Most growing companies don't need an HR department. They need HR judgement — the kind that comes from having already seen the restructure, the tribunal, the failed HRMS rollout and the founder who couldn't let go. Kairos Atlas gives you that judgement on demand: as the HR function you never hired, or as a specialist brought in to land one project properly.
There are only two reasons a company calls an HR consultant. Either there is no HR function at all and the founders are doing it badly between other jobs — or there is a team, but something specific has landed on it that it has never done before and cannot afford to get wrong.
Kairos Atlas is built for both. One is a standing relationship; the other is a defined piece of work with a start, an end and a deliverable. We are equally happy doing either — and we will tell you honestly which one you actually need.
Talk to an HR partnerFor startups and growing businesses that need senior HR expertise without hiring a senior HR person. We act as your HR function — present, accountable, and reachable — for a fraction of the cost and none of the fixed commitment.
For organisations that already have HR, but are facing something their team has not done before — an HRMS implementation, a performance system redesign, a PoSH inquiry, a restructure. Defined scope. Defined outcome. We leave when it's done.
At twenty people you can get away with it. At fifty, you can't. Somewhere in between, a company crosses the line where informal stops working — where the offer letters contradict each other, where nobody has told the new joiner what "probation" means here, where a good manager is about to do something that will cost you a tribunal, and where the founder is spending a third of their week on things that are not the business.
A full-time HR head is a heavy, expensive and premature answer to that. A fractional one is not. We take the function — policy, compliance, hiring, performance, employee relations, the difficult conversations — and we own it, at the level of seniority you would never be able to hire at your stage.
Discuss a fractional arrangementEmployment contracts, offer letters, the employee handbook, leave and attendance policy, remote and hybrid policy, statutory registrations, POSH committee constitution, and the HR calendar. The unglamorous scaffolding that nobody notices until it isn't there.
Salary bands and offer decisions, promotion and progression calls, performance conversations that have been avoided for three quarters, grievances, disciplinary process, and exits handled with dignity and without exposure. We sit in the room, not behind an email.
Org design that outgrows the org chart, the first layer of managers who have never managed, culture that is drifting while everyone insists it isn't, and the co-founder conversation that keeps getting postponed. Coaching for the people at the top, delivered privately.
>> kairos hr --status --org "seed-stage · 42 employees · no HR team" Foundations... ✓ Contracts Rewritten · labour-code aligned · 42 of 42 re-issued. ✓ Handbook Published. Leave, hybrid, POSH, grievance, exit. ✓ Bands Benchmarked · 6 levels · 3 offer anomalies corrected. ! Managers 7 first-time managers · development programme in week 2. Open with the founders: org design for post-Series-A shape Regretted attrition: down from 4 to 1 this quarter Next hire recommended: HR generalist — we'll write the JD and interview >>
Every HR team has a list of things it knows it should do and has never had the capacity, the specialist depth, or the political room to do. A performance system that nobody believes in. An HRIS that was bought and never landed. A grievance that needs an independent investigator. A leadership programme that has been "next quarter" for two years.
These are projects, not roles. We scope them, run them, and hand them over — with your team closer to being able to do it themselves next time.
Scope a projectMost HRMS projects fail on process, not software. We do the requirements properly, run the vendor evaluation without the sales noise, design the target processes before configuration, own the data migration and cleansing, build the test scripts, drive user adoption, and stay through hypercare. We're independent of every vendor on the shortlist.
Goal-setting and OKRs that connect to something real, a review cycle managers don't dread, calibration that survives scrutiny, 360 feedback that isn't weaponised, competency frameworks, career paths, succession maps, and a high-potential programme that identifies the right people rather than the loudest.
Training needs analysis against actual capability gaps, curriculum design, facilitator-led workshops delivered by us, first-time manager programmes, leadership development, coaching and structured mentoring schemes — and measurement that shows whether any of it changed behaviour.
We sit on your panels. Structured, competency-based HR interviews for senior and sensitive hires; interviewer training so your managers stop asking illegal questions and start asking useful ones; assessment and case design; scorecards; and reference and background verification done to a standard that holds up.
A policy library that is current, consistent, readable and actually followed — mapped to India's four new Labour Codes and the state rules that apply to you. POSH committee constitution, training and independent inquiry. Statutory registers, returns and audit readiness, with monitoring handed to Kairos Vigil and audits run by Kairos Sentinel.
One-to-one coaching for founders, functional heads and newly promoted managers. Structured mentoring programmes with matching, contracting and measurement. Confidential sounding-board support for the decisions a leader cannot discuss with their own team — including the ones about themselves.
An employee's life inside your company has ten stages, and HR is accountable for all of them. Most consultancies pick the profitable three. We cover the whole arc — including the unfashionable parts, which are usually the ones that generate the litigation.
Take any single item below as a standalone project, or hand us the entire lifecycle as a fractional function. The list is illustrative, not exhaustive — if it falls under HR, it falls under us.
>> kairos atlas --scope Employee lifecycle coverage: ✓ 01 Strategy, org design & foundations ✓ 02 Talent acquisition & hiring ✓ 03 Onboarding & induction ✓ 04 Compensation, benefits & payroll governance ✓ 05 Performance & talent management ✓ 06 Learning, development & coaching ✓ 07 Engagement, culture & retention ✓ 08 Employee relations & compliance ✓ 09 HR systems, data & analytics ✓ 10 Exit, transition & alumni Coverage: complete >>
We don't sell days. We sell an outcome and a relationship, and we structure the commercials around whichever of the two you actually need. Every engagement begins with a 30-minute conversation and a written scope — no scope, no start.
Start the conversationA named HR partner, a fixed number of days a month, and a standing relationship. You get continuity, institutional memory and someone who picks up the phone. Scales up around a funding round, a hiring push or a restructure — and scales down again when it's quiet. Cancel with a month's notice.
One defined piece of work — an HRMS implementation, a performance redesign, a leadership programme, an investigation. Scope, deliverables, timeline and price agreed in writing before we start. We finish, we hand over the documentation, we transfer the capability, and we go.
For companies that mostly know what they're doing and occasionally, urgently, don't. A senior HR voice on call for the decision you can't afford to get wrong — an exit, an offer, a grievance, a policy question with legal teeth. Priced by the block, used when needed.
Whether you need an HR function you don't have, or one project done properly, it starts the same way. 30 minutes. No commitment. Tell us what's broken.