Is fractional People Ops / HR leadership on the rise? 🧐
My LinkedIn algorithm and I are almost certainly biased, but I think yes!
And like anything in business, it comes down to the simple economics of supply and demand.
The supply:
▶️ People Operations / HR Leaders
Here are some things I have observed to be true:
📌 People Ops / HR leaders are burnt out.
Let's recap how the last 4 years have gone:
😨 We led our organizations through a global pandemic, navigating near-daily changes to employment law and CDC guidance, protecting the safety of our employees, implementing vaccination policies, and bringing folks back into the workplace - all while balancing our own mental health and concern for the safety of our loved ones.
😵 We fought hard in the talent wars of 2021-22, amid sky high increases to wages in response to inflation and cutthroat competition between employers, with the threat of the Great Resignation looming over us.
🥴 We led those same organizations through massive transitions and downsizing, facilitating layoffs of great numbers of employees, our own beloved teams, and sometimes ourselves.
🙃 We're now picking up the pieces, trying to support our employees and make sure everyone is rowing in the right direction, but with little or no budget beyond what is absolutely necessary to tick the HR boxes.
🤪 What'd I miss?
And yet? We still have so much to give! ❤️
Moving on to the demand:
▶️ Early and growth stage organizations trying to do a lot with a little.
Here are some things I have observed to be true:
📌 Founders and startup leaders are digging deep to build their businesses, get customers, book revenue, and secure the next funding round, to make sure the company has a fighting chance.
🙉 It can be near impossible for those founders and leaders to carve out time to listen to employees' concerns, separate the signals from the noise, and to determine which people initiatives might actually be worth investing time and resources into.
👥 If you're lucky, you have a small people/HR team of 1-2 who are proactive and autonomous enough to go beyond the basics of keeping the HR trains on the tracks.
⏳ But even still, that means that you need to spend time managing and mentoring that team to ensure that their initiatives align with the business needs and constraints.
🤝 Supply, meet demand! 🤝
Founders can save time and mental capacity by hiring strategic people ops support for a fraction of the cost of a full-time leader. And the people operations leadership community is here 👏 for 👏 it 👏 !
I believe we will see more and more fractional leadership arrangements not just in the people function, but across the board, and I am excited to watch this unfold!
Thoughts??
💡 Follow me for more insights into the world of strategic people operations and organization development leadership!
#startups #fractionalleadership #fractionalchiefpeopleofficer
