What should employers do first when an HR position becomes vacant?

The first step is to identify what the HR professional was actively managing—open employee relations issues, performance concerns, ADA or FMLA cases, and any compliance deadlines tied to payroll, benefits, or state requirements. With extensive HR and labor law compliance experience, we often see that the highest risk comes from undocumented handoffs. A structured review prevents gaps that can escalate into discipline disputes, inconsistent decisions, or avoidable legal exposure. During this period, we also train and support existing HR staff so they can maintain stability while senior coverage is missing.

Why is it important not to rush the hiring process for a new HR professional?

Many HR candidates interview extremely well. HR professionals are trained communicators, and they know how to instill confidence in themselves during interviews. But strong communication skills do not always reflect true capability or experience. Employers benefit from involving someone with extensive HR background in the interview process. If no one on staff has that experience, an outsourced CHRO can help screen candidates, evaluate their HR judgment, and ensure the organization hires someone who can meet expectations rather than simply interview well.

How can HR responsibilities be covered temporarily without disrupting operations?

Critical tasks can be reassigned to trained managers, but higher‑risk matters—employee discipline, ADA accommodations, FMLA administration, and policy enforcement—should be handled by someone with extensive HR and labor law compliance experience. Outsourced HR support can stabilize operations, maintain documentation standards, train existing HR staff, and ensure decisions remain consistent and defensible until a permanent hire is made.

What internal processes should be reviewed before hiring a replacement?

Before hiring, employers should review onboarding, performance management, documentation practices, leave administration, and employee relations workflows. Our organizational development work shows that unclear processes are the root cause of most HR breakdowns. Clarifying these systems helps define the role accurately and prevents the next HR professional from inheriting structural problems that limit their effectiveness. We also help train existing HR staff so they can support these processes during the transition.

Can outsourced HR support help during an HR vacancy?

Yes. Outsourced HR support provides interim coverage for documentation, employee relations, policy interpretation, manager training, and coaching. Because our work includes HR compliance, labor law alignment, executive coaching, leadership development, and training for existing HR staff, we help employers maintain stability, reduce risk, and avoid reactive decision‑making while they search for the right long‑term HR hire.

How can employers ensure their expectations for an HR hire are realistic based on salary and available HR support?

Employers often underestimate how much experience they can reasonably expect at a given salary level — or they overestimate what one HR person can handle without adequate support. When a role is underpaid for the level of judgment required, employers tend to attract candidates who interview well but lack the depth needed for high‑risk functions. HR professionals are strong communicators, and many can instill confidence in an interview even when their real‑world capability doesn’t match the organization’s needs. On the other end of the spectrum, paying top‑tier compensation without providing the support staff necessary for the company’s size creates a different problem: the HR leader becomes overwhelmed with administrative tasks and cannot devote the bandwidth required for compliance, employee relations, ADA/FMLA administration, or organizational development. A realistic assessment of salary, workload, and support structure is essential. When employers don’t have someone with extensive HR experience to evaluate these factors, an outsourced CHRO can help calibrate expectations, assess the role design, and screen candidates to ensure alignment between compensation, capability, and organizational needs.

Hiring for HR? Avoid These Common Mistakes With Expert Screening Support — HR Outsourcing Done Right

Filling a vacant HR position is one of the most important hiring decisions you’ll ever make for your company. Your HR personnel (or person) is responsible for your highest risk, and costliest asset—your workforce. If you make a poor hiring decision, it can cost you money for many years after the bad hire has left. Here are six things to consider or complete to optimize your chances of finding a great addition to your HR Department:

1. Ensure that your ad is titled with the primary HR function you seek to fill and the pay budgeted for the role is competitive:

This might seem obvious, but many smaller companies will either overstate or understate the role in hopes of finding a good hire who costs less than the person they need or an inexperienced but smart candidate who can magically grow into the role. If the new hire will be primarily responsible for recruiting, title the position as “Recruiter” and research competitive compensation for this role to make sure you can attract quality candidates. If you title a primarily recruiting position as an HR Manager or HR Generalist position, without paying the premium for this experience, you’re going to face a very frustrating hiring process because those candidates with management or generalist experience, usually won’t accept the lower compensation of a recruiter.

On the other hand, if you are looking for someone who will create your HR department from the ground up, then title the position HR Director or HR Manager, however, understand that a candidate with the experience to single-handedly build your HR policies and workflows, ensure labor law compliance, and guide management in disciplinary action, commands a premium for this experience. If you low-ball this position, you will end up with a wholly inadequate employee managing your riskiest business function. If your company is not large enough to justify the expense for an HR superstar, look for someone who has the experience to handle your day-to-day employee functions and find a fractional CHRO to support you with the higher-level functions.

2. Make sure the job responsibilities in the advertisement are realistic for your company size.

Expecting an HR employee to handle a wide range of labor-intensive functions (e.g. payroll, full-cycle recruiting, issuing discipline in a high turnover industry, etc.) will result in poor risk management simply because they’re constantly reacting to the urgency of the moment. If you expect your high-volume recruiter to have the bandwidth to proactively address employee challenges, they need the time and the experience to be able to do this. Effectively identifying and addressing employee relations matters can be just as time-consuming as high-volume recruiting and it’s usually unrealistic to expect one person to do both functions well in a company with 100+ employees, particularly if you have high turnover.

Contact us if you need assistance attracting or hiring qualified candidates for your vacant HR position

3. Ignore the titles in your candidates’ resumes, and focus on the tasks for which they were responsible and their prior support system.

HR titles are often fluid from one company to the next. An HR Coordinator at one place, may be called an HR Generalist somewhere else but have identical job responsibilities. If the majority of a candidate’s responsibilities are focused on administrative tasks (e.g. data-entry, payroll, personnel file compliance, etc.), but there are some higher level HR functions peppered in their experience, drill down to the details on how they performed those higher-level functions. Many times, lower-level employees played a minor role in higher-level functions but will take credit for them on their resume. For example, if the candidate claims they developed the employee handbook, ask them what was there when they started, how they developed it, who else participated in the process—you can even ask them to share the table of contents so you can determine the quality of the final product.

If you are hiring the sole HR employee for your company, this is especially important if the person will have no oversight from an experienced HR leader in their day-to-day responsibilities. A candidate who has performed a broad range of responsibilities well with the support of a full HR department and with an experienced HR Director, VP of HR or CHRO managing them, will often flounder without that experienced oversight and guidance. In these situations you need to find out how the candidate will stay updated on changes in the regulatory landscape or provide a resource for guidance and support once they start the position so they can be successful as a one-person show.

4. Pay close attention to the candidates’ job histories…

…particularly the length of time in their last three jobs, especially when hiring for leadership positions. Good HR people are in high demand and usually hold their jobs for several years. If a candidate has been job hopping every 1-2 years, then one or more of the following is likely:

a.     At best, this is likely the longest you will get from them too.
b.     A series of short stints can mean that one or more prior employers found the candidate’s performance subpar and forced them out or fired them.
c.      The candidate could not deliver in their past positions and moved on before they were forced out.
d.     The candidate’s personal life interferes with their job performance.

An HR leader who claimes to have revamped or built a company’s HR department in the course of one-two years, is likely overstating their accomplishments. It usually takes several months to assess a company’s culture, departmental cultures, leadership’s strengths and weaknesses, leadership’s desired culture, the obstacles to attaining desired culture, current noncompliance, and anticipated compliance challenges based on growth or expansion. Then it takes several more months to implement and refine policies and workflows to streamline internal processes to minimize noncompliance and lack of workforce cohesion. Larger projects such as HRIS implementation, updating a handbook or job descriptions, rolling out employee engagement and retention inititatives, compensation studies and so on, can take up to a year to complete well. If that person is also responsible for recruiting, employee relations, ADA/FMLA administration, worker’s compensation claims, unemployment claims, payroll and personnel file compliance, then you can probably double the time needed for the above accomplishments.

Contact us if you need assistance with building your HR Department

5. Ask the employee what they know about your company.

This question is particularly important for an HR candidate—after all, HR does not happen in a vacuum—not only must the candidate know your industry, but they should also have some idea about your current culture. There are multiple free online sources they can use to do this research prior to the interview. If the HR candidate has not bothered to check your website, looked at a few Linkedin profiles, or done a little research on your industry if it’s new to them, they’re probably a poor choice for an HR position.

6. Administer a pre-hire assessment that measures the candidate’s suitability for the posted position.

Too often, hiring managers focus on how they feel about the candidate based on their communication style during the interview. This can be misleading, especially when you are hiring a person who has probably interviewed many more people than you have. HR candidates are pros when it comes to interviewing, they know how to relate, they’re verbally fluid and build rapport quickly. None of this tells you how they operate under pressure, whether they’re detailed oriented, if they can work independently, exercise good judgment, draft comprehensive policies or if they have any of the other traits that you need in the role. If you are replacing a departing senior HR leader, ask them to draft a realistic assessment based on your workforce challenges so you can measure if the candidate can assess risk, shows sound judgment in resolving conflicts, can condct an investigation, and has the basic HR skills they need to excel in the position. If you don’t have an experienced HR executive, speak to your legal counsel to help you draft this assessment or look for an outsourced CHRO who can help you with this.

If you are frustrated with your company’s current HR challenges, complete our Company Diagnostic for a free HR Assessment.

People Also Ask

What should a company do first when an HR position becomes vacant?

The first priority is stabilizing operations. That means confirming who owns critical HR tasks, ensuring payroll and compliance deadlines are covered, and identifying any open employee relations issues. A vacant HR seat exposes the organization to risk immediately, so leaders must establish temporary coverage before recruiting begins.

Why is a vacant HR role a high‑risk moment for small businesses?

HR is the function that manages compliance, documentation, onboarding, employee relations, and legal risk. When the role is empty, deadlines get missed, documentation lapses, and issues go unaddressed. Even a short gap can create exposure under wage and hour laws, ADA, Title VII, and state‑specific requirements.

How can HR outsourcing support a company during an HR vacancy?

Outsourced HR provides immediate continuity. A fractional CHRO or outsourced HR team can step in to manage compliance, stabilize processes, support managers, and keep employee issues from escalating. This prevents the operational and legal gaps that often occur when HR responsibilities are spread across untrained managers.

What tasks should be reviewed when an HR employee leaves suddenly?

Leaders should review open investigations, performance issues, onboarding tasks, benefits administration, payroll deadlines, and any pending compliance filings. These items often sit in the HR function and can create liability if they stall during a vacancy.

How does an interim or fractional CHRO help during an HR transition?

A fractional CHRO provides strategic oversight while also handling day‑to‑day HR operations. They ensure documentation is consistent, policies are followed, and managers receive guidance. This prevents the “drift” that often happens when HR duties are temporarily assigned to people without HR training.

Should a company pause hiring while the HR role is vacant?

Not necessarily — but hiring should not proceed without structure. A vacant HR seat often means inconsistent interviews, unclear criteria, and poor documentation. Outsourced HR or a fractional CHRO can keep hiring on track while ensuring compliance and fairness.

What’s the biggest mistake companies make when an HR employee leaves?

Assuming managers can “cover HR for a while.” HR is a specialized function with legal implications. When untrained managers take over HR tasks, documentation becomes inconsistent, deadlines are missed, and employee issues escalate. This is where many small businesses unintentionally create risk.

Filling a Vacant HR Position? Check these 6 Items off your to-do list

CHRO, LLC—Your
Fractional HR Officer

Filling a Vacant HR Position? Check these 6 Items off your to-do list

The 7 HR Mistakes that Cost Businesses the Most & How to Avoid them

STOP Wasting Money on Bad Hires: The 2026 Resolution for all Growing Companies

CHRO, LLC—Your Fractional HR Officer

CHRO, LLC—Your
Fractional HR Officer