The Treadmill Problem

Fractional CHRO, Full-Time CHRO or HR Consultant: What Does a Growing Business Really Need?

“We Are Running on a Treadmill”

A few weeks back, I was sitting with the CFO of a chemical company near Mumbai. A fifty-year-old business. About 400 people, most of them on the shop floor. Sixty percent of what they make goes abroad.

And she was also, by default, the head of HR.

Payroll was done by hand. There was no HR system. Performance reviews didn’t really happen.

Two years ago, the promoters did what most growing companies do. They hired a VP Manufacturing, a Quality Head and an R&D Head to build a strong senior team. All three have since left.

Then she said something that has stayed with me:

“Unless we fix the people side, we will keep running on a treadmill. A lot of effort. No distance.”

I have heard this same thing, in different words, in plants in Vadodara, in engineering offices in Pune, and in FMCG sales teams across the country.

The business has grown. The way it manages people hasn’t. Everybody feels it. Nobody is quite sure what kind of help to ask for.

So the founder asks the obvious question. Should we hire a CHRO? Call an HR consultant? Or try this Fractional CHRO thing everyone is talking about?

I have led HR from the inside, including at a bank that grew from 10,000 to 25,000 people. My honest answer is this: Don’t start with the title. Start with the problem.

Three Kinds of Help, Doing Three Different Jobs

People often compare these three as if one is just a cheaper version of the other. That’s not true. Each one does a different job.

1. HR Consultant

An HR consultant fixes one clear problem. You already know what’s broken. Maybe your salaries are out of line with the market, or your appraisal has become a yearly ritual nobody takes seriously.

A good consultant comes in, studies it, gives you a solution and moves on. This works well if you have a team inside that can carry it forward once the consultant leaves.

2. Full-Time CHRO

A full-time CHRO owns the people side, every single day. This is a permanent member of your top team.

They sit in your weekly reviews, shape your culture, build your next line of leaders, and stay answerable for years.

If you have several plants, many layers of managers and people decisions coming up every day, nothing replaces that kind of daily presence.

3. Fractional CHRO

A Fractional CHRO gives you the same senior leadership, in the dose you need today. Same experience, same seat at the leadership table, but for a few days a month instead of five days a week.

The big difference from a consultant is ownership. A Fractional CHRO doesn’t hand over a report and disappear. They stay through the difficult first months, work with your HR team, and leave behind people who can run it on their own.

So the real question is simple: Which job do you need done right now?

A Three-Year Journey: From Fractional to Full-Time

Let me tell you about one company that used all of this, step by step, and did it on purpose.

It’s an engineering and manufacturing company, around ₹200 crore in revenue. A few years ago, the promoters sat down to plan the next decade and set a bold target: grow five times.

They were very clear that new machines and new markets alone would not get them there.

Somewhere between ₹200 crore and ₹1,000 crore, they would need a very different organisation.

The obvious step was to hire a full-time CHRO. They decided not to, at least not yet.

Their thinking made a lot of sense to me. If they hired a CHRO then, they would be hiring for the company they were. They wanted to hire for the company they were going to become.

So they brought in a Fractional CHRO first, with a three-year plan.

Year One: Build the Base

This year was all about systems.

• A clear structure, with every role defined.

• Clarity on who decides what, so that every small decision didn’t land on the promoters’ table.

• A performance system linked to the business plan.

• Grades and a salary structure.

• Hiring processes and HR policies that could hold up as the company grew.

A lot of this simply didn’t exist on paper before.

Year Two: Run It

Building systems is the easy part. Making them stick is where most companies slip.

In the second year, the Fractional CHRO ran the people function alongside the leadership team.

• The first full appraisal on the new system.

• Senior hiring for the growth plan.

• Monthly people reviews.

• All the tough conversations that come with any change.

Through the year, the internal HR team grew in confidence.

Year Three: Hand Over

By now, the promoters knew exactly what kind of CHRO they needed because they had seen the function working.

They hired a full-time CHRO into a ready setup, not an empty room.

The new CHRO walked into working systems, a trained team and clear priorities, and could focus straight away on the next stage.

Today, that company is getting ready to go public.

People sometimes ask me what the Fractional CHRO really contributed.

My honest answer: It made the full-time CHRO hire work.

The fractional model wasn’t a cheaper replacement for a CHRO. It was the bridge that got them to the right one.

What This Looks Like on the Ground

Let me share four more situations from our work. I have kept the names out, but these are real.

1. The Auto-Components Company That Wanted to Triple

An auto-components company in western India had a clear goal: go from ₹200 crore to ₹600 crore.

The investment plan was ready. Customers were lined up. What nobody had looked at closely was this: could the current leadership team run a company three times this size?

We assessed every function, from Production and Quality to Purchase, Sales, Finance and New Product Development.

What we found was uncomfortable, but useful. Many departments had one strong head and almost nobody ready behind them. If one of those people left, the whole function would stall.

This isn’t a consultant’s problem, because there’s no single project that solves it. It isn’t yet a full-time CHRO problem either, because the company first needs to know what HR it will need at ₹600 crore.

A Fractional CHRO can hold all of it together: connect succession, development and hiring to the growth plan, and keep the board updated on progress.

2. The Packaging Plant That Asked for a Retainer and Got a Project

A young owner in Vadodara, who built the business with his cousin, runs an injection-moulding plant. They make pails and jerry cans for paint and agrochemical companies.

The business generates about ₹17 crore in revenue. The plant can produce 300 tonnes a month, but it runs at around 90 tonnes.

He came to us wanting a Fractional CHRO for culture, productivity and KRAs.

I told him not to sign up for a full year yet. What he needed was quite specific:

• A few basic HR policies.

• Clear KRAs for his people.

• A proper look at why the plant was running so far below capacity.

That’s a project. We agreed on three and a half months, with a clear end date.

I share this because the honest answer isn’t always the bigger assignment. Sometimes a business needs a consultant first, and leadership later.

3. The Engineering Firm Where Every Decision Went to One Desk

An engineering and construction company of about 70 people, now run by the second generation.

The founder’s son is sharp and works very hard. But every approval, whether a site purchase or a leave request, landed on his table.

The projects were getting bigger, and without meaning to, he had become the bottleneck.

He didn’t need a full-time CHRO for 70 people. He also didn’t need a consultant to redraw the org chart and leave.

He needed two things, and they had to go together.

First, a Fractional CHRO.

Someone to sit next to him, set up the structure, agree on who decides what, bring in a rhythm of reviews, and put basic people systems in place.

Second, leadership development.

A new structure doesn’t help if nobody is ready to take the decisions you are handing over.

So, alongside the systems, we are working with his senior people, helping them grow into bigger roles the business now needs from them.

That’s the journey we have just started with them.

In my experience, one without the other doesn’t work. Systems without leaders just create more paperwork. Leaders without systems go back to sending everything upstairs.

4. The FMCG Company Where the Sales Incentive Pulled the Wrong Way

In consumer businesses, people problems often show up first in the sales team.

In one FMCG company we worked with, the incentive scheme rewarded volume. Distributors got loaded at quarter-end, returns went up the next month, and the field team was quietly frustrated because targets felt random.

A consultant could have redesigned the incentive plan. But the plan sat on top of bigger questions:

• Who owns the annual plan?

• Who reviews it every month?

• Who sets targets, and on what basis?

We worked on role clarity, a monthly business review and the new incentive design together.

Fixing only the incentive would have just shifted the problem somewhere else.

So, Which One Do You Need?

When a founder asks me this, I usually break it into three simple questions.

1. Can You Describe the Problem in One Line?

Examples:

• “Our salary bands are out of line with the market.”

• “We need a proper POSH policy and committee.”

If yes, and you have someone inside to own the result, an HR consultant is probably enough.

2. Is There Enough People Work to Keep a Senior Leader Busy Every Week, for Years?

Think about several plants, hundreds of managers, constant hiring, union matters, and a board that wants people numbers every quarter.

If yes, hire a full-time CHRO. Hire well and give them a real seat at the table.

3. Are Your Problems Connected, and Is the Business Changing Fast?

Consider a situation where structure, performance, leadership depth and incentives are all tangled together.

Perhaps a growth plan will change what the organisation needs in two years. Or a founder is still, in practice, the head of HR.

This is where a Fractional CHRO really earns their place.

HR Consultant vs. Fractional CHRO vs. Full-Time CHRO

And remember, this isn’t a one-time choice. Many of our clients move across this table over time.

A project turns into a fractional role. A fractional role prepares the ground for a full-time CHRO, just like the company in the three-year story.

How We Work at Flipcarbon

Our Fractional CHRO practice works with promoter-led and professionally run companies in manufacturing, engineering, FMCG, pharma and logistics, across Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chennai and the NCR.

We always start with a short diagnosis because you can’t prescribe well without first understanding what’s going on.

From there, we work on the things that actually move the business:

• Structure and role clarity.

• Decision-making responsibilities.

• Performance systems.

• Leadership depth.

• Hiring and incentives.

And we stay through the doing part, in the monthly reviews and the tough conversations, until your own team can carry it.

The chemical company I started with doesn’t need more effort. They already have plenty of that.

What they need is for all that effort to finally take them somewhere.

If your business feels like it’s running on a treadmill, let’s talk.