NG Strategic Solutions · Fractional HR Engagement Case Study
Built to Scale
A three-year fractional HR partnership that carried a founder-run, 18-person operation through tripled headcount and multi-state expansion — by rebuilding the people function from the ground up without losing operational control.
In three years, annual turnover fell from 80% to 20%, organizational health rose from 25% to 85% satisfaction, and the company grew from 18 to nearly 50 employees across multiple states — all running through a single, systematized central office.
Annual Turnover
80%→20%
60-point reduction
Org Health Satisfaction
25%→85%
60-point gain
Headcount
18→~50
Nearly 3× growth
The Situation
A mom-and-pop operation outgrowing itself
When the engagement began in 2022, the organization had grown from 8 to 18 employees in just a couple of years and was opening multiple new locations and building crews to staff them. The infrastructure had not kept pace. The owners were still personally involved in nearly every decision, and a long-tenured office manager was holding the entire back office together on Excel sheets and processes left over from the mom-and-pop years.
The growth was real, but it was running on systems that were never built to carry it. The cost showed up in the numbers: roughly $1 million per year lost to turnover, with 80% annual turnover and an organizational-health survey that put employee satisfaction at just 25%.
Pattern · Founder Dependency
Owners in every decision
Leadership was still personally absorbing day-to-day operational and people decisions, leaving no room to focus on growth and no clear accountability below them.
Pattern · Legacy Systems
A back office on spreadsheets
One office manager carried the entire administrative load on Excel and outdated, undocumented processes that could not scale to multiple sites.
Pattern · People Instability
Turnover and behavior issues
80% annual turnover and recurring accountability and behavior issues signaled that the right roles, expectations, and hiring practices were not yet defined.
Pattern · Cost of Churn
~$1M lost each year
Constant rehiring and retraining consumed roughly a million dollars annually — a direct drag on the capital needed to fund expansion.
The core diagnosis
The company wasn't failing — it was succeeding faster than its people systems could support. Growth had outpaced structure, and the structure had to be rebuilt while the business kept running.
The Approach
Embed, diagnose, rebuild — without slowing the business
Rather than running a one-off project, I came in as fractional HR support inside the day-to-day operations, partnering directly with the leadership team. That dual position — hands on the daily work and a seat in the strategic conversations — made it possible to fix the function while it was still operating at full speed.
01
Get to root causes, not symptoms
Implemented annual organizational-health surveys and structured exit interviews to surface what was actually driving turnover and behavior issues — rather than reacting to each departure in isolation.
02
Streamline and systematize HR operations
Replaced spreadsheet-era, undocumented processes with streamlined, documented HR systems — so the back office no longer depended on a single person's memory and could support multiple locations from one central hub.
03
Hire and train the right talent
Defined the roles the growing organization actually needed, then recruited, hired, and trained the right people into them — building a central office team capable of supporting multi-state operations.
04
Anchor pay to the market
Conducted full market wage and compensation research and adjustments, bringing pay in line with the market to make roles competitive and retention sustainable.
What changed structurally
The office shifted from a single overloaded administrator on legacy tools to a cohesive, functional central office with systems built to keep it the operational center of gravity as locations multiplied.
The Outcome
Function, retention, and room to grow
Headcount growth
A stable people function let the company nearly triple in size
Annual turnover
Lower is better
Org-health satisfaction
Higher is better
Before & After
The organization at a glance
Dimension
2022 — Start
2025 — Outcome
Annual turnover
80%
20%
Org-health satisfaction
25%
85%
Headcount
18 employees
~50 employees
Footprint
Single-site, expanding
Multi-state, centrally supported
HR operations
Excel & legacy processes
Streamlined, documented systems
Leadership role
Owners in every decision
Freed to lead growth
Compensation
Ad hoc
Market-benchmarked
What the numbers mean
Cutting turnover from 80% to 20% didn't just stabilize the team — it recovered most of a ~$1M annual loss and turned a churn problem into capacity for growth. The organization, and the people in it, now had room to grow together.
Why this travels
The pattern repeats in any organization scaling across sites: growth arrives before the people systems are ready, the back office runs on goodwill and spreadsheets, and turnover quietly drains the budget. This is the exact situation I'm built to step into — embedded in the day-to-day, partnered with leadership, and focused on the root causes that make growth sustainable.
Capability Set
What this engagement drew on
Talent Management
Recruited, hired, and trained the right people into newly defined roles; built repeatable hiring and development practices that held as headcount tripled.
HR Administration
Replaced spreadsheet-era, ad hoc processes with documented, compliant HR operations that run without founder involvement.
Organizational Design
Defined roles, accountability, and a central-office model built to support multiple locations across states as the company scaled.
Employee Relations
Resolved accountability and behavior issues; used annual org-health surveys and exit interviews to surface and address root causes.
HR Business Partnership
Embedded directly with ownership and leadership as a strategic partner in daily decisions, not a back-office afterthought.
HR Transformation
Carried the organization from founder-dependent and reactive to systematized and self-sustaining over three years.
HR Systems & Technology
Moved the company off Excel and legacy tools onto structured systems that keep the central office the operational hub.
Compensation Strategy
Conducted market wage research and made pay adjustments to keep roles competitive and retention sustainable.