Fractional HR Services
Senior HR Leadership, Without the Full-Time Hire
A fractional HR arrangement gives you an experienced HR director for a set number of days each month. The people strategy, the compliance, the difficult conversations and the manager support all get handled – for a fraction of the cost of a permanent senior hire.
Popoki provides fractional HR to growing UK businesses, led by a Chartered FCIPD consultant and ILM Level 7 qualified Executive Coach. Based in St Albans, working in person across Hertfordshire and remotely across the UK.
Book a 15-minute intro call – no obligation, no hard sell. Or send a message first.
New to the concept? Start with What is fractional HR?
Who Fractional HR Is For
Fractional HR fits businesses that have outgrown improvised people management but are not ready for a full-time senior HR salary:
- Founder-led businesses of roughly 5–50 people – where people decisions still route through one desk
- Teams growing faster than their people processes – hiring, onboarding and structure starting to creak
- Businesses where a director or office manager is “doing HR” on top of their real job
- Organisations with junior HR admin but no senior HR judgement behind it
- Leadership teams deferring people decisions because nobody owns them
If any of that sounds familiar, you do not have an HR problem. You have an HR ownership problem – and it is usually cheaper to fix than people expect.
The Problems That Usually Bring People Here
Most clients do not search for fractional HR on a good day. Something has usually started to hurt:
- the founder is answering HR questions at 10pm instead of running the business
- contracts and policies have quietly fallen behind employment law and reality
- a grievance, absence issue or performance problem has exposed the lack of process
- managers are improvising people decisions, each in a different direction
- an investor, board or insurer has started asking questions about HR foundations
Any one of these is manageable. Left unowned, they compound – and they get more expensive to fix the longer they run.
What a Fractional HR Engagement Looks Like
You get a named senior HR lead – not a helpline, not a portal, not a rotating cast of advisers. A typical month includes:
- A standing rhythm of days – on-site or remote, agreed up front
- Ownership of live people matters – ER cases, absence, performance, pay questions
- Steady improvement of foundations – contracts, handbook, policies, processes
- Direct support and coaching for your managers – so they get stronger, not more dependent
- A leadership sounding board – structure, hiring plans and people decisions before they are made
Between scheduled days, urgent matters do not wait for the calendar. That is the point of a retainer: the relationship is already in place when something lands.
Why Fractional HR, Not Full-Time?
| Full-Time HR Director | Fractional HR | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | £120k-£180k+ total (salary, NI, benefits) | A set number of days per month – typically 40–60% less than the total cost of a full-time equivalent |
| Commitment | Permanent headcount | Flexible – increase or decrease as needed |
| Expertise | One person’s experience | Breadth of experience across multiple sectors |
| Availability | 5 days/week (whether needed or not) | Exactly the hours your business requires |
| Ramp-up | Months of onboarding | Experienced consultants hit the ground running |
For most businesses under 100 employees, fractional HR delivers better value and broader expertise than a permanent hire – at 40-60% less than the total cost of a full-time equivalent.
2026 Employment Law Changes: Why Fractional HR Matters Now
The Employment Rights Act 2025 – which received Royal Assent in December 2025 – introduces the most significant employment law changes in a generation. From April 2026: statutory sick pay from day one (removing the three-day waiting period), day-one paternity and parental leave rights, and strengthened flexible working protections. From January 2027: the unfair dismissal qualifying period drops from two years to six months, and “fire and rehire” becomes automatically unfair dismissal. ACAS conciliation has already been extended from 6 to 12 weeks.
For businesses without dedicated HR, these changes create real compliance risk – and the penalties for non-compliance are serious (right-to-work failures, for example, now carry potentially unlimited fines as a criminal offence).
A fractional HR director monitors legislative changes, updates your policies, and ensures your business stays compliant – without you having to track every update yourself. It’s one of the most common reasons businesses move from ad hoc HR to a retained fractional arrangement.
Why Popoki
Fractional HR only works if the person you bring in has genuinely operated at a senior level. Otherwise you are paying retainer rates for admin.
Popoki is led by Marie Hart:
- Chartered FCIPD – the senior mark of the CIPD profession
- ILM Level 7 qualified Executive Coach – the highest-level ILM coaching qualification, set at postgraduate level. That matters here because half of fractional HR is developing your managers, not just advising them
- Senior HR leadership in demanding, high-growth environments, including Charlotte Tilbury, and coaching some of the most senior agents and commercial-partnerships leaders in sport and music at Wasserman (now ‘The Team’)
- Local to St Albans and Hertfordshire for in-person work, with remote delivery across the UK
You are not buying a body for two days a month. You are buying judgement formed in rooms where people decisions carried real weight.
A Recent Example
A Hertfordshire business in its scale-up phase brought Popoki in on a retained basis after people issues started arriving faster than the leadership team could absorb them. Contracts had not kept pace with roles, managers were handling similar problems in different ways, and the founder had become the de facto HR department.
Within the first quarter: documentation brought up to date, live ER matters resolved with proper process, and a simple management rhythm established so issues surfaced early instead of escalating. The founder got their evenings back; the managers got a person to call before small things became formal things.
Getting started
The quickest way to find out whether fractional HR fits your business is a short conversation about what is currently unowned. No pitch, no obligation – just an experienced view on what needs attention and what shape of support makes sense.
Book a 15-minute intro call. Prefer to send a message first? Contact us, or message us on WhatsApp.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does fractional HR cost?
Engagements are shaped in days per month, so you pay for senior HR leadership only when the business needs it. For most businesses under 100 employees, fractional HR delivers better value and broader expertise than a permanent hire – at 40–60% less than the total cost of a full-time equivalent.
The right number of days – and the investment – is agreed on the intro call.
What is the minimum commitment?
Engagements are shaped around a monthly rhythm, typically starting from one to two days a month. The right level depends on headcount, growth rate and how much is currently unowned.
Are we locked in?
No. The arrangement is reviewed regularly and scales down as readily as it scales up. Fractional HR that has to trap its clients is not working.
How is this different from using an HR consultant when we need one?
Ad hoc consultancy answers the question you ask. A fractional HR lead owns the questions you have not asked yet – the compliance drift, the manager who needs support before the grievance, the structure that will not survive the next ten hires. Ownership is the product.
What happens when we are big enough for an in-house HR team?
That is a success, not a conflict. A good fractional arrangement builds the foundations an in-house team will inherit, helps you hire them, and hands over properly.
Do you work remotely or on site?
Both. In person across St Albans, Hertfordshire and London where it helps; remote across the UK as standard. Most retained clients settle into a blend.
We already have someone doing HR admin. Does this still fit?
Often that is the best fit of all – your admin keeps running smoothly and gains a senior lead to escalate to. Fractional HR supplies the judgement layer, not more administration.