For urban organizations
Fractional HR for Bay Area startups and nonprofits
Does this sound like you?
- Your HR is a founder, an office manager or a bookkeeper doing it on the side.
- You are close to 15 or 20 employees and do not know which rules switch on.
- A manager keeps asking what to do about a complaint, a leave request or a firing.
- You need senior judgment and cannot carry a full-time senior salary.
Fractional HR puts a senior HR lead in your company for part of each week: policies, hiring, pay, employee relations and compliance handled by someone who has done it before. It is built for urban organizations of 10 to 150 people that need senior judgment without a full-time senior salary.
Fractional HR director, part-time HR or outsourced HR?
Other firms sell the same role as a fractional HR director, part-time HR or outsourced HR, and a fractional CHRO is the same again at the executive level. What matters more than the label is that there is no co-employment: you keep your own payroll and benefits, which is the real difference in the PEO vs. HR consultant decision for small businesses that have outgrown doing HR themselves. When you need one answer rather than a standing role, a single project gives you outsourced HR support for small business questions without a monthly retainer.
Two ways to work together
| Option | Monthly | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Fractional HR | $5,000 to $10,000 | The HR function, run end to end, part time |
| HR advisory | $2,000 to $4,000 | A senior partner behind the person who runs HR day to day |
A full-time HR manager in the San Francisco-Oakland area averaged $219,270 in wages in May 2025, before benefits, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. For one-off work, the price estimator shows typical HR consulting fees by headcount.
What fractional HR covers for Bay Area teams
This is HR support for small businesses that need senior judgment every month, not a help desk.
- Handbook and policies current with California law at your headcount.
- Compensation consulting: pay ranges for every posting and a structure that holds up to comparison.
- Hiring: job descriptions, structured interviews, scorecards and offer letters.
- Performance conversations and the termination process, documented and handled correctly.
- Required training, records and a compliance calendar.
- Board and leadership reporting on people metrics.
Who it is for
- Founders and executive directors doing HR on top of the full job, from startup HR at seed stage to nonprofit HR with grant-funded roles.
- Growing companies crossing 15, 50 or 75 employees, where California’s rules stack up.
- Teams that just had a complaint, a wage claim or a messy exit.
When we’re done
- HR stops living in the founder’s inbox.
- Policies, pay ranges, hiring and hard conversations handled by someone who has done them before.
- Leadership sees the people numbers every month, with a compliance calendar that runs ahead of the deadlines.
What I need from you
- One leader I report to. The final say on every decision stays with you.
- Access to payroll, the handbook and personnel files.
- A standing check-in each week.
How it starts
A free 20-minute consult, then a written quote. Many clients start with a compliance check-up, which shows the size of the job before a monthly commitment. A posting audit fee paid in the prior 30 days is credited in full toward the first month.