CASE Study

ISSUES: The leadership at a growing company knew they needed professional HR support but couldn’t yet justify the cost to hire a full-time HR executive. As challenges mounted, they didn’t know what they didn’t know.

SOLUTIONS: At that inflection point, they brought in a FIT HR fractional consultant on a monthly retainer. Findings from FIT’s HR discovery assessment and roadmap revealed the organization had outgrown their paper-dependent processes. So, it was time for a HR information system (HRIS) to track PTO, manage online employee files, automate benefit enrollment and onboarding, and ensure compliance. FIT HR also established a crucial recruitment strategy to support additional growth. As the company grew, the FIT HR consultant held a seat on the leadership team, till the time was right to hire a full-time HR leader who continued to run HR internally.

OUTCOMES: The results were many: saved time, money, and missteps by choosing fractional over an expensive, full-time HR executive. Leap-frogging over problems that non-HR professionals simply can’t foresee. Fast-tracking process improvements with complete accuracy and compliance. Establishing efficiencies that lead to boosted revenue, fewer miscommunications, and a common, culture-driving language.

With their continual access to a proven HR expert, the company also, by extension, retained the entire FIT HR consultancy of professionals who live and breathe all the best practices of HR. They tapped decades’ worth of knowledge and resources. And they avoided problems that as non-HR professionals they can’t predict, solve, or mitigate.

CASE Study

ISSUES: A 10-year-old company started running into HR issues that were too complex to handle without professional HR assistance. Since its inception, the founder had been relying on an assistant to handle HR tasks and administration. Policy, compensation, benefit, and employee-relation issues all started to crop up—and no one on the team was qualified to handle. With a staff of 30, the company was too small to hire a full-time HR Leader, but wasn’t sure how to go about getting the help they needed.

Additionally, the assistant was overwhelmed trying to handle both jobs as the number of employees had grown. In short, as complexity increased, the business structure wasn’t sustainable. The culture, productivity, and revenue all suffered. With growth expected over the coming year, the founder wondered: “What am I going to do??”

SOLUTIONS: Working on an hourly, as-needed basis, FIT HR began with an HR Discovery Assessment to gain a full understanding of the state of the company’s HR function. As a part of this process, the consultant also met with the Assistant and the Founder to get an understanding of what the Assistant was currently doing and what the desired outcome might look like. The consultant pulled together all observations and collaborated with the Founder to create a project plan and establish timelines and deliverables.

OUTCOMES: Over the course of the engagement, the FIT HR Consultant partnered closely with the Founder and the team to work through projects that brought the HR Function into compliance; updated policies and created an Employee Handbook; streamlined and automated many of the HR processes; and, conducted trainings for staff and managers to improve employee relations. The Assistant really wasn’t interested in HR and through strategy sessions with the Founder, adjustments were made to the administrative structure to create the best staffing plan for everyone involved. In the end, the Founder felt confident about the HR Function and the cultural alignment it promotes as the company embarks on its’ growth plans. Going forward, the company has an HR Consultant to rely on who understands their culture, where the company has been and where it is going.

CASE Study

ISSUES: A long-running, ongoing conflict between two managers caused employee issues, productivity problems, and higher-than-usual turnover. Leadership struggled to understand what was causing so much turmoil within the teams, and they were not sure how to get to the bottom of the problem.

SOLUTIONS: Their dedicated FIT consultant, in partnership with the CEO, created a plan to get employee feedback from team members at all levels of the organization to determine the root cause of the issues. The consultant collected all feedback and designed a game plan to turn the situation around. The solution contained a combination of process improvements with related action items; team building activities to strengthen the connection between the two teams; and, most importantly individual coaching and team coaching for the 2 leaders in conflict.

OUTCOMES: This multi-pronged approach addressed the barriers that were impacting teamwork and productivity. The relationship between the two managers and therefore the two teams was significantly improved through honest and open communication about process flows, alignment of duties, and joint expectation setting.

CASE Study

ISSUES: A company preparing to sell realized that their current situation with HR could present concerns for potential buyers. The CEO invited FIT HR to audit their practices to identify compliance issues, concerning practices, and inefficiencies that might present roadblocks to the sales process.

SOLUTIONS: The FIT team conducted a complete assessment of all core HR functional areas: processes, systems, and employees to ensure everything was in place and in alignment to what a buyer would be looking for in due diligence.

OUTCOMES: Not only was the business set-up for a successful sale, but HR was set-up to run more efficiently than ever. As the company entered into the sales process, the FIT HR consultant partnered with the ownership to establish retention strategies for key employees who were needed through the transition, and partnered closely with the CEO and other resources to design a step-by-step action plan for handling communications and processes to ensure a smooth transition for a successful sale.

CASE Study

ISSUES: An organization was struggling with high turnover and a range of cultural issues, including a lack of trust and transparency, along with a leadership team that was disengaged from mounting employee concerns.

SOLUTIONS: FIT HR was hired on a 20-hours-per-month retainer to get at the source of these problems, and design a plan to solve them. They began with exploratory 1:1, in-person meetings with employees using open-ended questions to gather concerns and observations. Work was also done with the leadership team to refresh and agree to organization mission and values. Using the refreshed mission and values as their guides, their dedicated consultant helped the leadership team summarize, categorize, and prioritize action items resulting from the exploration process. Together they designed a communication strategy, and the FIT consultant project-managed key deliverables from the process.

OUTCOMES: This process helped the team feel heard and included in the improvements they wanted to see in the organization. The communication within the organization improved, and turnover was significantly reduced. They were also able to recruit with hiring employees feeling more excited and certain about why someone should join this organization.

CASE Study

ISSUES: An entrepreneur was so overwhelmed with their workload that, in desperation, they were thinking of selling the company. While the firm enjoyed a healthy revenue stream, the business structures themselves were UNhealthy. A combination of poor delegation, a lack of structure, job descriptions, and workflows left too many people reporting to the founder, and few team members who knew how to handle the day to day without them. Talk about burn out!

SOLUTIONS: A FITHR consultant came in and, beginning with an HR discovery assessment and roadmap, formed a much-needed organizational structure. They then wrote job descriptions, a compelling mission, and a clear vision. And worked with the owner to identify team leaders for departments and strengthen the owners’ delegation skills.

OUTCOMES: The company now has a functioning structure with teams, team leaders/managers, and defined roles and responsibilities. The owner went from 35 direct reports to 6, enabling them to work on their business in a strategic way.

CASE Study

ISSUES: The co-owners of a business struggled with decision making, and as a result, the staff was continually confused, overwhelmed by the lack of alignment, hungry for proper objectives, frustrated at the lack of a performance review processes, and eager to work from a clear set of goals. On top of these challenges, the organization was hiring the wrong people—so attrition was high. It was like trying to assemble a 35-piece IKEA table—with no instructions.

SOLUTIONS: The company hired FIT HR to get to the heart of the issues, and work with the owners to help them align on mission, vision, and values. FIT hosted meetings with employees to align them as well to the new direction, and established easy-to-implement goal setting and performance-review processes.

OUTCOMES: Now the organization works in sync with a clear vision for what they do, how they do it, who they do it for, and why they’re in business in the first place. They’re much smarter about who they hire and are executing on all cylinders.

CASE Study

ISSUES: A company was in peril and at risk: they’d received two Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) complaints. Something in the culture was enabling the wrong behaviors. So they needed to conduct investigations, roll out trainings, and shift the cultural ethos—fast. But they didn’t have the expertise to do it all themselves.

SOLUTIONS: Enter FIT HR. As the neutral and deeply resourced third party, FIT brings the skills, expertise, and resources to expedite every step. The team responded quickly to the complaints, thoughtfully and accurately conducted the investigations, established needed protocols, wrote critical documentation, assessed how to achieve compliance, presented mandatory anti-harassment training, and partnered with the EEOC to ensure all requirements were met.

OUTCOMES: The benefits to the company extended well beyond having these complaints handled quickly and impeccably. Because of FIT’s competencies, the company also forged a healthier culture in which such complaints won’t happen again. After all, it’s nearly impossible for an organization’s leadership to gain enough objectivity to heal themselves from within, especially when some people fear discipline and job loss. Plus, the company can now stay focused on their core business, recruit and retain more effectively, and boost productivity because teams are not distracted by a host of complaints.