Buy the window.
Not the hire.

Fractional means engaging a senior specialist for a defined window, typically two to three months, and using them as much as you need inside it. The cost is the window rather than the headcount, so hiring two people or eight does not change the price. It gives an organisation genuine senior expertise, from someone who has done the job before, without a full-time salary, benefits, end-of-service accrual or notice period.

For human capital work the same principle applies to a pattern rather than a hire count: a CHRO for a set number of days across the window, or an employee relations specialist for one difficult quarter.

A fractional CHRO is an experienced chief human resources officer who works with your organisation on a part-time, ongoing basis, typically one day a week or two days a month. They handle board-level people strategy, governance, succession planning, executive team design and workforce risk. It is the right model for organisations that need CHRO-level judgement on real decisions but do not have enough volume of work, or enough budget, to justify a full-time executive at that salary.

You agree a day rate with the specialist for your brief, so there is no single list price. The useful comparison is against the alternative: a permanent senior people leader in the UAE typically costs AED 600,000 to AED 1,200,000 a year plus benefits and end-of-service, carried whether the workload justifies it or not. Engaging roughly a fifth of a leader's time costs in the region of a fifth of that, with no fixed commitment. For a defined ER case or policy build, a project fee is often the better structure and we will tell you which fits.

When the volume of day-to-day work, rather than the seniority of the decisions, is what is driving the need. High-volume onboarding, constant employee queries and continuous case load are signs you have outgrown fractional. A good pattern is to use a fractional CHRO to build the structure and hire the right permanent person into it, with the fractional specialist helping you hire and onboard their own successor. We would rather tell you that than sell you more days.

Both, and you choose. Fractional HR and CHRO work is often hybrid, with a fixed onsite day so the organisation knows when the people conversation happens, and the remainder remote. Employee relations casework frequently needs onsite presence for investigation meetings and hearings. In Abu Dhabi and Dubai we can match to specialists already resident with the right to work onsite. Say what you need in the brief.

Yes, and that is one of the most common ways ER specialists are engaged. They can run a formal grievance or disciplinary investigation end to end, produce the documentation, advise on outcome, and manage the process to a standard that stands up to later scrutiny. Many clients then keep the specialist on for a short period to build the policy framework and manager capability that prevents a recurrence.

No, and the difference matters. A consultancy typically sells a fixed-scope project, delivers a recommendation, and leaves. A fractional specialist is embedded in your organisation on an ongoing basis, owns the outcome rather than the report, and does the work themselves rather than selling it senior and delivering it junior. You get the named person you chose, in your business, accountable for what actually happens.

Yes, and this is common with family offices, holding companies and private equity portfolios. One senior people partner splitting defined days across the group gives you consistent governance, one point of accountability and a single view of workforce risk, at a fraction of the cost of separate HR leadership in each entity.