Outsourced HR is not a helpline. It is somebody carrying the function: the paperwork that has to exist, the deadlines nobody is watching, the conversations managers postpone, and the file that has to be coherent when a third party finally reads it.
Most organizations of 25 to 500 people arrive at the same arrangement by accident. HR has been distributed among an office manager, a controller, and whichever executive is least uncomfortable with it. Each of them is doing a competent job of a fraction of it. Nobody is doing the whole, and the parts that fall between them are exactly the parts that generate liability: the leave that was never formally designated, the classification nobody revisited after the job changed, the write-up that was verbal.
This service takes the function whole, or takes the specific parts you cannot staff, and runs them on a defined cycle with defined response times.
Typical fit
- 25 to 500 employees, in California
- No HR department, or one HR administrator with nowhere to escalate
- Growth, a merger, or a turnaround that has outrun the paperwork
- A recent claim, audit, or near miss that made the exposure visible
Scope
What is included.
Hiring and onboarding
Offer letters, at-will acknowledgments, the wage notice California requires at hire, I-9 completion and reverification, tax and direct deposit setup, handbook acknowledgment, benefits eligibility, and a first-day file that is complete on the first day.
Records and systems
Personnel files organized so that medical, immigration, and complaint-related material sits where it legally belongs rather than in one folder; retention schedules; access rules; and a system of record your people actually use instead of a shared drive with four versions of everything.
Leaves and accommodations
Intake, eligibility analysis where several leave entitlements overlap, written designations and notices, the interactive process for accommodation requests, coordination with disability and paid family leave benefits, and return-to-work planning.
Benefits administration
Enrollment and life-event changes, carrier and broker coordination, eligibility tracking, continuation notices on separation, and the annual renewal run as a project rather than a scramble. Note that no insurance product is sold here and no commission is taken.
Manager support
A named person your supervisors can call before the difficult conversation rather than after it: how to document, what may and may not be asked, when a complaint has to stop being handled informally, and how to write a warning that means something.
Performance and discipline
Expectations written so they can be met or missed, documentation that describes conduct rather than character, improvement plans that are genuine attempts rather than paperwork assembled to justify a decision already taken, and consistency between comparable cases, which is where most discrimination claims are won or lost.
Separations and reductions
Termination review before the decision is executed, the notices and pamphlets that must be handed over, final pay timed to California’s deadlines, property and access recovery, and a file that explains the decision without needing anyone’s memory. For a reduction in force: selection criteria written before names are attached to them, and the exercise documented as the business decision it will need to be shown to have been.
Onboarding the engagement
The first ninety days.
Ongoing work does not begin until the ground is known. An engagement that starts by answering questions without first reading the files is an engagement that will give confident wrong answers.
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Audit
Handbook, policies, personnel files, job descriptions, classifications, wage statements, leave records, training records, and the systems holding them. The output is a written findings memorandum ranked by exposure, not a checklist with ticks.
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Triage
Anything urgent is separated from anything structural. A misclassification accruing daily is not the same problem as a handbook that reads badly, and they do not get the same queue.
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Remediate
The urgent items are fixed first, in order, with you deciding each time whether the fix is worth its disruption. Some of these decisions belong with your counsel and will be sent there.
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Operate
The cycle begins: defined recurring work, defined response times, a monthly written report of what happened and what is outstanding, and a quarterly review of whether the arrangement is still the right one.
Questions people ask before signing.
Does this replace our HR person?
Usually not. More often it gives them somewhere to escalate and takes the specialist work off their desk, which is what they were missing. Where an organization genuinely has nobody, the arrangement covers the whole function until it is worth hiring, and the hiring is part of the work.
Who talks to our employees?
That is set at the start and written down. Some clients want a visible HR contact their staff can reach directly. Others want everything routed through their own managers, with this practice behind them. Both work. What does not work is an arrangement nobody has defined, which is how employees end up telling two people two different stories.
What happens when something urgent arrives on a Friday afternoon?
Response times are part of the engagement letter, and urgent matters have a shorter one. What is treated as urgent is defined in advance: a suspected safety issue, a complaint alleging harassment or retaliation, an imminent termination, an agency notice with a deadline. Everything else is answered on the ordinary cycle.
Will you tell us things we do not want to hear?
Yes, and in writing. An outside HR function that only confirms what the executive team already believes is worth nothing, because its whole value is being able to say the thing an employee cannot say and a subordinate will not.
How is this priced?
Ongoing work is a monthly retainer set against a defined scope, not an hourly meter, so that nobody hesitates to pick up the phone. The initial audit is a separate fixed fee. Figures are quoted after the first conversation, because a quote before anyone has seen the files is a guess. See How we work.