Building
Founders creating their first real People infrastructure.
Happy people
build better
companies.
We build and run people functions for fast-growing tech, e-commerce, franchises, non-profits, and consulting firms. Better tools mean less of this work needs a full-time team now. We bring experienced operators in for the hours you actually use, and for most growing companies, we can run the whole thing.
“Can you just… do this for us?”
The question that started PeopleHappy
Fractional HRManager coachingTeam trainingPeople systems
Why now
You don't need a full HR team. You need the work done.
For a while, growing companies brought every back-office function in house. Payroll, benefits, compliance, onboarding, performance. Each new layer added cost and coordination, and the org chart grew to justify itself.
That pendulum is swinging back. AI and better tools have collapsed how much labor the work actually takes. Most teams are paying for 40 to 60 hours a week of capacity and using a fraction of it.
For most growing companies, we run the entire people function end to end, embedded, for the hours you actually use.
What we do
Three ways teams bring us in.
Whether you're building your first people function or replacing one that costs more than it should, most teams start with one path and add the rest as they grow.
01
Outsourced & Fractional HR
Your trusted HR advisor for the confidential, high-stakes stuff, including policy, compliance, performance issues, and the calls you can't make alone. Ongoing, not project-based.
02
Training & Team Development
One-on-one coaching, department trainings, and custom team-building sessions built around what your team actually struggles with, not an off-the-shelf workshop deck.
03
People Systems for Growing Teams
The infrastructure that lets you scale without chaos: onboarding, performance reviews, and manager playbooks, built once and used for years.
What we actually hear from founders
“We hit 20 people and realized nobody owns HR. It's split between the CEO, the COO, and a Google Doc.”
“Our managers were promoted for being good individual contributors. Nobody ever taught them to lead.”
“We bought the HRIS. Nobody adopted it. It's basically an expensive filing cabinet now.”
Sound familiar? That's the actual work. Let's talk about it.
How we work, concretely
No generic phases. Here's what an engagement actually looks like.
Week 1–2
We sit in on your team, not just your leadership. We learn where the friction actually is, not where the org chart says it should be.
Week 3–4
You get a plain-language plan: what to fix first, what can wait, and what it'll cost in time and money either way.
Ongoing
We stay embedded, reviewing, adjusting, and handling the parts nobody wants to own, until you don't need us anymore or you're ready for a full-time hire.
One 40-person e-commerce team came to us with three competing performance review processes. Ninety days later they had one, and every manager could explain it without opening a doc.
Anonymized client engagement, e-commerce, 40 employees
How we work
Ongoing support, or a specific thing built.
Advisory
Senior guidance for leaders making high-stakes people and business decisions.
Fractional Leadership
Embedded leadership without a full-time executive hire.
Who we work with
Built for organizations in motion.
Scaling
Organizations whose teams have grown faster than their systems.
Evolving
Leadership teams navigating change, transformation, or a new stage of business.
Optimizing
Teams with established HR that costs more than it should. We right-size it, or run it for them.
Let's talk
Tell us what's happening.
Bring us the real thing, the messy version you'd explain over coffee. We'll figure out what needs to happen next.