Access Senior HR Guidance without a Full-Time HR Head
Running HR from the founder's chair works until the day it does not. A fractional HR head gives your business a senior HR person on the leadership team for an agreed part of each month — the same judgement a full-time HR head would bring, without the full-time salary or the wait to find one.
What is fractional hr management?
Fractional HR management is an arrangement in which an experienced HR professional works for your company part of the time, on a continuing basis, instead of being employed full time. They join your leadership discussions, carry the HR agenda between them, guide your managers, and supervise whoever handles HR day to day.
When businesses ask us for this
- You are still the person employees come to about their leave, their increment and their manager, and it is eating the part of your week that belongs to customers.
- Your HR executive keeps records and payroll inputs correctly, but you cannot ask her to handle a resignation, a complaint against a manager, or the design of the appraisal.
- A full-time HR head at the salary the market is asking would sit among your largest fixed costs, and you are not convinced there is a full week of that work yet.
- Your HR manager resigned and you have been holding HR yourself since, with the open items piling up in your inbox.
- An investor or a large customer asked for your HR policies and your organisation structure, and you sent what you could find rather than what you have.
- Two managers escalated the same kind of employee problem to you last month and you handled them differently, because there was no rule to follow.
- You are opening a second location or a second shift and nobody has worked out how HR will run there.
- The company has grown past the point where you know each person's situation, and decisions that used to be obvious now have to be tested against precedent.
What the work covers
GullyHR gives you a named consultant who acts as your HR head for an agreed part of each month. We take the HR agenda — structure, policy, hiring, performance, employee matters and records — hold it between meetings, and bring the harder calls to you with a recommendation attached. You keep every employment decision: who is hired, what is paid, who is confirmed, who leaves. Your managers keep line authority over their own teams. This is a continuing monthly advisory arrangement working to a written mandate and reviewed at fixed points. It is not an outsourced HR department and not a staffing arrangement.
A senior HR person carries your HR agenda without joining your payroll.
A named consultant acts as your HR head for an agreed part of each month: present at leadership discussions, responsible for the agenda between them, and reachable when something cannot wait for the next visit.
At board level the question is structure and senior people, not HR administration.
Chief Human Resources Officer level advice for owners and boards on how the organisation should be shaped for the next phase, which senior roles to create, how those roles are rewarded, and what the people section of the board pack should say.
HR keeps running to a standard even though nobody sits in your office doing it.
Where you have no HR person, the mandate states which recurring work is carried remotely — the HR calendar, letters, employee queries, the joining and exit sequence — and which stays with your admin or accounts team.
Your managers get somebody to call before the conversation, not after it.
A manager facing a performance discussion, a warning, a team complaint or a resignation can talk it through first. We help them plan what to say, review the letter before it goes out, and sit in when the situation warrants it.
One fixed meeting each month is where people decisions actually get taken.
A standing leadership review with a prepared pack: what has moved on the agenda, what the workforce numbers show, which employee matters are open, and the decisions needed this month. Each decision is recorded so the next month starts from it.
The decisions that are hard to reverse get a second opinion first.
A restructure, a senior hire, a pay correction, closing a team, converting contractors to employees, adding a location. We set out the options, the consequences for the rest of the business and the sequence to follow. You decide.
The HR person you already employ gets somebody senior to learn from.
A standing session with your HR executive or admin-HR person: reviewing their work, explaining the reasoning behind each decision, and handing over categories of work with the expected standard written down as they take them on.
Somebody reads your HR numbers each month and tells you what they mean.
Headcount, joining and leaving, attendance and leave patterns, open positions and exits by reason, read together rather than reported separately, with a written note on what changed and which change now needs a decision.
The arrangement changes shape as the business does, and is meant to end.
More time during a hiring push, a new location or a funding round, and less once things settle. When the work justifies a full-time HR head, we define the role, help you interview and hand over what we have been carrying.
How it runs
Mandate
Before any work starts we write down what the arrangement is: which decisions the fractional HR head takes part in, who they report to, the working rhythm, what stays with you, and what is out of scope. The owner signs it.
Baseline read
We read what exists — organisation structure, employee records, appointment and confirmation letters, policies, the attendance and payroll input cycle, exits over the recent period — and meet your managers. It ends with a short note separating what is urgent from what is merely untidy.
People agenda
You and the consultant agree the agenda for the period: which items are addressed, in what order, and which are deliberately left for later. This is the document the arrangement is measured against, and it stays live rather than being filed.
The monthly rhythm starts
The leadership review is fixed in the calendar, the dashboard pack is defined, manager sessions are scheduled, and the route for matters that cannot wait until the next review is agreed with you and communicated to your managers.
Agenda work
The items themselves get done: a policy drafted, the appraisal redesigned, the structure and reporting lines corrected, the letter formats rebuilt, the joining sequence written. Each item is either produced by the consultant or produced by your HR person under supervision.
Live matters
Between reviews the arrangement handles what arrives: a key resignation, a grievance, a manager who has to be told something difficult, a counter-offer decision. We advise, draft and brief the person holding the conversation, and refer statutory matters to qualified professionals where the situation calls for it.
Mentoring your HR person
A standing session reviews your HR executive's work, explains the reasoning behind decisions taken that month, and moves a category of work across once the standard for it is written and the person is ready to hold it.
Step-back review and handover
At fixed points we review the arrangement with you: what has moved, what has not, whether the mandate or the rhythm should change, and whether the business has reached the point of appointing a full-time HR head. When it has, we define the role, support the interviews and hand over.
What you receive
- A written mandate naming the fractional HR head, the reporting line, the working rhythm, the decisions they take part in and the matters that stay with you.
- A baseline HR note covering records, letters, policies, the HR calendar and open employee matters, with the items needing attention first marked out.
- A people agenda for the period, with the item, the owner and the review date against each line, kept live rather than issued once.
- A monthly HR review pack and a decisions log, so a decision taken in one month can be found and applied in the next.
- A monthly workforce dashboard covering headcount, movement, attendance, open positions and exits, with a written reading of what changed.
- The documents the agenda calls for, drafted or reviewed: policies, appointment and confirmation letters, role definitions, the organisation chart, review formats and process notes.
- A development plan for your internal HR person naming the work being handed over and the standard it is expected to meet.
- A handover file, and when you move to a full-time HR head, the role definition, the interview structure and the induction plan for that appointment.
Who it is for
- Founder-run businesses where the owner or managing director is still the final stop for every employee matter.
- Companies too large to run HR from the founder's chair and too small to justify a full-time HR head at the salary that role commands.
- Businesses employing an HR executive or an admin-HR person who is reliable on records but has never had anyone senior to learn from.
- Companies between HR heads, needing cover and continuity while the position is filled and the incoming person settles in.
- Businesses about to change shape — a second location, a second shift, a funding round, a family business bringing in professional managers — where people decisions start arriving faster.
- Companies whose board, investor or largest customer has begun asking people questions the business has no written answer to.
Why GullyHR.
A fractional HR head is only as useful as what can be done with the advice. Ours sits inside a firm that also builds the process, trains the managers and runs the software, so a decision taken at your monthly review can become a documented process, a manager training session and a configured workflow without a second vendor, a second scoping conversation or a second explanation of how your business works.
What changes
- Employee matters get a decision from somebody senior in the week they arise, instead of waiting for a gap in the owner's calendar.
- Managers have a person to call before a difficult conversation rather than after it has gone wrong.
- The HR person you already employ takes on more of the work, because somebody senior is reviewing it and explaining the reasoning.
- Decisions that are hard to reverse are tested before they are taken, with the consequences for the rest of the business laid out.
- People questions from a board, an investor or a large customer have a written answer ready before they are asked.
- When you do appoint a full-time HR head, the role is already defined and the work is already visible, so the decision rests on evidence.
Who does what
| Activity | GullyHR | Your team |
|---|---|---|
| Decisions about employees | Sets out the options, states a recommendation, drafts the communication and prepares whoever has to deliver it. | Decides who is hired, confirmed, promoted, paid what and asked to leave. The decision and its announcement stay with you. |
| Day-to-day HR administration | Sets the standard, reviews the output and supervises your HR executive. Where you have no HR person, the mandate states what we carry. | Runs daily records, filing and employee queries through its own HR or admin staff wherever such a person exists. |
| Payroll | Reviews the monthly inputs, checks the cycle for gaps and coordinates with the accountant or payroll vendor you already use. | Processes and disburses payroll through its own accountant or vendor. GullyHR is not a payroll bureau. |
| Statutory, labour-law and POSH matters | Assesses where you stand, builds the framework and the documentation, and coordinates with qualified professionals where the matter requires them. | Retains its own legal or statutory adviser for opinions, filings, representation and any statutory appointment. |
| Line management of your teams | Coaches the manager, prepares the conversation and attends when asked. | Your managers hold authority over their own people. The fractional HR head holds none unless you state otherwise in writing. |
| Records and confidentiality | Works under a signed confidentiality agreement, with system access limited to what the mandate needs. | Owns all employee records and decides what the fractional HR head may see, including who is party to a sensitive matter. |
Where the software fits
Much of what makes a part-time arrangement work is being able to see the business without sitting in it. The GullyHR platform holds employee records, attendance, leave, movement and exits, so a monthly review reads live data instead of a spreadsheet somebody assembled the night before. Approvals move through the system, which means the consultant can see where a case is stuck and who it is waiting on, and can raise it before it becomes an employee complaint. Access is set to what the mandate requires and no further, with sensitive matters restricted to the people you name. Where you already run an HR system, we work inside yours and say plainly where it cannot show what the review needs.
Ways to engage us
- Fractional HR diagnostic
- A short assessment before you commit to anything continuing: how much HR work your business actually generates each month, how much of it your existing people can carry, and whether a fractional arrangement, a defined project or a full-time appointment is the right answer. It ends with a recommendation.
- Monthly fractional HR management
- A named consultant on an agreed rhythm each month, working to a written mandate: the leadership review, the people agenda, manager support, mentoring for your HR person, and availability between reviews for matters that cannot wait.
- Fractional CHRO advisory
- Chief Human Resources Officer level engagement for a leadership team whose operational HR is already covered but which has no senior counsel on structure, senior hires, reward and the people questions a board asks. Less frequent, and higher up the decision.
- Transition cover
- Continuity while an HR head position is vacant or a newly appointed one is settling in: the HR calendar kept running, live employee matters handled, and a documented handover to the incoming person rather than a cold start.
Questions we are asked
It is a continuing arrangement in which an experienced HR professional works for your company part of the time instead of being employed full time. They carry the HR agenda, join leadership discussions, guide your managers and supervise whoever handles HR day to day, for an agreed part of each month.
Usually when the owner has become the final stop for every employee matter, when the HR executive already employed is reliable on records but cannot be asked to handle a resignation or a complaint against a manager, or when the business is changing shape and people decisions start arriving faster than the owner can take them alone.
A project has an end and a deliverable: a policy manual, an appraisal design, a structure. A fractional arrangement is continuing and open at the edges, covering whatever the agenda holds that month plus what arrives without warning. Businesses often begin with a project and move to the arrangement afterwards.
We read your organisation structure, employee records, appointment letters, policies, the attendance and payroll input cycle and any live employee matters, and we meet your managers. You receive a written mandate, a baseline note, a people agenda, a monthly review pack, a workforce dashboard with commentary, and the documents the agenda calls for.
Yes, and that is usually the point. Where you employ an HR executive, the fractional head supervises and mentors rather than displaces, handing over categories of work as your person is ready. Where you already run an HR system, we work inside yours and say where it cannot show what the review needs.
No. The arrangement is built to make that person more capable. A standing session reviews their work and explains the reasoning behind decisions, and work moves across as they take it on. If you have nobody in HR at all, the mandate states which administrative work we carry and which sits with your admin or accounts team.
Both, and the split is written into the mandate. Leadership reviews, manager sessions and sensitive conversations are worth doing in person. Document work, dashboard review and advice between meetings are not. Businesses outside Bengaluru are supported largely remotely, with on-site visits agreed in advance.
You do. GullyHR sets out the options, states a recommendation and drafts the communication. Who is hired, confirmed, promoted, paid what and asked to leave remains an employer decision taken by you. Your managers keep authority over their own teams, and the fractional HR head holds none unless you state otherwise in writing.
For disciplinary matters and for matters under the Prevention of Sexual Harassment (POSH) law, GullyHR provides assessment, framework, documentation and support, and coordinates with qualified professionals where the matter requires them. Opinions, filings, representation and statutory appointments stay with your own legal or statutory adviser.
For as long as the work justifies it. Some businesses use it while a position is vacant, some through a period of change, and some until the volume of HR work supports a full-time appointment. The mandate is reviewed at fixed points, and either side can change or end it on agreed notice.
Under a signed confidentiality agreement, with system access limited to what the mandate requires. Employee records remain yours and you decide what the fractional HR head may see. For complaints, investigations and pay discussions, we agree in advance who inside your business is party to the matter.
After the diagnostic conversation. Scope depends on how many people you employ, how many locations and shifts you run, how much HR work already has a process behind it, whether there is an HR person to build on, and how much the agenda needs each month. The proposal states the mandate, the rhythm and the review points in writing before anything starts.
Prefer to talk first? +91 80958 58589 · hello@gullyhr.com