No HR Department? Here's What Charities Do Instead

Most charities don't have an HR department. A significant number don't have a single person whose job is formally HR. What they have is a CEO who handles the difficult conversations, an office manager who processes the paperwork, and a trustee who worked in HR fifteen years ago and gets called when something serious happens.

This is not a criticism. It's a description of how a large proportion of the UK's third sector actually operates. And for a long time, for many organisations, it's worked well enough.

The question is whether it's still working. And whether "well enough" is the right standard when employment law is shifting, people risk is growing, and the consequences of getting it wrong have become more significant.

What happens when there's no HR function

Without anyone whose job it is to think about people risk, a few things tend to happen.

Policies get written once and not revisited. Contracts that were drafted years ago don't reflect current legislation. Managers handle difficult situations differently from each other because there's no consistent approach. Performance issues get avoided rather than addressed because nobody is confident in the process. And when something serious happens, the organisation is making decisions under pressure without the expertise to make them well.

None of this is catastrophic in isolation. Collectively, over time, it creates exposure. An employment tribunal claim that a well-run process would have prevented. A settlement that costs more than it should have. A good employee who leaves because a difficult situation was handled badly. A trustee board asking questions about people risk that nobody can confidently answer.

The organisations that feel this most acutely are usually in the twenty to sixty staff range. Small enough that a full-time HR hire feels like a significant overhead. Large enough that the people picture has become genuinely complex.

Why hiring an HR manager isn't always the answer

The instinct when people complexity grows is to recruit. But a full-time, experienced HR manager in the current market costs between £40,000 and £55,000, sometimes more for someone with genuine employment law competence and third sector experience. For a charity with a £1.5m to £3m turnover and a programme-heavy cost base, that's a meaningful slice of overhead.

And the honest question is whether the need is consistent enough to justify it. Most charities don't need senior HR input forty hours a week. They need it intensively around specific moments: a restructure, a difficult ER case, a policy review, a management capability issue, a governance question that lands in people's lap. Between those moments, the need is lighter.

A full-time hire optimises for the quiet periods as much as the busy ones. That's not always the right use of resource.

What fractional HR actually means

Fractional HR means having a senior HR professional working with your organisation on a part-time or retained basis, providing the expertise of a head of people without the full-time cost.

It's not a helpline. It's not a template service. It's a senior professional who gets to know your organisation, your team, your culture, and your specific risk profile, and is available to provide advice, support difficult situations, lead on projects, and help you build the internal confidence to manage people well.

For a charity without an HR department, it can look like a few different things depending on where you are.

A retained advisory arrangement gives you a defined number of days or hours each month, with ongoing access to senior HR advice as situations arise. You have someone to call when the grievance lands on a Tuesday morning. Someone who already knows the context and can give you a real answer rather than a cautious hedge.

A fractional head of people arrangement goes further. Regular structured input into your leadership team, attendance at senior management meetings, oversight of people processes, and a visible HR presence for your managers and staff. The senior people leadership function, without the full-time salary.

A project-based engagement addresses a specific need: getting your contracts and policies up to date ahead of the ERA changes, building a performance management framework your managers will actually use, supporting a redundancy or restructure, or developing your people strategy ahead of a growth phase.

What to look for

Not everyone offering fractional HR is the same. A few things worth thinking about when you're considering it.

Genuine employment law competence. HR advice and employment law advice are related but not identical. The person advising you on a disciplinary or a redundancy needs to know the legal framework properly, not just the process steps.

Third sector experience. The dynamics of charity employment are specific. Someone whose entire background is in commercial businesses may struggle with the trustee governance layer, the mission-driven culture, the funding uncertainty, and the ways these shape how people situations need to be handled.

Availability when it matters. Fractional doesn't mean unavailable. When something serious is happening, you need to be able to reach someone quickly. Understanding how an advisor handles urgent situations before you engage them is worth doing.

Honest pricing. Fractional HR should give you cost certainty. Vague day-rate arrangements that expand unpredictably aren't much better than a solicitor on the clock. Fixed retainers or clearly scoped project fees let you budget properly.

King HR Advisory and the fractional model

King HR Advisory was built around this model. Senior people leadership and HR advice for charities and purpose-led organisations that need the expertise without the full-time hire.

We work with organisations across Yorkshire and beyond on retained advisory, fractional head of people arrangements, and strategic HR projects. We understand the third sector because most of our work is in it. And we're honest about what you need rather than what generates the most engagement.

If your charity is operating without an HR department and you're starting to wonder whether that's sustainable, the People Risk Scorecard on our website is a useful place to start. Or book a discovery call at kinghradvisory.co.uk and we'll give you an honest assessment of where your risks are and what, if anything, you should do about them.