The following is a transcript of our podcast conversation with Sarah Wilkins and Rebecca Barton. You can listen to the full episode on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
Sarah Wilkins
Hello and welcome to Humans Beyond Resources, an HR podcast by Reverb where we cover topics from culture to compliance. Reverb believes that every decision a leader makes reverberates throughout the organization, from hiring your first employee to training your entire workforce. We believe in building healthy, inclusive cultures that engage your team. I’m your host, Sarah Wilkins.
Thank you to our Humans Beyond Resources podcast sponsors, Parker Smith & Feek, AHT, and Joshua Brittingham of Carney, Badley, and Spellman.
Today I’m speaking with my colleague Rebecca Barton. Rebecca is at Practice Director at Reverb and has over 20 years of HR experience working with companies like Amazon, REI, And filling interim roles and doing projects with Trupanian, Alaska Airlines, and going back to REI a few times to cover leaves of absence and has also consulted at several startups. Thanks for joining, Rebecca.
Rebecca Barton
Hi, I’m very happy to be here.
Sarah Wilkins
Before we dive in to the topic, will you share a little bit more about yourself and your experience with fractional and interim HR support? And then also maybe just include your definition of fractional HR so we can level set on what we’re talking about today.
Rebecca Barton
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I’ll share more and we can talk about that. So I’ve been an HR business partner mostly with larger companies and supporting all different kinds of employee types, levels, functions, like retail, finance, legal, crypto, so all kinds of things. And business partners, our role is really to help identify and implement people practices. So to help teams and organizations function smoothly, have consistency, some norms for how people work together. So we really wanna help create and sustain working relationships, help people focus on the business, be connected to the values of the organization, where people feel safe and use their skills to grow and feel like they’re contributing. So in HR, so you get exposed to all different kinds of areas of HR, which lends itself really nicely to taking on like a fractional or interim role. So basically interim HR folks function usually as like a HR team of one. So you come into an organization that needs help for whatever reason, for however long they might need that. It’s usually a few months, it could be up to a year or more, and it’s really to help fill a gap, right? So if someone’s left the organization or someone’s on an extended leave of absence, a consultant like myself would come in and sort of take over all the day -to -day operations of HR and be a pair of hands and also be like an advisor or a coach and help keep the momentum of HR programs going while that other full -time person’s out. Or we just become the HR team on an ongoing basis for however long the organization needs it until they get to a point where they’ve grown enough and have enough employees where they need somebody more full -time.
Sarah Wilkins
That’s great. And then you yourself did several, as we talked about in the intro, several fractional or interim HR roles. And so could you share a little bit more about that and just kind of the experience of that?
Rebecca Barton
Yeah, I mean, it’s such a great way to use all that experience that you’ve gained from being an embedded HR person. You have so much experience across all the areas of HR from like compensation and benefits to performance management, to career progression and talent management and those types of things. So it was a real natural progression to take that kind of role on as a consultant. So being that pair of hands might mean handling the benefits administration for open enrollment. It might mean answering lots of employee questions when you’ve just launched a new HR system or helping a company really create a performance management system. I mean, there’s just so many things you can do and lend a hand to. And the great thing is you create like a scope, a priority, a list of priorities for what you wanna do or what the company wants you to do. And you kind of work through those things as you come into the organization. I think another benefit or bonus to that type of role is you build relationships.
You can quickly kind of come in and navigate the organization because you know what to look for, where to look, get to understand the different functions and how they work together. Some of the challenges that they have, the resources that they have, what they’ve got in place and what they might need. So you are also doing a kind of assessment of the organization to recommend some best practices or recommend tools or systems or practices that they might wanna consider to help them be a healthier, stronger organization.
Sarah Wilkins
That’s great. And I love how you mentioned being able to plug in and just kind of hit the ground running and build relationships. And I think sometimes there’s this idea that someone who’s not been embedded in the organization can’t do that or won’t be able to get up to speed quickly. But from your experience and seeing our consultants, would say you disagree with that, right? And do you have anything else to add there?
Rebecca Barton
Yes. Yeah, I do. I do think it’s a lot of people shake their heads and say, oh, we can’t possibly bring in this external person who’s never met us or knows us. We’ve been around for however many years, but I would take them a task on that and say, you know, it’s really about communication. It’s about asking the right questions, it’s about understanding what’s typical for businesses. And so a HR consultant has seen a lot, done a lot, been in a lot of places across lots of different industries and it’s really about people. So I think that just having that knowledge and having seen a lot really is a huge benefit and we can quickly come in and make a contribution. So I’ve seen it work really well.
Sarah Wilkins
That’s great. Yeah, and having someone that can just dive in and has seen it across many different organizations, right, and can provide different perspectives is even a benefit that they may not be thinking of that like, yeah, it’s good to know your organization, but it’s also good to know some other ways that things are being done to see if there’s a better way to do it.
Rebecca Barton
Yeah, exactly. I mean, the best practices and I think having so much experience of seeing what works well, what doesn’t work well, how long it might take to do something or just even like, hey, a simple and good way of doing something. I think people get a lot of relief when they have that HR expert come in and help tell them that because they just only know what they know for the team that they’ve been working in. So, and I will say the other added benefit of being an interim consultant or working fractionally with a company is, you’re very invested in the success of what you’re doing there. You wanna bring your best work, but you also have a little bit of ability to step away emotionally. I think sometimes being embedded as a full -time HR person for years at a company, you just, you get so invested and it gets, can be emotionally intense. So I think there’s a benefit there of like, oh, great, I can come in, do a great body of work with this client or this company for the months that I’m here. I think HR people, I know for myself, like reputation and integrity, and having a lot of pride in your work is really important. So, we definitely bring that to whatever work we’re doing for however long we’re there.
Sarah Wilkins
Absolutely. So you already mentioned some reasons that businesses would consider around covering leaves of absence or things like that. But can you talk about a couple more ways that someone may consider either kind of an interim or fractional HR consultant?
Rebecca Barton
Yeah, so a lot of companies that do this might need somebody to come help with a big project. Say they’ve got a small HR team and that person or that small group just doesn’t have the bandwidth to step away from their day -to -day. So bringing in an expert to help manage or lead a project is another reason why they might do that. If they’re going through a significant change, they’re acquiring or being acquired, having an HR person help with all that change management and just thinking through all the steps, all the considerations and implications of that, we can really help groups navigate that and all the compliance. If you’re building a company and you have a good HR person on the team, but they might not know all that’s required if you’re hiring in different states or need to get set up with employer requirements, we can help with that kind of documentation and just understanding what’s required.
Sarah Wilkins
Yeah, those are great examples beyond kind of the ones you think of with leaves of absence or a leader leaves and you’re taking time to hire the next leader, but project work, right? HRAS implementations, integration of two businesses like you mentioned, even helping with a goal setting and performance management process and roll out of that too. So, yeah.
Rebecca Barton
Yeah, I think the project work and the fractional support is really our key roles and then the coverage for a leave of absence. So if you make the investment to have someone come in and do some interim coverage, I think it gives the person who’s out on leave time to focus on getting healthier or dealing with their personal or family issue. And then they know when they come back, they’re not coming back to a pile of work or things haven’t gotten done. And I think companies are realizing that that’s a huge benefit, investing in having that coverage and making it, that’s really supporting that employee by doing that.
Sarah Wilkins
Absolutely. So, well, obviously that’s a benefit in supporting your employees and ensuring that they come back ready and don’t have a pile of work and stress after being out on a leave, for example. But what are some of the other benefits, tangible and tangible that a business can get from using interim HR support?
Rebecca Barton
Yes, well, there are several. I would say, first and foremost, cost, cost savings. It can be much cheaper to have someone kind of working with you part -time and then hiring a full -time person. And if somebody does leave, the time to hire, fill and train and get that person up to speed is really costly. So just having that interim person in there can really save the company that overhead of having that full -time position benefits and all the added costs there. I think we’ve seen some data from like the SHRM, a Society for Human Resources, that if you sort of outsource some of your HR or have that fractional support, then it can really reduce the kind of cost per employee by as much as like 500 bucks, which really adds up. There’s definitely that expertise, that on -demand expertise you can have with a consultant and that very strategic focus. So, people can bring in their niche skills like around compensation where it’s really technical or with the compliance area where there’s a lot
Rebecca Barton
of legal ramifications. So those are two areas that we have a lot of expertise around the employee experience. So people just feel like there’s somebody there that they can go to, they can get information from about benefits, performance, promotions, like what have you, how things work and really feel like they’re heard and have a voice. And yeah, I think that the risk, the risk mitigation. So avoiding any kind of lawsuits or just like harassment or just general conflict, I think it can be really helpful to have a seasoned HR person that can handle a lot of that risk and sort of put a hand up and say, watch out over here, you might have something brewing and they can kind of nip it in the bud and establish some good practices moving forward too.
Sarah Wilkins
Yeah, I like all of those. And I like that you pointed out around risk mitigation because we even see businesses and leaders that are trying to do the right things but just don’t know what they don’t know. And so many businesses expanded into multiple states with hiring and without knowing or kind of out of compliance with maybe paid sick and safe time or leave requirements or minimum salary thresholds without kind of knowing that information, having someone, you know, an HR expert to kind of keep you compliant is such a nice thing fractionally too.
Rebecca Barton
Yeah, I mean the whole remote and hybrid work world that we live in now, kind of in this post COVID era, the different state requirements and even down to city ordinances, you need to be on top of that and understand what kind of training is required for managers or employees, even for companies as small as five people in some states. So it is extremely valuable to have somebody who can help you with all that until before you get a fine or before you get yourself in trouble. So not to scare anybody, but it is helpful and cheaper than an employment attorney for asking that attorney a question at every turn, you have someone more embedded that’s looking out for you on those.
Sarah Wilkins
Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, you mentioned earlier that this, you know, bringing someone on either in or more fractionally can help kind of reduce stress and burnout on the team. Can you share, you know, some reasons why you think this is the case?
Rebecca Barton
Yes, yes, I think this is a topic that, well, it’s near and dear to my heart and I think as being in the workforce for almost 30 years, but for lots of companies, the cost of stress and like mental health issues and productivity is really big. And so by having this kind of support and showing your employees that you have policies and programs so that when they need to take off time for a leave, for whatever reason that, you know, employees know they’ve got things covered, so it’s gonna help retention and being explicit about it upfront when they’re getting hired, like employees are asking about this more, younger employees, older employees, like across the board, do I have paid leave? Do I have paid time off? What kind of support can you get for me? Also, the other thing that’s important there is having a ramp up time or transition time if someone’s on leave and you’ve had somebody there covering for them, making that employee feel comfortable that they can maybe come back at a slower pace or that they have someone there who’s gonna give them the low down of what they’ve been working on so that they can come back and start contributing easily and have a realistic schedule as they’re coming back from, for instance, like a maternity leave or a family leave where they’ve just had a lot going on and now their life is completely different. So how can companies help have schedule, you know, flexibility and leave policies that support that?
Sarah Wilkins
Yeah, absolutely. We’ve talked a lot about, yeah, the flexibility needed for, you know, working parents or caregivers in general. And, you know, this is a great option for supporting people either coming back from a leave or, you know, on a leave for those purposes, so.
Rebecca Barton
Yeah, yeah. And I think a lot of businesses are seeing the benefits of that and that while there may be like upfront costs, the long -term ability to keep somebody connected to the organization and wanting to grow with that organization is really important. So I think that’s what good leave policies and having interim coverage can help support.
Sarah Wilkins
Yeah, absolutely. So this has been really fun and, you know, we could talk about this all day, but any, you know, closing thoughts that you wanna make sure we highlight, you know, for people listening or interested in this topic?
Rebecca Barton
Yeah, I mean, a few things I think that are good to think about is, you know, hopefully this has provided some great benefits for the case for covering leaves and providing fractional support interim basis for companies there’s just so many benefits. I also wanna encourage people to get creative and think about how they can create programs if you don’t necessarily have like a big budget or have the ability to do that. But, you know, really have a philosophy about it. Like you, a lot of organizations do for pay or for how they do their business, like have a philosophy about how you wanna take care of employees for covering leaves and having some fractional support. And then, you know, just think long -term, be flexible. If you’re skeptical, find somebody in your community who’s maybe had this experience and find out from them how it went or call us, talk to us about it. And then I also think just like having some empathy and putting yourself in your employee’s shoes and just, you know, being understanding about the intensity of all the things happening in people’s lives and that everybody’s situation’s different. I think that that’s important and will help you think about how you can help your teams out.
Sarah Wilkins
Yeah, those are great thoughts. And one thing that came to mind for me that we didn’t hit on was, you know, often when you are supporting a leave of absence, you know, a consultant can do it in, you know, maybe less than 40 hours a week, right? Because it’s a bit more focused. They can bring in, you know, the expertise and the backing of the additional team members and kind of accomplish a lot in, you know, maybe less than 40 hours, which also can help with the budget too, right?
Rebecca Barton
Oh my gosh, yeah, exactly. That’s huge. Thank you for mentioning that. And I talk to prospective like clients and engagements about this all the time. They think they need, I need that equivalent of a 40 -hour person. And it’s like, actually, you’re gonna get an amazing amount of work done with someone at 20 hours or 25 hours. And because like you just said, they’re so focused and they’re just really effective at managing their time and they can work more quickly and efficiently. So that’s a really great point to bring up.
Sarah Wilkins
Yeah, that’s great. Well, again, this was fun. I enjoy getting to talk about this and yeah, you sharing your knowledge with our listeners. So thanks so much for joining.
Rebecca Barton
Thank you.
Sarah Wilkins
Thank you for listening to this episode of Humans Beyond Resources. Visit ReverbPeople .com to find free resources, subscribe to our newsletter and connect with our team. If you haven’t already, subscribe to stay up to date on all of our upcoming episodes. We look forward to having you as part of our community.
Thank you again to our podcast sponsors. Joshua Brittingham of Kearney Bailey Spellman is a seasoned employment lawyer and he works with entrepreneurs and business leaders, especially in construction, hospitality and financial services to help them handle sticky employee situations so they can thrive in a complex world. Joshua is also a professional speaker, panelist and teacher on the topic of all things employment law. AHT Insurance is an insurance brokerage and consulting firm offering property and casualty, employee benefits, retirement, private client and international services for clients throughout the United States and 42 other countries. Supporting numerous industries and boasting national recognition in the technology manufacturing, government contracting and nonprofit practice areas, AHT offers clients highly customized solutions to identify and help mitigate risks they may face. Parkersmith & Feek is a nationally recognized, privately held brokerage firm. They offer a full range of services, including employee benefits, commercial and personal insurance and everything in between. The depth and breadth of their staff experience sets them apart as they provide stellar service and imaginative solutions for all clients.
