Straight answers

Fractional HR is senior human resources leadership delivered on a part-time, ongoing basis. Instead of hiring a full-time HR executive, a business engages an experienced HR professional for a fraction of their time at a fraction of the cost. The fractional leader owns compliance, policy, hiring systems, and employee issues as a member of the leadership team.

A Building Force Solutions engagement covers four pillars: compliance and risk reduction, employee handbooks and documentation systems, hiring systems and retention programs, and hands-on guidance for terminations, investigations, and employee disputes. It begins with an HR risk audit and roadmap, then continues as an ongoing flat-fee partnership.

A consultant is typically project-based: they deliver a report or a handbook and leave. A fractional HR leader stays. They join your leadership cadence, own outcomes over time, and are on call when an employee situation breaks. Consulting answers a question. Fractional HR runs the function.

Yes. Employment risk starts with the first hire. Wage claims, injury retaliation claims, and misclassification audits hit companies with 10 employees as readily as 100. Small construction companies rarely need a full-time HR person, but they do need HR leadership, which is exactly the gap fractional HR fills.

Across the industry, fractional HR typically runs $2,000 to $8,000 per month depending on headcount, risk, and scope. Building Force Solutions prices by value and scope in a flat monthly engagement, not hourly billing. Compare that to $75,000 to $120,000 plus benefits for a full-time HR manager.

Usually by half or more. A full-time HR manager costs $75,000 to $120,000 plus benefits, payroll taxes, and management time. A fractional engagement delivers more senior expertise for a fraction of that, and it scales down as your systems mature instead of sitting on payroll.

Building Force Solutions engagements are flat monthly arrangements with scope and exit terms agreed in writing up front. The goal is a partnership that earns its keep every month, not one held together by a contract clause.

The sweet spot is roughly 5 to 150 employees. Below that, an on-call advisor may be enough. Above that, full-time HR usually pays for itself. Inside that range you have real legal exposure and real people problems but not forty hours a week of HR work, which is exactly what a fractional model is built for.

At 15 employees, federal anti-discrimination laws including Title VII, the ADA, and GINA apply. FLSA wage and hour rules, OSHA, workers’ compensation, I-9 verification, and payroll tax obligations already applied before that. At 20 employees ADEA and COBRA attach, and at 50 employees FMLA and ACA employer mandates apply.

State and local rules stack on top, and they differ on the Missouri and Kansas sides of the metro. Headcount thresholds are where most owners get surprised.

Misclassification is treating a worker as a 1099 independent contractor when the law considers them a W-2 employee. Construction is a top enforcement target because crews often work under company control with company tools on company schedules. Consequences include back taxes, back overtime, penalties, and personal liability in some states.

Yes, in nearly every case. Field employees are non-exempt under the FLSA, which means time and a half after 40 hours in a workweek. Overtime is calculated per week, not averaged across a pay period, so 50 hours one week and 30 the next still owes 10 hours of overtime. Job titles and pay method do not change this.

No. Paying a day rate or flat salary does not make a field worker exempt from overtime. Exemption depends on job duties plus a guaranteed salary meeting federal tests, and construction field roles almost never qualify. The Supreme Court confirmed in 2023 that even a highly paid day-rate worker was owed overtime. Day rates are fine, but overtime still applies on top.

Travel between jobsites during the workday is paid time under federal law. The normal commute from home to the first site and back is generally unpaid. If employees must report to the shop first to load tools or take a company truck, the clock usually starts at the shop. Put the rules in a written pay policy so nobody is guessing.

At minimum: I-9 forms, payroll and time records, tax filings, OSHA injury logs where required, workers’ compensation documentation, and personnel files with hiring, discipline, and termination records. On public jobs, certified payroll adds another layer. Missing or sloppy records are what turn defensible decisions into losable claims.

Both Missouri and Kansas are at-will states, so no warning is legally required in most situations. The risk is not the firing, it is what the fired employee claims afterward. Discrimination, retaliation, and injury-related claims turn on whether you can show a documented, consistent reason. Legal to fire on the spot and smart to fire with a paper trail are two different things.

Application or resume, offer terms, signed handbook and policy acknowledgments, tax and payroll forms, licenses and certifications, training records, performance reviews, and discipline documentation. Keep I-9s in a separate file so an immigration audit does not expose everything else, and store medical information separately as the law requires.

Have a written job abandonment policy, commonly two or three consecutive missed days without contact, and apply it the same way every time. Attempt to reach the employee, document the attempts, and process the separation under the policy rather than in the heat of the moment. Consistency is what protects you if the absence turns out to involve a medical or protected reason.

Most field turnover traces to three things: pay that drifted below market, a rough first 90 days, and foremen who were never taught to lead people. The fixes that work are a market pay check once a year, a real onboarding plan with scheduled check-ins, and basic supervisor training. Perks rarely move the needle in the field. The daily experience under a foreman does.

Yes. Building Force Solutions is based in the Kansas City metro and works with contractors across Missouri, Kansas, and nationwide. Engagements run primarily remote with strategic onsite time, so geography does not limit who the firm can serve.

Construction and the trades first: general contractors, electrical, plumbing, mechanical, HVAC, roofing, excavation, and specialty subcontractors. Also construction-adjacent businesses such as suppliers, fabricators, equipment dealers, and field service companies. If your workforce is field-based and blue-collar, the playbook fits. See Who We Serve for the full picture.

The HR risk audit and roadmap is a fixed-scope project and a common starting point, and a handbook build can work the same way. Most clients continue into the ongoing partnership because the roadmap needs someone to execute it, but there is no requirement to.

No. Building Force Solutions is not a recruiter or staffing agency and does not source or place candidates. The firm builds the hiring system your team runs: job descriptions, postings, interview structure, selection criteria, and onboarding. You stay in control of who gets hired. The system makes those hires faster and makes them stick.

Book a thirty-minute discovery call. You describe your headcount, trade, and pain points; you get a straight read on where your risk sits and whether fractional HR fits. If it does, the next step is a fixed-scope HR risk audit and roadmap, followed by an ongoing engagement.