The questions we hear in the first 30 minutes.

Why does this matter for a 50-500 person company specifically?

Because the 50-500 band is where the people function starts to decide whether the business scales. Under 50, the founder is in every conversation — the founder is the people function. Over 500, there is usually a real CHRO and a real budget. In between is where the work gets dropped: too big for the founder to do alone, too small to justify a senior in-house leader, and almost always under-staffed at the level where decisions actually matter.

Three things break specifically at this stage. Hiring stalls because the loop hasn't been formalized. Managers get promoted without a system to develop them. Comp decisions get made one-off at the founder's kitchen table. Any one of those slows growth. All three together make growth feel exhausting and expensive.

What actually breaks when a growing company doesn't fix the people function?

Specifics, not generalities. Senior candidates take other offers because the interview loop runs 30+ days. Existing employees leave at 30%+ annual rates — and the loudest leavers are usually the ones you most wanted to keep. Manager performance drifts because nobody runs 1:1s consistently. The handbook hasn't been updated for two years and your terminations get bumpier than they need to be. Comp decisions get made at 11 PM and the precedents pile up.

The cost is hidden because no single hire or departure looks like a five-figure problem. The aggregate cost — over 12 months — is usually well into six figures of preventable spend, before you count the strategic cost of slower hiring.

We already have someone doing HR. Why would we need this?

Because what most companies call HR at this size is administration, not strategy. The person doing HR is usually competent, busy, and stuck in the wrong altitude — running benefits, fielding ticket requests, managing payroll. None of that is the work the function needs to be doing at 50-500.

We don't replace your internal HR person. We rebuild the function around them so they have a system to run instead of fires to fight. After the rebuild they're more effective because the strategic decisions are documented and the day-to-day has a structure. We make their job possible, not redundant.

What legal exposure does a 90-day rebuild actually reduce?

Five areas, in roughly the order they cause real problems.

Classification. The W-2 vs. 1099 line. Misclassifying a contractor as a freelancer when they look like an employee is one of the most common and most expensive findings in a state audit or a wage claim. Agencies are especially exposed here.

Wage and hour. Exempt vs. non-exempt classification, off-the-clock work, overtime calculation. Most companies under 200 get this wrong somewhere.

Handbook and policy currency. State employment laws change every year. A handbook that hasn't been touched in three years almost certainly violates at least one new state rule, and an out-of-date handbook is the first document plaintiff's counsel asks for.

Termination documentation. The paper trail that proves a separation was for performance reasons, not protected-class reasons. Companies almost universally under-document.

Compensation parity. Federal and state Equal Pay Acts require defensible reasoning for pay differences in equivalent roles. Pay transparency laws in California, Colorado, New York, Washington, and a growing list of states make this both visible and litigable.

A rebuild documents and standardizes all five so your operating systems aren't quietly generating future claims.

Our handbook hasn't been updated in years. Is that a real problem?

Yes. Three reasons.

State and federal employment laws change continuously — pay transparency, paid leave, hybrid work, AI in hiring, drug testing. A three-year-old handbook is missing roughly two dozen substantive updates depending on your states of operation.

A handbook is the first document any employee, regulator, or plaintiff's counsel asks for in a dispute. An out-of-date one is worse than no handbook — it's documented evidence that the company's policies don't match current law.

The handbook is also the operating manual for your managers. If it's wrong or unread, you are managing without a consistent reference. Different managers handle similar situations differently, and those inconsistencies are the early signal of a discrimination claim.

We rewrite the handbook as part of the rebuild — the eight policies that actually matter, current to the laws of your operating states, written in plain language people will actually read.

We have a mix of W-2 employees and 1099 contractors. Should we worry?

Probably. Agencies, especially, run on freelance talent — and the line between contractor and employee is drawn in state and federal law, not in your contract. Tests vary by jurisdiction (the IRS test, the ABC test in California and others), but most companies that haven't reviewed in two years have at least one or two contractors who would not survive a state audit.

The exposure isn't theoretical. Misclassification leads to back-taxes, back-wages, penalties, and unemployment insurance recoveries — typically 6-12 months of compounded liability per misclassified person. We've watched this kill acquisitions that were otherwise on track.

The rebuild includes a classification review: every 1099 audited against current state tests, recommendations on which roles need to be reclassified, and the operating documents to support the classifications that do hold.

How does this hold up if we're hit with a wage-and-hour or discrimination claim?

A well-run people function reduces both the frequency and the cost of claims by making the company's decisions defensible.

Most claims don't come from one bad decision. They come from a pattern of inconsistencies — different managers handling similar situations differently, undocumented performance issues that look pretextual after the fact, comp decisions that can't be explained against a band. The plaintiff's bar finds those patterns by reading the documents.

The rebuild makes the documents look like a company that runs its people function on purpose. Consistent rubrics, documented performance conversations, defensible comp logic, a current handbook, applied evenly. That doesn't eliminate every claim. It does change which ones reach summary judgment and which ones settle quickly.

Are you a law firm? Do you give legal advice?

No to both. We are not a law firm and we do not give legal advice.

What we do: build operating systems that reduce legal exposure by being current, consistent, and well-documented. For specific legal questions — drafting an enforceable separation agreement, responding to a regulator, defending a claim — you call your employment counsel, and we work alongside them.

Many of our clients don't yet have employment counsel on retainer. We help you find one if needed, and we shape the work so the legal hours go to the questions that actually require an attorney.

What does a 90-day rebuild actually deliver?

A people function that runs. Specifically: a documented hiring system — scorecards, interview loops, calibration, time-to-fill targets. A manager bench — standard 1:1 cadence, feedback templates, a performance review structure that produces evidence not adjectives. Comp bands and a leveling map. A rewritten handbook with the eight policies that matter and a cut list for the rest. A one-page people read for the CEO. And a handoff to whoever runs it next — your internal HR person, your COO, or a new senior hire if that is what the audit recommends.

The test isn't what's in the binder. The test is whether the function still ships outcomes 90 days after we leave.

What about after the 90 days? Are you available for ongoing support?

The rebuild ends. Deliberately.

We don't sell retainers and we won't propose one. If something breaks six months later that needs a senior hand — an investigation, an acquisition diligence sprint, an exec replacement — call us and we'll scope a defined engagement against it. Bounded, fixed-fee, with a clean end date. Same model. We've never had a former client object to this.

How much does this cost?

The 90-day rebuild is a fixed fee, scoped to company size and complexity. Most engagements in the 50-200 person range come in between $45,000 and $90,000 all-in. Companies in the 200-500 range run $90,000 to $150,000. We send the proposal after the first call and don't move the number after.

Compare against the alternatives. A Head of People hire at this size is $200,000+ in cash, plus benefits, plus 6-12 months of ramp. Two years of monthly retainer with a generalist HR consultancy is $240,000+ and produces a slide deck. The rebuild is a one-time line item that produces a running function.

Who shouldn't hire us?

Three groups, honestly.

Companies looking for a permanent fractional Head of People to sit on retainer indefinitely. That isn't us — and we would point you to firms that do that well.

Companies under 30 employees. At that size the founder is still the people function, and most of what we build won't get used yet. Come back at 50.

Companies that want the deck and not the work. The rebuild is a real intervention with a real disruption to how the team operates for 90 days. If the CEO isn't willing to back the work publicly with their team, the rebuild stalls. We've seen it.