Senior HR Leadership. Without the Full-Time Price Tag.

A traditional consultant delivers a project and walks away. Fractional HR is embedded leadership — your JS Benefits Group HR professional attends your leadership meetings, owns ongoing people outcomes, handles employee issues in real time, and drives your HR strategy continuously. It’s the difference between hiring someone to mow your lawn once and having a landscaper who maintains your property year-round. Fractional HR is a sustained, strategic relationship — not a transaction.

JS Benefits Group fractional HR retainers typically range from $2,000 to $6,000 per month depending on the scope, hours, and complexity of your needs. For most businesses with 30–150 employees, a well-scoped fractional engagement runs $24,000–$48,000 per year. Compare that to a full-time HR Director in Pennsylvania costing $90,000–$130,000 in salary alone — plus $30,000–$50,000 in benefits, payroll taxes, and overhead. Most clients save $60,000–$115,000 annually.

Fractional HR delivers the most value for businesses with 20–250 employees. At this stage, you have real HR complexity — compliance exposure, employee relations issues, performance management, recruiting needs — but a full-time HR director isn’t yet fully justified. It also works well for larger companies augmenting an existing HR team with senior strategic support, or any company needing interim HR leadership during a transition.

A PEO (Professional Employer Organization) is a co-employment arrangement that handles payroll, benefits, and basic compliance. What a PEO doesn’t do: sit in your leadership meetings, build a performance management system, coach your managers, investigate employee complaints, or help you build a strategic people function. PEOs are transactional. Fractional HR is strategic, embedded leadership that connects your people strategy directly to your business goals — while keeping you in full control of your employee relationships and company culture.

Yes — and this is our single biggest differentiator. Because JS Benefits Group is a full-service HR and employee benefits firm, your fractional HR professional has deep expertise in total compensation, benefits strategy, ACA compliance, carrier negotiations, and benefits administration. Your HR and benefits strategies are fully integrated by the same team — creating consistency that standalone HR consultants, PEOs, and benefits brokers cannot offer separately.

Pennsylvania employers face both federal and state-specific requirements. Key PA-specific obligations include: the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act (broader protections than Title VII), Philadelphia and Allegheny County paid sick leave laws, Pennsylvania Minimum Wage Act, PA-specific recordkeeping requirements, and PA WARN Act obligations. New Jersey employers face additional requirements including the NJ WARN Act (stricter than federal), NJ SAFE Act, NJ CEPA whistleblower protections, and NJ paid sick leave. JS Benefits Group knows all of these — and keeps you ahead of changes.

We can typically begin within 1–2 weeks of signing an engagement agreement. For urgent situations — such as an active employee investigation, a sudden HR leadership vacancy, or an impending compliance deadline — we can often move faster. Most clients are up and running within two weeks of their initial conversation with us.