HR Companies & HR Consultants in Kansas City, MO

FineLine HR Consulting, LLC is a women-owned firm in Kansas City, Missouri. It helps employers with HR questions that fall into gray areas, where a wrong decision can create legal risk. The company's name points to that focus.

It treats everyday dilemmas as matters that need careful judgment, such as what a hiring manager may ask a candidate, whether a social media post is grounds for dismissal, or how long hiring records must be kept. The firm presents itself as an advisor and a partner in decision-making for organizations dealing with difficult or unexpected workforce problems.

Leadership and background

Unlike many HR consultancies, FineLine is led by people with both employment law practice and senior corporate HR experience. Founding member Shelly Freeman has close to three decades as a labor and employment lawyer, including courtroom trial work. She also once led HR for a large employer with operations in several states.

She is a frequent trainer and speaker for private and public sector audiences and is known for explaining complex employment rules in plain language with practical examples. Ellen Martin brings more than 30 years in HR and leadership. Her roles include senior executive oversight of HR, legal and regulatory groups at a telecommunications company ranked in the Fortune 300.

She has also practiced law at Shughart Thomson & Kilroy, a firm now part of Polsinelli, and has worked in university teaching, mediation, and nonprofit board leadership. She also spent time with American Century as an investment representative.

When a matter needs formal legal counsel, FineLine works with the law firm Freeman, Martin, McKee, LLC, so clients can receive advice that may be covered by attorney-client privilege.

Training

Training is central to the firm's work. FineLine does not expect supervisors to master every statute. Instead, it teaches them to spot risky situations early and ask for guidance before problems grow. Programs cover the legal and practical sides of the whole employment cycle: hiring, performance reviews, pay, motivation, development, discipline and termination.

Clients can choose in-person sessions led by an instructor at their site, webinars and other live remote sessions, or on-demand e-learning courseware. The firm also builds custom programs for both managers and non-supervisory staff.

Investigations

FineLine conducts impartial workplace investigations when employees raise concerns about harassment, bullying, discrimination, retaliation or other misconduct, whether internally or with an outside agency. Its investigators are skilled interviewers. They also know the legal limits on methods such as surveillance, polygraph testing and witness questioning, along with anti-retaliation rules.

At the end of an inquiry, the firm recommends how the organization might resolve the complaint. It works with both public and private employers and has recruited contract attorney investigators to grow this team.

HR consulting

The firm's broader consulting practice covers a wide range of HR functions, including:

• Counseling on day-to-day employee relations
• Compensation and rewards, including compensation studies
• Employee engagement and HR metrics
• Job analysis and writing job descriptions
• Performance management
• Developing and communicating policies and employee handbooks
• HR audits and effectiveness reviews
• Interim HR support
• Recruiting, selection, staffing and new-hire onboarding
• Individual coaching

FineLine also runs an online resource center with client alerts on compliance topics for Missouri employers. Topics include the paid sick time provisions of Proposition A, the state's Victims Economic Safety and Security Act, EEO-1 filing deadlines and COBRA subsidy rules under the American Rescue Plan Act. The firm suits employers that want legal insight, manager training and hands-on HR support from one provider.

Reaction Search International, which also brands itself as RSI Executive Search, is a recruiting and talent consultancy that works with employers looking to fill senior and C-suite roles, along with companies that want outside help running their human resources function. Its headquarters is in Newport Beach, California, and it lists a Kansas City, Missouri recruiting center at Two Pershing Square.

The firm describes a national network of recruiters in major U.S. cities, plus international offices in places such as London, Toronto, Munich, Sydney and Hong Kong.

Executive Search and Recruiting

RSI's main business is executive recruitment. Employers send in a job order, and the firm puts together a project team for each search instead of handing it to a single recruiter. That team screens applicants in advance, conducts interviews, reviews applications, runs background and reference checks, and contacts passive candidates who are not actively job hunting.

Every search follows the firm's own 25-step placement methodology, and RSI says it stays involved from the first outreach until the hire is made. Many of its recruiters previously worked in the sectors where they now place executives, which the company presents as its main advantage over other search firms.

HR Services Division

Besides search work, RSI runs an HR Services Division for organizations that lack an in-house HR department or want to supplement one. Each client gets its own assigned HR manager, who learns the company's culture, goals and challenges and then provides hands-on support. The division starts by auditing current practices and then writes policies and procedures so the business meets local, state and federal requirements. It can be set up as a flexible, subscription-style engagement. Core areas include:

• Onboarding and offboarding of employees
• Performance management and review systems
• Employee relations support
• HR compliance, policy development and practice audits

Additional Talent Services

RSI's service menu also covers retained executive search, confidential searches, board and CEO recruiting, and recruitment process outsourcing (RPO). It runs dedicated search practices for CEO, CFO, CHRO, CIO, CISO, CMO, COO, CRO and CTO roles. The firm also provides outplacement support for departing staff, succession management, interim leadership placements, diversity, equity and inclusion services, and supply chain operations recruiting. Clients can either hand off the whole recruitment process or stay closely involved while RSI brings candidates to them.

RSI says it recruits in more than 40 vertical markets. These include accounting, aerospace and defense, artificial intelligence, banking, biotechnology, construction, cybersecurity, education, energy, financial services, government, healthcare, human resources, insurance, legal, manufacturing, medical devices, nonprofits, pharmaceuticals, private equity, real estate, technology and transportation.

For Kansas City employers, the local team highlights searches for VPs, directors, managers and C-level leaders in sectors such as government, tech, medical research and logistics, and it can look for candidates both locally and nationally.

The site lists affiliations with SHRM, ACG and the Financial Executives Networking Group, and it notes that Forbes named the firm to its list of top executive recruiting firms.

Syndeo is a professional employer organization (PEO) that takes on HR, payroll, benefits and risk work for small and mid-sized employers. It is headquartered in Wichita, Kansas, and also runs a Kansas City office. Syndeo describes itself as a boutique PEO.

It works with companies that have no HR staff of their own and with companies that already employ an HR professional. In the second case, Syndeo's client service team handles compliance and routine paperwork so the in-house person can spend more time on strategy.

The firm says PEOs usually serve businesses with about 25 to more than 500 worksite employees, and it builds each arrangement to fit the client's size.

Services

Clients can hand over their whole people function or pick specific areas. The main offerings are:

• HR management: organizational planning, onboarding, employee relations, custom employee handbooks, job descriptions, FMLA administration, FLSA compliance, compensation planning, succession planning, exit interviews and engagement surveys
• Payroll: calculating pay and taxes, depositing funds, issuing checks, withholding and year-end W-2 reporting
• Risk management: safety training and protocols aimed at fewer workplace injuries, lower workers' compensation claims and OSHA compliance
• Benefits administration: setting up and running benefit packages that help employers attract and keep staff
• Workforce solutions: help with everything from high-volume hiring to targeted recruiting

Syndeo is a certified PEO (CPEO). It files payroll taxes under its own federal employer identification number and takes responsibility for calculating federal, state and local employment taxes for its clients. It also arranges pre-employment background checks and drug screens, tracks training compliance and can write training courses for a client's industry.

Technology and approach

Clients work in the PrismHR platform, with separate logins for managers and employees. Through it, employees can see their pay information and request time off, and employers get online financial reports and compliance records. Syndeo pairs the software with HR specialists who help clients use it well. The firm emphasizes personal, hands-on service and says clients reach a real person when they call. It works as an extension of the client's team and draws on several specialists for each account.

Team and scale

The staff is organized into leadership, business development, HR, payroll, workforce solutions, accounting, benefits, operations and risk management. Syndeo says it has more than 20 HR professionals. Many hold SHRM-CP, SHRM-SCP or PHR certification, and one leadership team member is a CPA. Several leaders have been with the company since the early 2000s, the longest since 2000. In 2023 the firm issued 11,093 W-2s and produced about 248,000 payroll vouchers.

Client stories on the site come from a furniture and mattress retailer, a marketing agency that brought Syndeo in before it opened, and a title company that has worked with Syndeo since 2009. Kansas City-area buyers who want one provider for payroll, benefits, compliance and hiring support may find Syndeo worth considering.