HR Companies & HR Consultants in Rapid City, SD

Athena HR Consulting LLC is a Rapid City, South Dakota consultancy that gives organizations outside expertise in human resources. Two longtime HR practitioners, Bev and Alexis, started the firm in 2023. It suits small and growing businesses that don't have a full HR department, as well as established employers, including public-sector bodies, that need extra help with a difficult matter. Client testimonials on its site include a city government's HR office and a family-owned convenience store chain.

How Clients Engage the Firm

Athena offers four ways to work together, so buyers can choose how much help they need. With advisory services, the consultants coach owners and managers as the company grows and help them build their own HR confidence. Project-based support handles single assignments that an internal team can't fit in. Ongoing partnerships suit clients who want a long-term advisor.

With HR outsourcing, Athena takes over one or more HR functions completely so leaders can focus on running the business. Clients say the consultants learn each company's needs first and then shape the work to fit its budget and timeline.

Service Areas

• Compensation and benefits guidance
• Employee relations and internal investigations
• HR analytics, such as turnover, absenteeism, cost per hire, time to fill and revenue per employee
• Compliance reviews and support for government audits
• Choosing, setting up and moving to a new HR information system (HRIS)
• Strategic HR planning
• Job analysis and job descriptions
• Policy development and employee handbooks
• Talent management, recruiting and selection
• Learning and development, including training for leaders and managers

Compliance is a major part of the firm's work. Athena helps clients with federal rules including the FLSA, OSHA, EEO, DOT, ERISA and IRCA, and with laws that apply across several states. It also covers drug and alcohol testing programs, affirmative action plans for federal contractors, and cases where FMLA, workers' compensation and ADA obligations overlap.

The firm can run internal reviews of HR processes, I-9s, personnel and medical files, and internal controls. It also helps clients get ready if the Department of Labor, DOT, OSHA or affirmative action regulators announce an audit. On the technology side, the team has worked with off-the-shelf, custom-built, cloud and on-premise HR systems.

That includes evaluating systems, setting them up, checking data and organizing documents during a switch.

Background and Approach

The two founders were friends and colleagues for years before they went into business together. Bev mentored Alexis after Alexis moved to Rapid City in 2010. Later, both served on the Black Hills SHRM chapter board, with Alexis as its president. They follow the SHRM Code of Ethics and see HR as a strategic partner for leadership, not just an administrative function. The firm takes its name from the Greek goddess Athena, chosen to stand for wisdom, strategy and resourcefulness.

The partners have different strengths. Bev is known for her supportive mentoring, and Alexis tends to question assumptions and test possible scenarios before a solution is chosen. Together they review each issue from several angles. For buyers in western South Dakota, this means a two-person team that is closely involved in each engagement. They handle both quick questions and long-term projects such as succession planning and hiring training for managers.

HR C-Suite, LLC is a human resources consultancy and publishing business based in Rapid City, South Dakota. It works with executives, HR leaders, consulting firms and recruitment agencies, and its central premise is that people strategy should be tied directly to measurable business outcomes rather than treated as an administrative back-office function. The firm was founded in 2011 by veteran HR executive Tresha Moreland and reaches clients and readers well beyond South Dakota through a global online audience.

Background and credentials

Moreland brings more than three decades of HR leadership across healthcare, manufacturing, retail, hospitality, distribution and nonprofit organizations. Her career includes serving as chief HR officer for a Northern California health system and advising hospital CEOs within a national post-acute care organization.

She has led leadership development, HR technology implementations, organizational redesigns, pay and benefits restructuring, labor relations and internal communications. She holds an MBA and a second master's degree in HR management, along with SPHR, Six Sigma Black Belt, FACHE and change management credentials, and she has written a book on healthcare staffing shortages.

The idea for the firm grew out of the 2008 recession, when she saw that leaders lacked practical resources linking HR decisions to business performance.

Consulting services

Engagements are customized, but they generally follow a collaborative process built around each organization's own leadership and performance goals. Core offerings include:

• Custom leadership intensives: immersive workshops that build strategic thinking, emotional intelligence and practical skills
• Strategic workforce planning that weighs the skills and headcount an organization has against what its long-range plans require
• HR transformation, coaching HR teams to operate as business partners rather than policy administrators
• Clarity Sprint, a fast-paced workforce planning engagement that surfaces talent and strategy gaps
• Talent Retention Reimagined, which uses data, assessments and leader alignment to understand why employees stay or leave
• Behind-the-scenes HR strategy, workforce planning and leadership support for other consulting firms
• Keynotes, speaking engagements and fireside chats on disruption, resilience and the future of work

Chaos Coach and digital resources

The company's flagship product is Chaos Coach, a leadership support tool aimed at company founders, senior executives and other decision-makers under sustained pressure. It pairs AI-driven micro-coaching with guidance from human coaches, giving leaders on-demand help with organizational change, team engagement and difficult calls, and it draws on behavioral science. At present it is offered through a waitlist.

Alongside consulting, HR C-Suite sells digital toolkits through its online store, including timesaver kits for HR strategic planning and for succession planning, and it offers licensing of its frameworks.

Track record and thought leadership

Published case studies describe work with a Midwest health system implementing Workday, a nationwide nonprofit adopting NetSuite, and two healthcare groups regaining direction after labor upheaval following the pandemic, which reflects a strong orientation toward healthcare and mission-driven employers.

The firm also runs a long-standing HR thought leadership platform with a library of more than 1,725 articles, 32 practical resources and a weekly newsletter. For buyers, the mix of senior executive HR experience, technology-enabled coaching and an extensive body of published guidance is what sets the firm apart from more transactional HR providers.