Fractional HR, an HR Consultancy or an In-House Hire: Which Solution for Your Company
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An honest comparison of the three ways to organise HR in a mid-sized company: an in-house hire, an outsourced HR consultancy, fractional HR. With, for each, the situations where it is the right call and those where it is not.

News : Satisfaction among French managers with their HR function reaches 64 %, up 6 points in four years, and 70 % among those who manage teams. But 82 % still see HR as an administrative department: 86 % rate it effective on administrative tasks, against 54 % on career management, and only half would turn to their HR department to discuss their professional development (Third Apec-ANDRH barometer, 2,000 private-sector managers surveyed, 2 June 2026).

That gap is the starting point of the question company directors ask me most often: should an HR professional be recruited in-house, should the work go to an outsourced HR consultancy, or should the company take on fractional HR?

The short answer. An in-house hire is called for when the HR need is daily and genuinely fills a full-time post. An outsourced HR consultancy is the right choice for a one-off, well-bounded need: a recruitment, payroll to subcontract, a compliance audit. Fractional HR takes over when the need is recurring and structuring without filling a full-time post, and when someone has to be present on the premises, known to the employees.

Let me say it straight away: I work on a fractional HR basis, so I am both judge and party. All the more reason to say where this model is the wrong choice.

The three models in one table

This table compares models of organisation, not named providers.

Criterion In-house HR Outsourced HR consultancy Fractional HR
Relationship Employment contract, subordination Service contract, contact may change Service contract with one identified person
Presence Permanent One-off, for the duration of the assignment Recurring and scheduled
Main strength Day-to-day HR and the relationship with employees A bounded piece of work: recruitment, payroll, audit Structuring over time and manager autonomy
Time to set up Long: recruitment, notice period Short Short to medium
Reversibility Low: a structural cost High: the assignment ends Medium: the number of days adjusts
Nature of the commitment Fixed payroll cost Project budget, assignment by assignment Recurring budget, sized in days
Company memory Strong Weak between assignments Strong if the relationship lasts
Specialist expertise Limited to the profile recruited Broad: several specialists Limited: the consultant must signpost
Main risk Sizing the post wrongly Deliverables that never take root Dependence on one person, absent outside the agreed days

Recruiting an HR professional in-house

When it is the right choice

An in-house hire is called for when the load genuinely fills a post: arrivals and departures every week, active employee relations with a staff committee, high turnover, shift work. HR there is not a project, it is a flow. Also when immediate availability is the heart of the need: an employee who breaks on a Tuesday afternoon, a workplace accident, a team conflict. Those moments cannot be scheduled, and no external service covers them.

When it is not the right choice

Recruiting is the wrong reflex when the real need is worth half a post and the job is created full-time “to have someone”: the person fills the gap with administration, one of the drivers behind the Apec-ANDRH finding quoted at the top. Wrong choice too when nobody can write the job description: an employee is then made to carry a clarification that belongs to the director. And when the horizon is uncertain, strong growth or integration after an acquisition, a permanent post buys rigidity at the wrong moment.

Going through an outsourced HR consultancy

When it is the right choice

On a bounded piece of work with a clear deliverable, the consultancy is unbeatable: a senior recruitment to source, payroll to outsource, an employment compliance audit. It is also unbeatable when several kinds of expertise are needed in parallel, a payroll specialist, a lawyer, a headhunter. No individual consultant covers those three trades at the same level, and I prefer to say so rather than let it be assumed. A structure also guarantees a continuity one person alone cannot promise.

When it is not the right choice

The consultancy reaches its limits when what you are looking for is not a deliverable but a presence. A pay policy or an appraisal system is not created in a document: it is created in conversations with managers, month after month. And when detailed knowledge of the teams is decisive: someone rediscovering the company at each assignment sees neither the manager burning out nor the person about to resign.

One point of vigilance applies to any external HR service, consultancy or independent: in France, making staff available to another company for profit, outside temporary work and umbrella employment, is governed by article L. 8241-1 of the Labour Code (in French). A service is bought for an assignment and a result, not to place someone under the client’s day-to-day authority. I am an HR professional, not a lawyer: have your contract reviewed by an employment lawyer.

Taking on fractional HR

When it is the right choice

Fractional HR occupies the middle ground: a recurring, structuring need that goes beyond a few one-off assignments without filling a full-time post. That is the situation of many mid-sized companies between the moment HR can no longer rest on the bookkeeper, and the moment a full post is justified. It is also the model that builds autonomy: present every week, the consultant trains the managers and leaves behind processes that work without them.

It assumes physical presence. In the neighbouring interim management market, 47 % of assignments run fully on site and 89 % include at most two days of remote work per week (Morgan Philips, French interim management barometer, 4 May 2026). It also answers the need for a legal watch: law no. 2026-403 of 26 May 2026 on simplifying economic life (in French), published in the official journal of 27 May 2026, carries 84 articles across twelve headings and has, since 28 May 2026, removed the obligation to file the internal rules with the registry of the labour tribunal. Without a watch, a company applies obligations that have lapsed.

When it is not the right choice

If you need someone every day, I am not the answer: between two visits, someone has to hold the daily work. If your need is a single sharp expertise, litigation before the labour tribunal, a sensitive collective agreement, a business transfer, my role is to prepare the file and point you to a lawyer or a specialist firm. And if the leadership can free up no time for decisions, the recommendations will stay on paper: I check that before committing.

Choosing according to your situation

By headcount

No regulatory threshold determines which model to choose; what follows is a marker drawn from my practice, not a norm. Below around twenty employees, HR often fits into a few annual pieces of work: one-off intervention is enough. Between around twenty and a hundred, the need becomes continuous without filling a post: that is fractional territory. Beyond that, an in-house post is almost always justified.

By HR maturity

With no standard contracts, no formalised appraisals and no training records, the priority is to build a base: a regular presence builds it faster than a succession of assignments. If the base exists and a precise expertise is missing, the consultancy is more effective. If it exists and the load is overflowing, recruit.

By how much leadership time is available

The rarer your time as a director, the more you need someone who decides within their scope instead of submitting options to you. An experienced in-house HR professional or a consultant established over time will do that; the consultancy hands the decision back to you.

By how seasonal the need is

An identified annual peak, an appraisal campaign, a training plan, seasonal recruitment, is very well handled as a consultancy assignment. A need spread across the whole year sits badly with everything being one-off: each assignment starts again with a discovery phase you pay for twice.

The three models are not mutually exclusive

The combination I meet most often pairs fractional HR for steering, a consultancy for specialist work, and an in-house administrative post when the volume calls for it. The market makes it more accessible: in the second quarter of 2026, salaried employment in France was almost flat, down 0.1 %, while self-employment rose 3.4 % over a year, 119,500 more people (INSEE, Informations rapides no. 214, 28 August 2026), across all trades, not HR in particular.

What this comparison does not cover

I do not deal here with which HR tasks to delegate or in what order: that is the subject of which HR tasks to outsource first. Nor do I set out the criteria for selecting a person, detailed in how to choose an independent HR consultant.

I give no costings: costs depend too much on scope, region and seniority for a published range to mean anything. An honest financial comparison is made on your real scope, hidden recruitment costs and management time included. I do not deal either with foreign groups opening a subsidiary in France. And I give no legal advice: as soon as it comes to characterising a contract, terminating one or negotiating a collective agreement, the right contact is an employment lawyer.

FAQ

What is the difference between fractional HR and an outsourced HR consultancy?

Fractional HR is one identified person, present in a recurring and scheduled way, who carries the HR function over time. The consultancy is a structure mobilised assignment by assignment, with a defined deliverable and contacts who may change. The first sells continuity, the second one-off expertise. I go deeper into the model in the fractional HR director.

At what headcount should an HR professional be recruited in-house?

No text sets a threshold: French law does not require an HR hire at a given headcount. The right indicator is the daily load, not the number of employees. If HR tasks occupy someone every day, the in-house post is justified.

Can a company start with an external solution and then recruit?

Yes, and it is often the healthiest path. An external phase makes it possible to define the real scope of the need before writing a job description. Recruiting afterwards produces far fewer mistakes than recruiting to see what happens.

Does fractional HR suit a company that has never had HR?

That is in fact the most frequent case. A company with no HR history needs a base to be installed and kept alive, which a succession of assignments does badly. I describe that starting point in outsourced HR for small and mid-sized companies.

How I would go about it in your place

Three questions before choosing: how many days a month does HR really occupy someone today, which subjects have been postponed for more than six months, and who decides when an HR decision has to be taken. The answers point to the model better than headcount does.

You can see how I work on a fractional HR basis, then write to me through my contact page: I will call you back for a conversation and tell you which of the three options fits you, including if that is the in-house hire or the consultancy.

Sources

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