HR Companies & HR Consultants in Burlington, VT

HR Happens is a human resources consultancy in Burlington, Vermont. It gives organizations access to senior-level people expertise on a part-time or as-needed basis, without requiring them to staff a full HR department. Mark Heyman founded the firm. His background in human resources and organizational development covers more than 25 years. The practice operates from the Hula campus on the Burlington lakefront and relies on a group of senior consultants rather than a single advisor.

Who They Serve

Most of the firm's clients are small companies and nonprofits in Vermont. Nonprofits make up a large share of its work, and the team is familiar with the pressures they face, such as tight budgets, board and funder expectations, and very small administrative staffs.

HR Happens also helps startups hiring their first employees and established small businesses that want to formalize informal practices. It supports employers with staff in several states or in other countries as well. Many clients come to the firm with no dedicated HR employee at all. Others already have a small internal function that needs added capacity or deeper knowledge.

Because much of the work is done remotely, clients do not need to be located in Vermont.

Services

• Fractional HR: ongoing advice, hands-on execution and strategic leadership
• HR assessments that review policies, documentation, systems and employee experience, then produce a prioritized roadmap
• Writing, reviewing and updating employee handbooks, including state-specific provisions for multi-state employers
• Recruiting, interviewing, selection, onboarding and offboarding
• Manager development, coaching, training and engagement work
• Market-based salary analysis and compensation guidance
• Employee relations, workplace investigations, performance problems and compliance questions
• Facilitated leadership sessions on mission, vision and values

How Engagements Work

Clients can start by describing the problem they are facing. They do not need to know in advance which service they want. After an initial conversation at no charge, the consultants assess the organization's situation and recommend a level of help. That might be a single project, a recurring fractional arrangement or on-call support. Fractional clients go through four stages.

The team first learns about the organization, then sets near-term and long-term priorities with leadership, then delivers support, and finally adjusts the scope as the employer grows or changes.

Client Results and Distinctions

The firm publishes two case studies. SepsaMedha turned to HR Happens after it suddenly lost its HR leader. The consultants kept payroll, benefits, onboarding and compliance running while rebuilding the organization's HR structure, and the employer's benefits contribution doubled.

At Church Hill Landscapes, the firm took over recruiting and introduced more scalable people systems, which gave the owners back time to focus on the business. Buyers comparing providers may value the firm's team-based model, which offers broad cross-industry perspective.

They may also note that help is available right away, without a hiring and ramp-up period, and that compensation advice draws on Bureau of Labor Statistics wage data for Vermont.

WorkTrain Business Consulting is a consultancy based in Burlington, Vermont, that supplies part-time executive and staff support to organizations that are not ready, or do not want, to hire full-time leaders in key functions. Operating since 2017 and serving clients nationally, the firm treats human resources and finance as its two specialty areas and also offers learning and development work. The site names Dana Harrington and Kristin Winer as the people behind the firm.

Its client base spans established and emerging small and mid-sized companies, government bodies, colleges and universities, and nonprofit organizations. For buyers, the main appeal is the fractional model: an organization pays for senior HR expertise only for the scope it needs, and WorkTrain can expand or reduce its involvement as conditions change. The firm positions this as particularly useful during growth spurts, restructurings, leadership transitions or other periods when internal capacity falls short.

HR services

At the center of the HR offering is a fractional Chief Human Resources Officer engagement, in which a WorkTrain professional acts as a part-time senior HR leader. The scope can range from occasional advice on a specific situation to broad ownership of the people function. Areas covered include:

• HR strategy tied to the organization's business objectives
• Design of hiring and onboarding steps
• Handbooks, written policies and compliance programs
• Employee relations, including resolving conflicts and managing performance
• Pay and benefits program support
• Compliance with employment laws and regulations, including equal opportunity practices
• Engagement and satisfaction assessments
• Succession plans and growing future leaders
• Oversight of payroll, HR technology and benefits administration
• Change management and culture work

Beyond the CHRO role, WorkTrain lists recruitment, talent acquisition and search guidance services, helping clients build end-to-end recruiting programs, sharpen candidate targeting and evaluation, and handle applicants well. It also advises on workforce strategies meant to connect plans with execution, and runs train-the-trainer programs that equip in-house staff to deliver training themselves. Diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and facilitated group discussions round out the people-focused work.

Learning, finance and approach

A fractional Chief Learning Officer service addresses training strategy, skill-gap analysis, compliance training intended to reduce liability, onboarding that supports retention, leadership pipelines and the evaluation of learning technology. The firm also lists speaking engagements and eLearning. On the finance side, a fractional CFO, controllership and bookkeeping are available, which may appeal to smaller organizations wanting one outside partner for both people and financial operations.

WorkTrain describes its work as tailored to each client's processes, culture and priorities rather than delivered as a standard package. It emphasizes bringing an outside, objective view, moving quickly to assess and act, and mentoring internal teams so capability remains after an engagement ends. A testimonial on the site from the director of a nonprofit reports a positive experience and recommends the firm to both nonprofit and for-profit organizations.