A Fractional CHRO "Office Visits"

Office Visit #1:

What a fractional Chief Human Resources Officer actually does

When I tell people I am a Fractional CHRO, about half of them nod. The other half smile politely and wait for me to explain, which is fair, because the title didn't exist in most companies when they started their careers.

So, let's start with the basics.

CHRO stands for Chief Human Resources Officer. The CHRO is the executive in charge of the people side of the business. Typically, the CHRO works with the CEO and, in many companies, reports to the board. I like to explain it this way: the CFO tells you what the business can afford, and the CHRO tells you whether you have the people to get there.

I rarely call myself "HR" anymore. In a lot of companies, the function has a bad reputation (the department that slows things down and says no), and that label can end a conversation with a CEO before it starts. So, I introduce myself as an advisor. HR is a strategic part of the business, and I talk about it in the language the rest of the C-suite uses: return on investment, turnover percentages, cost per hire and the hours a better process gives back. If an HR decision cannot show its effect on the bottom line, I don't expect a CEO to fund it.

Fractional means I do the CHRO job for part of the month. A company gets an experienced executive without adding a full-time executive salary and benefits package to its budget. Some clients bring me in for a three-month project; others keep me on for a year or longer.

Who calls a fractional CHRO

Every client calls with an immediate need, and the need varies:

Some have outgrown their HR setup. An office manager might be running payroll, or a good HR generalist has been doing the work of several people for years. That can work with fewer than 100 employees. At 400 or more, it's a totally different equation: the decisions landing on the people side are bigger, and so are the stakes.

Others are in the middle of a change. Their HR leader just resigned, or they are buying another company. They need an experienced person now, and a full-time executive search can take several months.

A third group is planning for growth. The CEO wants to grow 3X or expand into new markets, and the company doesn't yet have the people programs that growth depends on. The current team usually knows the day-to-day work very well, but building those foundations from scratch takes a different skill set.

And some have a strategic project on the table, like redesigning compensation or planning how AI will change the work their people do, and nobody inside has done it before. Hiring a full-time executive for a six-month project rarely makes sense.

The two calls I get most

I am starting this series because my clients keep coming back to the same themes. Nearly every new call is a version of one of these two:

The first is "We need a compliance assessment." This call usually follows a scare. A demand letter shows up, or a former employee files a wage claim, and suddenly leadership wants to know what else is out there. In California, the distance between "we think we're fine" and "we're fine" can be very expensive.

In fiscal year 2024–2025, California's Labor and Workforce Development Agency received 8,846 notices under the Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA). Each notice is the first step an employee takes before suing an employer over Labor Code violations.

What I find is almost always bigger than one missing policy. The handbook is badly out of date, and managers were never trained on what they can and cannot do throughout the employee lifecycle. The good news is that most of these gaps are easy to correct once someone finds them.

The second is "We need our HR team assessed." This one is more delicate. A CEO wants to know whether the HR leader is the right person, often because the board has started to notice gaps. Sometimes the answer is yes, and that person needs coaching to grow into the job. Other times the company has outgrown the role and needs a more senior leader.

I take these assessments very seriously because there is a real person, with a career and probably a family, on the other end of my report. The CEO deserves an honest answer. The HR leader deserves a fair process and a straight explanation of what comes next, whatever the outcome.

What happens on an office visit

I always listen before acting. I meet with the CEO and the leadership team to find out what prompted the call and where their pain points are.

Then I run my workforce assessment, which looks at foundational policies, wage and hour governance, and operational practices. The same gap patterns tend to show up within the first week.

After that, I write my prescription: a short plan that sorts the problems into what has to be fixed now and what can wait. Some clients take the plan and run with it. Others ask me to stay and lead the work.

I learned early that small HR problems rarely stay small. I managed HR for six locations with about 400 hourly employees, and later I was a Global CHRO; in both jobs, my focus was prevention and employer risk mitigation.

Why I am writing this

Each month, Office Visits will walk through a real situation from my work and what I recommended. My goal is to help organizations see what a fresh look at their business can uncover. Client details will always be changed so no one can be identified.

A few questions to ask about your company

• When did someone who knows current employment law last review your employee handbook?

• Have your managers had training on hiring, discipline and termination in the last two years?

• Is your HR leader spending most of their time on today's problems, or on where the company will be in three years?

• If a demand letter arrived tomorrow, who would handle it?

  
  

If any of those made you pause, call me.

Next month: "We need a compliance assessment," and what is usually behind that call.

Helena Ferrari. Protecting profits. Prescribing solutions. Powering people.

Source: California Labor and Workforce Development Agency, Notice of Proposed Rulemaking and Initial Statement of Reasons, Labor Code Private Attorneys General Act of 2004 (February 2026).