investigate it and document the outcome, rather than coaching a manager through it after the fact. That includes harassment and discrimination complaints and the retaliation risk that follows them. Learn more about our employee relations services.
Most employment lawsuits start with a termination. We make sure the record supports the decision before it is made, from documentation that protects employers to terminations for poor performance and the hardest cases, such as an employee just back from FMLA leave.
Accommodation requests and leave are where well-meaning employers get sued most often. We run the interactive process, manage certifications and notices, and coordinate ADA, FMLA and state leave so they don't conflict. See our ADA compliance and FMLA administration services.
We keep your handbook, pay practices, classifications and recordkeeping current with federal and state law, which matters more each year as states pass their own rules. Start with our HR compliance audit checklist, or see our labor law compliance services.
We work directly with owners and executives on leadership, communication and the people decisions that shape the company's culture. See CHRO-led executive coaching.
If a charge has already been filed, we help you organize the record, preserve documents and respond in a way that doesn't make things worse. Read what to do after receiving an EEOC complaint.
Together, these services form a single, cohesive, executive‑level HR function — one that protects the business, supports your people, and gives your leadership team the clarity and confidence they’ve been missing.
👉 Not sure where to start? Schedule a confidential consultation and we'll tell you which of these needs attention first.
What If We Already Have HR Staff?
A fractional CHRO supports your HR team; it doesn't replace it. Many of our clients have a capable HR generalist or office manager who simply hasn't handled an investigation, a complex accommodation or a high-risk termination before. We serve as their mentor and escalation point, build workflows for the processes that carry the most risk, such as FMLA, ADA accommodations, I-9 compliance, performance documentation, investigations and terminations, and help your staff build the judgment that only comes from experience.
If you're unsure whether your current team is covering the risk, read Is your HR team protecting your business? and what happens when inexperienced staff are placed in HR roles.
Why Learning on the Job Is the Most Expensive Way to Learn HR
Many growing companies place a reliable office manager or administrative HR person in the role and expect them to grow into it. It's an understandable choice, but it isn't a fair one. Handling payroll, onboarding and benefits well is a real skill, and it's a different skill from running an investigation, managing an accommodation request or judging whether a termination will hold up. Those aren't learned from a webinar or a search engine, and asking someone to figure them out alone sets them up to fail.
It's also unrealistic, and it's costly. In HR, trial and error happens with real employees, and the errors become evidence: the investigation that missed a witness, the leave that was never properly designated, the termination that came too soon after a complaint. Any one of those lessons can cost more than years of experienced guidance, and your HR person ends up carrying the blame for a gap that was never theirs to fill.
If you have dependable administrative HR staff, keep them. What they need is a leader: someone who develops their skills on real matters as they come up and serves as a sounding board when an issue is more complex than anything they've handled before. That's the role our fractional CHRO plays, so your team gets stronger with every case instead of guessing its way through it.
How Much Does a Fractional CHRO Cost?
Our fractional CHRO engagement, which includes full employee relations and ADA and FMLA administration, is $6,000 per month for companies with up to 100 employees, with a per head cost for each additional employee. Smaller companies with 15 to 49 employees can start with our small business package starting at $1,000 per month. Compared with a full-time CHRO's salary, benefits and overhead, most clients spend a fraction of the cost and get experience a full-time hire at their size usually couldn't offer. See every tier on our HR outsourcing pricing page.
Signs It's Time for a Fractional CHRO
Companies usually call us after one of these:
Managers are handling complaints, discipline or accommodation requests without training.
The same employee problems keep coming back.
Documentation is inconsistent, or missing when you need it.
Your handbook and policies haven't kept up with your size or your multi-state footprint.
You've just received a complaint, a demand letter or an agency charge.
Turnover or poor hires are slowing growth.
Executives are spending hours a week on employee issues.
If two or more sound familiar, our post on whether your business has outgrown its HR function is a good next read, or take our confidential Workplace Diagnostic Questionnaire.
Experience That Holds Up Under Scrutiny
Our work is led by an employment attorney with litigation experience, and that experience shapes every piece of advice we give. Most HR guidance asks whether a decision follows policy. We also ask how it will look to the people who may review it later.
Take the termination letter. It's often the first document a former employee hands to a plaintiff's attorney, and the attorney reads it to decide whether the case is worth taking. Most plaintiff's employment lawyers work on contingency, so they screen carefully. We draft every termination letter with that reader in mind: a clear, legitimate, well-supported reason, and nothing that hints at a different motive. A letter like that tells the attorney the employer is prepared, and it's often the reason a case is turned away before a claim is ever filed.
The same thinking runs through the rest of the file. When we build a performance record, we think about how a mediator or judge would read it, and whether the documentation tells a clear, consistent story without anyone having to explain it.
That's the difference between HR that sounds reasonable in the moment and HR that holds up under scrutiny. Our services are HR services and do not constitute legal advice to your organization. Learn more about CHRO, LLC.
Schedule a Confidential Consultation
Tell us what's happening in your workplace. The conversation is confidential and there's no obligation; you'll leave with a clear sense of where your risk is and what to do first. Schedule your consultation or call (484) 648-1800.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between a fractional CHRO and an outsourced CHRO?
The terms describe the same role: a senior HR executive who leads your HR function on a part-time or retained basis. "Fractional" emphasizes the part-time schedule; "outsourced" emphasizes that the executive is not on your payroll.
Is a fractional CHRO the same as a PEO?
No. A PEO becomes a co-employer and usually takes over payroll and benefits. A fractional CHRO leads your HR function, handles employee issues and compliance, and does not become a co-employer.
Can a fractional CHRO work with our existing HR person?
Yes. We act as a mentor and escalation point for your HR staff and handle the high-risk matters they haven't faced before.
Do you handle workplace investigations?
Yes. We take complaints, conduct investigations and document the outcome directly, rather than coaching your managers through them.
How does a fractional CHRO empower leadership?
A fractional CHRO gives your leaders the confidence to act on people decisions instead of avoiding them. Executives get candid, experienced guidance before a hard decision is made, so they can move quickly without guessing at the risk. Managers learn how to handle performance problems, complaints and difficult conversations themselves, and they know where to turn when an issue is beyond them. And because we handle the employee issues that consume leadership time, your executives can focus on growing the business. Contact us to discover how we can help you.