Your company has outgrown informal HR.
You may not need a full-time CHRO yet. But you do need someone who can help you make better people decisions before they become expensive business problems. HR+ works with founders and leadership teams to build the hiring, manager, compensation, culture, and HR systems that growing companies need before complexity starts slowing the business down.
Here’s what usually happens. Somewhere between 50 and 300 people, you quietly become the head of HR. Nobody decided that. It crept up on you, one pay exception and one manager dispute at a time, because there was never anyone senior enough to catch them first. Your junior HR person can run the admin beautifully. What they can’t do is tell you how to structure a leadership team, or quietly flag that your best engineer is three weeks from resigning.
That’s the gap a fractional CHRO fills. You get someone who has built people systems before, sitting close enough to your business to make real calls, for a few days a month instead of a high six-figure salary on the books. Senior thinking, sized to exactly what you need right now.
This is usually the point where companies make one of two mistakes: they keep improvising for too long, or they add too much structure too quickly. The systems that worked at 30 people rarely work at 150. A fractional CHRO builds the middle path: enough structure to make decisions consistent, without turning the company into a bureaucracy.
So what does a fractional CHRO actually do?
No slide decks lobbed in from the sidelines. We sit inside your business and work the decisions that move it:
People strategy that tracks your business plan
We turn where the company is heading into how many people you need, in what shape, and by when.
A sounding board for the hard calls
A co-founder exit, a leader who isn’t scaling, a restructure. You get someone who has navigated these before.
Air cover for your HR team
Your junior team keeps running the day to day. We give them the senior direction and coaching they’ve been missing.
Org design and hiring priorities
Who reports to whom, which roles to open first, and where one good hire quietly fixes three problems.
Pay governance
Simple rules for how pay decisions get made, so they stop being one-off negotiations.
Performance and retention
A clear read on who’s thriving, who’s at risk, and what to do about it before they hand in their notice.
A monthly rhythm
A short dashboard and a standing review, so people decisions happen on a calendar instead of in a crisis.
Three ways to work with us
From senior advisory to a plug-and-play people team
Every engagement is built around the same fractional CHRO. What changes is how much of the doing we take on, from advice you execute to a full people function we run while we build yours.
The Advisor
Senior thinking on tap. You and your team execute.
⏱ About 2 days a month
- Monthly people dashboard and standing review with the founder
- Sounding board for the hard calls: exits, restructures, leaders not scaling
- Hiring and pay decisions cleared in a single monthly sitting
- Direction-setting for your existing HR team
Most companies start here
The Fractional CHRO
An embedded people leader who owns the agenda and builds your systems.
⏱ 4–6 days a month
- Everything in The Advisor, plus:
- Owns the people agenda with a standing seat in leadership
- Builds the systems: hiring workflows, salary bands, career paths, manager routines
- Working sessions with your HR team: coaching, not just direction
- Manager and leadership development rhythm
The People Pod
Plug-and-play: your fractional CHRO, plus a recruiter and an HR Ops specialist.
⏱ An embedded team
- Everything in The Fractional CHRO, plus:
- A dedicated recruiter running your open roles end to end
- An HR Ops specialist running the day-to-day people operations
- We run your HR function while we build it, then hand it over to your team
- A defined handover plan from day one, not an open-ended retainer
One thing never changes: every engagement is designed to hand over, not to create dependency. We measure success by how well your company runs people decisions without us.
How an engagement runs
An engagement is designed to create direction, structure, and capability, not dependency. Whichever way you work with us, it follows the same four stages:
1. Diagnose
We understand the business stage, leadership team, HR capability, current systems, and the people issues creating the most friction.
2. Prioritise
We identify what needs attention first. Some problems are irritating, some are expensive, and some are symptoms of a deeper system gap.
3. Build
We design practical systems that fit the company: hiring workflows, manager routines, pay governance, career paths, or HR operating rhythms.
4. Embed
We help founders, leaders, managers, and HR teams use the systems so they become part of how the business operates.
Every month, a one-page read on the health of your people function. No 90-slide deck. Just the numbers you can act on in ten minutes:
And a standing monthly rhythm. Week one, dashboard review with you. Week two, a working session with your HR team. Week three, a manager or leadership focus. Week four, hiring and pay decisions cleared in a single sitting.
What changes when senior HR thinking is in the room
The biggest change is not that the company has more HR. It is that people decisions become easier to make.
- Founders get fewer avoidable escalations
- Managers become clearer about what they own
- Hiring becomes more structured
- Salary and promotion decisions become easier to explain
- HR works from priorities instead of reacting to whatever is loudest
- Leadership conversations become more grounded because people issues are discussed as business issues
The company does not become more corporate. It becomes easier to lead.
And none of this replaces your HR team. We work alongside them: giving a junior team senior direction, coaching them through the systems, and leaving the organisation stronger than we found it.
The signs usually show up before the title does.
- You’re 50 to 300 people, and people issues keep landing back on your desk.
- You have a capable but junior HR team that needs senior direction.
- You’re entering a new stage: funding, a new market, a merger, fast headcount growth.
- You’re not ready to pay for a full-time CHRO, but gut-feel HR has started to cost you.
Questions founders often ask before bringing in strategic HR support
What is a fractional CHRO?
A fractional CHRO is an experienced Chief Human Resources Officer who works with your company part-time, usually a few days a month, instead of as a full-time employee. You get senior HR leadership and judgement on strategy, org design, pay and retention, without carrying a full executive salary.
How is this different from an HR consultant or recruiter?
A recruiter fills roles. A typical consultant delivers a project and leaves. A fractional CHRO sits inside your leadership team with a standing mandate, owns the people agenda over time, and is accountable for outcomes, not just a report.
How much does a fractional CHRO cost in India?
Far less than a full-time CHRO, whose total cost runs well into the tens of lakhs per year. Fractional engagements are usually a fixed monthly retainer, sized to how many days you need. We scope it to your stage, so you pay for senior time, not a full salary.
How quickly can you start making a difference?
We start with a People Risk Audit to find where the money and risk are leaking, then act on the top one or two issues within the first few weeks. You see movement early, not after a long discovery phase.
Related services: Compensation & Pay Structure and Career Architecture.
Not sure whether you need a Fractional CHRO yet?
Start with a People Risk Audit. We’ll show you where your people risks sit and what they’re quietly costing you. No prep needed.