Founders Series Vol 2: Why the Goal of Fractional HR Is to Make Yourself Redundant
Founder-led businesses often hire a Fractional HR Director or Fractional CHRO because they need senior HR leadership without committing to a full-time executive. The goal isn’t to create dependency. It’s to build systems, processes and a People function that can run smoothly long after the heavy lifting is done and stand the test of time for those who come after.
I lead with this in the first meeting, because it’s the business model, not a confession: my job, done properly, ends with me barely being there.
That’s the goal, not a risk. I come into a company full time, and the whole plan is to work myself down to a couple of days a week. Not because I’ve lost interest, but because if a People function only runs when I’m sat at my desk, I haven’t built anything. I’ve just made myself the single point of failure with a nicer job title.
So I go in and fix the plumbing first. Then I automate it.
I usually build everything around HiBob HRIS, because it’s one of the best HR platforms for growing technology companies. I’ve implemented Bob many times as a HiBob implementation consultant, and it lets me automate the repetitive work that slows HR teams down while giving managers and employees the tools they need to be more self-sufficient.
What I automate in HiBob:
- Employee onboarding
- Employee offboarding
- HR document management
- Right to work compliance
- eSign workflows
- Annual leave management
- Self-service HR
- Manager approvals
- HR reporting
- People analytics
- Employee engagement
- Background checks (I partner with Zinc)
Once those foundations are in place, founders stop relying on HR for every small decision. Managers become more confident, employees become more self-sufficient, and HR moves from firefighting to genuinely supporting business growth.
One recent example is Azur Technology, where I joined as an interim People leader on a full-time basis for nineteen months. During that time we implemented scalable People processes, embedded HiBob workflows, developed the internal People Ops capability and documented key processes. By the end of the engagement I was able to reduce my involvement to two half days a week while the People function continued running successfully without day-to-day senior HR input.
That’s what I believe good Fractional HR should look like. If you’re still needed in every onboarding, every policy decision and every approval twelve months later, something hasn’t been built properly.
The right systems, the right HR technology and the right People processes should make the business stronger, not more dependent on one person.
Funny old model, building yourself out of the room. But it’s the one I believe in.
If you want the plain-English version, here’s what fractional People leadership actually means. Otherwise, you can read a bit more about me, or get in touch about the fractional and interim HR support, and hands-on HiBob implementation, I offer founder-led teams.
Building your People function from the ground up? My free startup HR checklist walks through what to put in place as you scale from 10 to 100.
Weighing up senior HR support? See our fractional HR director & CHRO service and what fractional HR costs in the UK.
This is part of the Founders Series: the questions that keep you up. Previously: Vol 1: Rethinking the CTO. Next: Vol 3: Suddenly a Manager.