HR OPERATIONS
Policy development, compliance infrastructure, and HR documentation for companies building or formalizing their HR function. We draft the policies, build the frameworks, and create the documentation — then partner with employment counsel for jurisdiction-specific legal review.
When there’s no policy until there’s a problem
A manager asks how to handle an employee who’s been working from another state for three months without telling anyone. An employee files a complaint and there’s no documented investigation process. Someone asks about your bereavement policy and the answer is “it depends on who you ask.” Your handbook hasn’t been updated since 2019 and still references an office that closed two years ago. Every one of these creates risk — legal, financial, and cultural. The time to build HR infrastructure is before the problem forces your hand, not after.
Who This Is For
- Companies growing past 50 employees with no formal HR policies or employee handbook — operating on precedent and informal decisions
- Organizations expanding into new states and needing multi-state compliance before the exposure becomes a liability
- Companies that haven’t updated their handbook or policies in years — and employment law has changed significantly since the last revision
- HR teams that inherited a patchwork of inconsistent policies from previous leadership, acquisitions, or informal decision-making
- PE portfolio companies needing compliance cleanup pre-acquisition (due diligence) or post-acquisition (integration)
- Organizations that have had a compliance incident and realized their documentation and processes weren’t adequate
What We Build
HR policy and compliance work covers a broad range of documentation and infrastructure. We build what’s appropriate for your size, stage, and risk profile:
- Core HR policies: The foundational policies every company needs — anti-harassment, equal employment, leave, attendance, code of conduct, remote work, classification, and more
- Employee handbook: A comprehensive, readable document that reflects your culture and meets legal requirements — not a copy-pasted template full of legalese nobody reads
- Compliance gap assessment: Identifying where your current documentation and practices fall short of federal, state, and local requirements
- Multi-state compliance: State-specific policy addenda and compliance requirements for organizations with employees in multiple jurisdictions
- Manager reference guides: Practical guides that translate policy into action — what managers need to know about leave administration, performance documentation, complaint handling, and termination processes
- HR process documentation: Documented workflows for key HR processes so your team operates consistently — not from memory or institutional knowledge that lives in one person’s head
Packages
Policy Development — $7,500–$12,000
Core policy drafting and compliance assessment for companies that need foundational HR documentation. Best for organizations that have some policies in place but know there are gaps, inconsistencies, or outdated language that needs to be addressed.
What you get: Compliance gap assessment identifying where current policies and practices fall short, draft core HR policies (up to 15 policies) tailored to your organization, employee classification audit (exempt/non-exempt, contractor/employee), documentation templates for key HR processes, and a prioritized list of additional policies or actions needed beyond the initial scope.
Timeline: 4–6 weeks typical.
HR Infrastructure Buildout — $16,000–$28,000
A comprehensive HR documentation and compliance infrastructure build. Best for companies that are building their HR foundation for the first time, formalizing after years of informal practices, or cleaning up post-acquisition.
What you get: Everything in the Policy Development package, plus: full policy suite covering all standard HR domains, employee handbook draft ready for legal review (we partner with employment counsel for jurisdiction-specific review), multi-state compliance addenda for each state where you have employees, manager reference guides for leave, performance, complaints, and separations, HR process documentation for key workflows, compliance calendar with recurring filing and notice obligations, and a 90-minute walkthrough with your HR team on using and maintaining the documentation.
Timeline: 6–10 weeks typical, depending on number of states and complexity.
How It Works
Discovery Call
A free 30-minute conversation to understand your current state — what documentation exists, what’s missing, which states you operate in, and what’s driving the urgency. We’ll recommend the right package and scope.
Compliance Assessment
We review your existing policies, handbook (if one exists), employee classification, and HR processes against federal, state, and local requirements. We identify gaps, risks, and areas where current practices don’t match documented policy.
Drafting & Development
We draft policies, the handbook, manager guides, and process documentation — all tailored to your organization, not copied from a template. Policies reflect your culture and values while meeting legal requirements. For multi-state organizations, we build state-specific addenda.
Legal Review & Handoff
We coordinate with employment counsel for jurisdiction-specific legal review of the handbook and key policies. Once finalized, we walk your HR team through the complete documentation package and provide guidance on rollout, acknowledgment tracking, and ongoing maintenance.
A note on legal review: We draft policies and build compliance frameworks based on deep HR expertise and current employment law knowledge. We are not a law firm and do not provide legal advice. All handbook and policy documents are reviewed by employment counsel before finalization. We can work with your existing attorney or refer you to employment law partners who specialize in your jurisdictions.
Frequently Combined With
Policy and compliance work often connects to broader HR infrastructure needs:
- HR Department Assessment & Optimization — When policy gaps are one of several infrastructure issues identified in the HR Assessment. The Assessment tells you what to prioritize; Policy & Compliance addresses the documentation and compliance piece.
- Fractional CPO & HR Advisory — When compliance cleanup is one part of a broader need for ongoing strategic HR leadership. Many Fractional CPO clients address policy and compliance as an early initiative within the advisory relationship.
- Onboarding Program Design — When you’re building the policy infrastructure and the onboarding experience simultaneously — common for companies formalizing their entire HR function at once.
[Placeholder: Add a testimonial from a policy/compliance engagement. Focus on the peace of mind — going from patchwork policies and compliance uncertainty to a documented, organized foundation.]
Common Questions
Can’t we just use a handbook template?
You can — and many companies do. But templates are generic, often outdated, and don’t account for your specific states, industry, workforce composition, or culture. They also tend to be written in dense legal language that nobody reads. We draft policies that meet legal requirements while actually reflecting how your company operates and communicating clearly to employees. More importantly, we identify the compliance gaps and classification issues that a template can’t catch.
We have employees in multiple states. How complicated does this get?
It depends on which states and how many — but it’s more manageable than most people think. We build a core set of federal policies that apply everywhere, then create state-specific addenda covering the differences that matter: leave laws, pay transparency requirements, harassment training mandates, final paycheck rules, and other state-specific obligations. The compliance calendar tracks recurring requirements by state so nothing falls through the cracks.
Do we need an employment attorney too?
For the final legal review of your handbook and certain high-risk policies, yes. We draft everything and build the framework, then coordinate with employment counsel for jurisdiction-specific legal review. This is more efficient and less expensive than having an attorney draft policies from scratch — they review and refine rather than create. We can work with your existing counsel or refer you to attorneys who specialize in employment law for your states.
How do we keep policies current after this engagement?
We deliver documentation your HR team can maintain independently — including a compliance calendar that flags when policies need review (annually at minimum, or when laws change). For organizations that want ongoing support, our Fractional CPO & HR Advisory service includes policy review and updates as part of the advisory relationship.