When should we think about engaging a Fractional People Leader?

The timing for engaging a senior people-leader on fractional basis will depend on the needs of your business. Often, it's at a time of significant change (scaling up, downsizing or preparing to do either), or when the company has grown exponentially but failed to put people processes in place to support the growth. Fractional is a skills & leadership based role and engaging a Fractional people-leader is often best suited for when we need to:

1. Build out or train up our People / Talent team and set them up for long term success

2. Put in place the basic but robust and scalable frameworks, policies or guidelines

3. Scale up / down existing teams or offerings

4. Improve internal comms or revamp employer branding

5. Increase engagement, or do some work on improving our ways-of-working

6. Work out our core values, or codify and embed our company culture

7. Devise or improve our compensation, people or talent strategies

8. Design and roll out performance frameworks

9. Address burning performance issues or handle redundancies in a way that won’t damage our reputation or team morale

What are the benefits of hiring a Fractional Head of / VP People?

There’s many instances where bringing in a Fractional People-Leader (CPO, VP or Head Of People level) makes sense on both commercial and cultural level. Fractional People-Leader is an experienced people / talent leader-operator whom you can hire part-time, either on a rolling basis or for a fixed period of time. It’s a cost-effective way to bring deep people / talent experience to your organisation in a flexible way. If you're struggling to get your people experience, culture or hiring on track, it's definitely worth considering a fractional VP People / Head of People to get things moving in the right direction - the problems well suited for for this type of work can be around:

📍 Strategy & Planning
🌱 Leadership & Management
💸 Compensation
🎢 Employer Branding & Internal Comms
⚙️ Operations & People Products
🧬 Behaviours
🖐️ Hiring, Firing & Change Management
🎯 Goal Setting
💔 Conflict Management
📣 Communication
🪞 Feedback
✏️ L&D
🤗 DEI
📶 Organisational Design & Team Structure
💷 Performance

Here's a super useful article written by The Forbes HR Council Expert Panel on the benefits to learn more.

How is Fractional different from Consulting?

Great question! Consultants focus on their deliverable(s) and are often brought in to advise on a strategic piece of work. Fractionals on the other hand, are embedded within the team, engaged on part-time basis, leading a team and representing the company. They have to focus on the impact to the team & the company beyond the deliverable. Consulting is a skills-based role, additive to the business and not embedded into the team - consultants deliver that piece of work, then leave the team with the implementation and execution. Sometimes that’s just what’s needed - but how Fractional is different is that their role is both strategic AND executing, working on things that really matter and setting teams up for success. They are your hands-on executors as well as your strategic partners - they've worked in-house before and know from first hand experience what's needed, what good looks like and most importantly, how to achieve it.

Isn't Fractional the same as Interim?

The two are similar in the sense that they both tend to be ’temporary’ assignments and in a way, both have the ‘try before you buy’ approach. Where they’re different is that while Interim tends to be a full time engagement for a specific length of time (3-6 months typically), Fractional tends to be an ongoing, part-time arrangement.

Can you tell me a bit more about your values / personality to help me establish a fit?

Of course! I’ve explained a little about my background in the About Me section and here's some additional info about my values / personality below to give you a broad idea of who I am and how it may be to work with me.

My Values [based on 9 Shalom Schwartz Core Values report]

• Relationships: caring for others, enabling deep connections; compassion to manage situations with respect and understanding of feelings.

• Universalism: ability to consider things from multiple perspectives to bring about a balanced outcome; interested in forward progression of humanity and society; acting in a way that is aligned to a sense of purpose and ethics.

• Self-Direction - creative and recognising perspectives that others may miss; great at developing new ideas and challenging existing norms and behaviours to encourage others to find a better way forward.

My Personality [based on 16Personalities and StandOut Reports]

• Consul: a talent for making people feel supported, cared for and secure; a clear moral compass, good at creating and maintaining a secure, stable and friendly environment; as a team leader, someone who finds ways to make everyone feel involved, uniting people in order to get things done.

• Pioneer: by nature, an explorer, intrigued by the unfamiliar; welcoming ambiguity and with it, the risk; a resourceful person, leading teams into the undiscovered territories.

• Equaliser: a level-headed person, driven to keep the balance and keep things aligned, often acting as ‘conscience’; predictable and consistent, holding people together, building trust easily; good at providing clarity, weighing things up to get a strong sense of "what is the right thing to do" in any situation.

How is Executive or Leadership Coaching different from regular Coaching?

Executive or leadership coaching is specifically tailored to challenges seasoned or emerging leaders experience in their work. It's a specialised form of coaching that focuses on developing the leadership skills and abilities of top-level executives and managers within an organisation. Unlike general coaching, which may be more broad in scope and applicable to individuals at various levels, executive coaching is tailored specifically to the unique challenges and responsibilities that executives face. The emphasis is placed on enhancing strategic thinking, decision-making, and problem-solving abilities, as well as improving communication and interpersonal skills necessary for effective leadership. Executive coaches often have extensive experience working with high-level executives and possess a deep understanding of the corporate world, providing a confidential and objective space for executives to reflect on their strengths, weaknesses, and goals, and support them in creating actionable plans to achieve their professional objectives.

I'm a seasoned executive myself who has sat on many leadership teams in the past, coaching many founders, senior executives and emerging leaders. The fact that I still work in People Leadership means I have an exceptionally good insight into the challenges leaders encounter in their work on day to day basis and I'm committed to help them overcome the difficulties that come with taking on a responsible and often challenging leadership role. I trained as an Executive coach with In Good Company who are ICF, EMCC and AC accredited and am currently working towards the ILM 7 Diploma for Executive Coaches and Mentors.

How do I know you're the best coach for me or someone on my team?

You don’t - not initially, anyway. I’ve explained a little about my background in the About Me section and there's some additional info about my values / personality above to give you a better idea. Coaches usually offer a free non-obligation discovery (also known as chemistry) conversation that helps the client establish a fit. You can book one with me here. If I’m not the best coach for you, I’ll do my best to put you in touch with one of my fellow coaches who may suit you better. Or, find out more about my coaching here.

What are your rates?

My coaching rates can be found here - please get in touch for corporate packages or group coaching as the rates will vary.
My Fractional rates depend on the scope of the project as well as the length of the engagement and the funding stage of the company. Typically, these are project / retainer based although I do work with some clients on day-rate basis too. There's discounts available for engaging my services both on fractional as well as coaching basis.