Exploring Fractional Work

"A fractional professional has the experience, knowledge, or subject matter expertise to know how to get you out of that rut and to actually make impact instead of spinning your tires."

Fractional work has the potential to transform businesses of all sizes. It is a game-changer, especially for small to mid-sized organizations that need high-level expertise without the full-time commitment. This episode dives into fractional work including information such as:

• Cost-Effective Expertise

• Strategic Focus

• Speed to Impact

Fractional work provides an incredible opportunity for companies to scale intelligently and affordably. At Best Culture Solutions, whether you’re seeking fractional HR services or need help finding the right fractional executive in other areas, we’re here to support you. Contact us to explore how fractional work can elevate your organization.

Notable Moments

00:41 Lack of people strategy can be costly. 

05:58 Fractional CFO manages small business cash flow.

08:02 Fractional CXO professionals accelerate strategic business impact.

10:42 Fractional roles drive quick impactful results due to structure, knowledge, and drive

Connect with Tim and his team:

Website: https://bestculturesolutions.ca/

LinkedIn: Best Culture Solutions, Inc

Instagram: @best.culture.solutions  

Email: [e-mail]

 

Episode Transcript

(00:07):
Welcome to the World at Work podcast, where business leaders and
job seekers come together to create winning cultures and fulfilling
careers. I'm your host Jody Mayberry, and I'm here with Tim
Dick, the founder of Best Culture Solutions.
And, Tim, I have a question for you related to something
that I keep seeing show up on LinkedIn

(00:29):
in one way or another. This isn't a direct
article or a post someone made. I just keep
seeing this idea of fractional work come
up, and I thought, well, Tim will know about that. Let's talk to
Tim. So explain this idea of fractional work to me, and
then I'm sure I will have some follow-up questions. Well,

(00:51):
okay. So that's a good question. I'm glad you asked about it because fractional work
is actually something that we at Best Cultural Solutions do for people in the HR
space. But here's what it is. Fractional work means
maybe you're in an organization or a business that doesn't necessarily
need somebody full time. Right? So in our case, you know, maybe you're
a business that doesn't wanna make the commitment of

(01:13):
hiring a full time HR department. Right? Because
maybe, just maybe, you don't have enough people to dictate it. You know,
in Canada, a full time HR commitment is can be a $130,000
a year or a $120,000 a year depending on where you are and
different things. But that's a big commitment to make. What if you only
have 10 people in your organization? And because of

(01:36):
that, you do not have the need for a full time h person
HR person to make that commitment. Doesn't make sense budget wise. It doesn't
make sense workload wise. But then, okay, that
that might be the case. But the problem is even though you can't necessarily
it doesn't make sense for you to do that, now the problem that you have
is you're missing out on all the benefits of that. Right? Now,

(01:58):
you know, the reality is that if you don't have a good and deliberate people
strategy, it can actually cost you a lot of money. It can cost you a
lot of money and time and heartache and heartbreak. And
a lot of smaller businesses feel like they are left
out as a result because it doesn't make sense
for them to hire somebody. So fractional, in our case, is the

(02:20):
opportunity for you to hire us and say, hey. Look. We don't
need a full time HR department, but we need you for
about 10 hours a week. Okay. Let's do that. We can do that for
you. And then you don't miss out on the benefit. In our case, you
can still have a good HR system in place with with
solid, deliberate people strategies. You know, your onboarding program is

(02:43):
right. The performance management place. You're measuring the right KPIs. Your
compensation is aligned with what should be in the market.
But you don't have to make you can get all the benefits of a good
HR department or good proper, you know, people
strategy without having to make the financial commitment. You can get just the right
size of help for what you need. Does that make sense? It does.

(03:04):
And already, in this short conversation,
I've started to understand the benefit of it
because I've worked for small organizations. I've had
the chance to work for government agency. I've had the chance
to work for a large company and the chance to work for a
small company. And the one as great as small

(03:26):
companies can be. The one thing that I saw that may
not always work the best is you have some people
wearing many hats and in some cases you have
someone wearing all the hats. For example, let's
say you have an accounting firm. Well, just because you're an
exceptional CPA doesn't mean you should

(03:49):
run your own advertisements and hire everybody
and whatnot. So I see how this fractional idea
allows you to have the professionalism, the
knowledge of a professional in
HR without having to do it yourself. Because Tim, I'm sure when it comes
to HR issues, you are way more up to speed

(04:11):
in what's going on than an accountant who has to keep
up with tax code and whatnot. Totally. And so and one of
the things that happens a lot, Jody, and to your point, is a lot of
smaller organizations, let's say in the HR space. Right? A lot of times what
ends up happening, if you're smaller, a lot of the HR functions
get delegated to whoever deals with the administration or

(04:33):
the finances. Like, every time. I see it all the time. And
then what ends up happening is that your people strategies
become such that you're not really being
deliberate. You're not really you don't really have a strategy. You're
just transacting. You're transacting with people. You're moving people
in, and you're moving them out transactionally. Right?

(04:55):
And so your people strategy doesn't actually become all that strategic. It just
becomes transactional, and you don't
get the benefit of that. And the reason for that is because whoever is doing
your administration or a lot of times the accountants in your
organization might be doing the HR for them, you're
not getting somebody they're probably great people. Don't get me wrong.

(05:17):
But you're not necessarily getting somebody who sits
there and thinks about doing this. They're thinking every day
about how to do the accounting. And the issue with
that is that you're not getting as deliberate a people strategy
as you could in the realm of HR. Now let's say it were other things.
Right? Like, I've heard of, like, a fractional CFO. That's one thing that I

(05:38):
work with in my business sometimes. Right? Where, look, I am
not smart enough. I don't have the subject matter knowledge. I do not have
the exposure to the financial world to have the
level of knowledge that a CFO would have. And a CFO, let's clarify, is
somebody who doesn't just process your transactions in your company or does
your books. There's somebody that takes a look at your money and and

(06:01):
your profit margins and your revenues and all that stuff and creates a comprehensive
strategy of what to do with your cash flow in your organization, where to invest
it, how to handle it, all that type of stuff. I don't have if
I was dedicated to that type of a thing, I'm sure I could figure it
out, but I'm not. And so I don't have the mental bandwidth to take on
that new thing. Right? And so I can get a fractional CFO in my

(06:21):
business. So a lot of times, you don't see a CFO unless there's a 1,000
people in the organization or more. I'm an organization of
5. Right? If I hire a fractional CFO to look
at our, you know, our cash flow, what we're doing with it, all that
type of stuff, then I can get the benefit that most time is
reserved for just a large organization, but for my smaller

(06:42):
shop, you know, where I am here. So it actually makes a lot of sense.
I think there are companies that have used this fractional
idea without thinking of it on the executive level. A good
example is a bookkeeper. There are a lot of people that use a
bookkeeper that also is a bookkeeper for
several other organizations, but I don't think that

(07:05):
concept has maybe you have a bookkeeper, but you
never thought about, oh, I could have a CFO. I could
have human resources. I could have sales
direct. There's a lot of different areas. Maybe you haven't
thought outside just a bookkeeper or
I'm trying to think of some other smaller roles that might be this

(07:27):
way. But this idea of doing it where it
is at the executive level, what have you
found, Tim, that is the big resistance for some
organizations to do this? They have to go fractional.
Yes. It's a financial investment, I think, is the biggest thing. Or
sometimes they don't fully understand fractional, and they think, oh, well, our

(07:49):
organization's not big enough for that yet. Right? And it's just not true.
The reality is that getting a high level fractional and and don't get me wrong.
You don't need necessarily a full bevy of fractional
c suite professionals. That's overkill. You know, 8 or 9 different
fractional c whatever o's or CXOs. But the
reality is that if you don't bring one on where you need it, you might

(08:11):
get stuck in this in a rut where if you had the right
fractional partner that strategically knows how to handle instead of just trying to
process it, just trying to tread water with it, just trying to
transact with it, you might stay in that rut. You might stay
spinning your tires. A fractional professional has the experience
or the knowledge or the subject matter expertise to know how to get you out

(08:33):
of that rut and to actually make impact, right, instead of spinning your tires.
So, basically, they can increase your speed to impact. A lot of
times where things get tricky with a fractional
or to answer your question why they might resist working with a
fractional, it's because maybe they're afraid of budget, maybe
they've under actually, let me turn that around. They've overestimated how

(08:55):
much it would really cost or what their commitment is in doing it. They don't
fully understand what it means that it actually can be a scale up
model for them or a model that can have economies to scale
for them. A lot of times they just say, Oh, well, I'm going to
put a CFO in. There's no way I can afford a CFO right now. Or
I bet you these guys make a lot of money. And to be honest, a

(09:17):
fractional professional will charge you more per hour than if you hire them full time.
Of course, most consultants do. But they are also
purposely designed to have an entry point that is scalable
for a small business. And so I guess what I'm trying to say is that
I think a lot of people underestimate the cost effectiveness of it and
whether or not they can whether or not how do I put it? They can

(09:38):
enter that market or hire a fractional person, if that makes sense. They think that
they can't. Right. And they really can't. And it's a lot more accessible than they
realize. Does that make sense? It does. And I think this is perhaps the
biggest issue with it is 1, the realization that
it's possible. Yeah. 2, the understanding that
you need a fractional help. And then 3

(10:00):
is the realization that it is more
accessible, affordable, and easy to
do than you realize it is. A 100%. And it is. And
it's a lot. And the other thing too is that a good fractional
professional is weathered and conditioned
and ready to be adaptable. Right? They can come in. They

(10:23):
understand what's going on, and they can make a quick impact for
you, and they can make a quick you know, they can they can get you
because it's not just about speed. Right? Let's not forget, a lot of times, the
reason why they'd be helpful is because you're in some sort of a rut, and
your tires are just spinning around. You need to make impact, not just
activity, and you need to have a high speed impact. So a fractional,

(10:43):
a lot of times, has the knowledge, the drive, right, because the nature
of fractional engagement is different. It creates high drive inside that
person to get you results. Whereas, a lot of times, somebody who's
fully internally hired in your organization, the incentives are a little bit
different and they're structured differently. And so it can be
harder for a full time employee to sometimes get traction where a fractional could

(11:06):
and sometimes vice versa. But a fractional is gonna be highly motivated to come in
and make an impact for you. And so I guess what I'm trying to say
is that having one in, you know, the barrier to entry cost
wise is more friendly, but then they can get good speed
to impact for you because they are motivated to do it based on how
their work is structured and their knowledge and expertise is such that they can

(11:28):
apply it pretty quickly to get you speed to impact. If this has
intrigued us enough to say, I just wanna find out more.
I wanna find out if our organization needs a
fractional executive, a fractional for human
resources as an example. Well, I've got 2 questions for you,
Tim. 1, can Best Culture Solutions help

(11:51):
an organization find? I know you said Best Culture does
fractional work in human resources. So that's one, I
think we should call you if we want to talk about that. And
2, do you help organizations find
fractional executives outside of human resources?
We could just say yes and then and the podcast. But no. It it

(12:14):
we do. Like, we obviously offer the fractional HRPs. Absolutely.
We we love doing it because we see it. We see what happens
with our clients, right, when they make that investment and they
see the results in having a fractional person and and things that they didn't
think their organization could do, they suddenly do and they can do. They're
doing it and they're happy to get the results. They're happy to reap the benefits

(12:36):
of that. So, yes, absolutely. We personally do help
with fractional HR. So, yes, we can directly be your
fractional in that space. However, we do also help you find and
recruit fractionals in other spaces as well. So if you need a good
fractional CFO, we can help you find the right one for your organization.
If you need the right fractional marketing officer, chief marketing

(12:59):
officer, we can help you find the right one. So long story short, yes. The
answer is yes. We can either be your fractional HR department or help you
find the right fractional person for you in a different
field of knowledge. A 100% we can. Alright. And how do we get in
touch to start this conversation? Yeah. Www.bestculturesolutions.ca

(13:20):
is our website. My email is [e-mail].
Alright. Well, this has been a great conversation, a wonderful
introduction to fractional work. Thank you so
much, Tim, for the explanation and thank you for listening to
World at Work.