HR Companies & HR Consultants in South Burlington, VT

Cleary HR Consulting is a human resources consultancy in the Burlington area of Vermont, run by its principal, Jack Cleary. Organizations bring the firm in as an outside HR partner when they lack the internal capacity or the specialized skills for a particular people-management project. Clients include small, fast-growing companies that have never had a formal HR function. They also include mature organizations whose own HR staff have more work than they can handle.

Approach

The firm believes HR proves its value when its programs reinforce an employer's culture and business strategy. It treats pay, training, recognition and performance reviews as tools for shaping how an organization behaves, not as paperwork. Some companies have outgrown informal people management but are not yet ready to hire a full-time HR manager.

For them, Cleary HR offers ongoing retained engagements that give the client an HR function scaled to its real needs. That can mean building a department from nothing or turning a clerical recordkeeping role into a strategic one.

Services

The firm groups its work into five practice areas:

• Compensation, including the design of incentive and executive pay programs
• Talent management, covering hiring, planning for future staffing and leadership succession, and growing the skills of managers
• Employee relations and productivity, including systems for evaluating performance, employee recognition, writing policies and practices, streamlining HR processes and regulatory compliance
• Building HR capability through ongoing part-time HR leadership
• B Corporation certification support

Few HR consultants offer B Corp support. Cleary HR guides companies through the certification assessment, prepares them for the audit and helps them get the most credit for their workforce practices. As an example, the firm cites its work on a recertification for a well-known socially responsible brand.

Background and clients

Jack Cleary has more than 25 years of HR experience in technology, hospitality, finance and insurance. He has worked at small, quickly scaling businesses and at long-established Fortune 1000 firms. He has set up HR departments at organizations dealing with fast growth, pushback against change or a lack of formal structure.

He is also known for earning trust quickly when handling delicate employee matters. The firm's case studies describe two projects. In one, a large organization overhauled its leadership incentive plan to better motivate its managers. In the other, a technology company used HR programs to build a stronger customer-service culture.

Clients named on the website include Ben & Jerry's, Ursa Major, Champlain College, the Burlington School District, Essex Rescue, Driven Studio, J.J. Hapgood General Store and The Institute of Professional Practice. Testimonials from client executives praise his skill with compensation strategy and say he can take over a project and finish it on his own.

The firm lists memberships in SHRM, the Vermont Human Resource Association, Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility and Local First Vermont. These show its ties to the state's business community and to its mission-driven companies. Buyers comparing HR consultants will notice three main differences: a senior principal works on every engagement, the firm has deep experience designing pay programs, and it has worked directly on B Corp workforce requirements.

Vermont Employment Agency, known as VEA, is an independently owned staffing and workforce firm based in South Burlington. Since 2011 it has helped Vermont employers add hourly and permanent staff, and it has given job seekers a path into steady local work. From one office on Williston Road, the agency fills jobs in all 14 Vermont counties. Its direct-placement searches can serve client companies anywhere in the United States. Temporary assignments stay within the regions where it actively staffs.

Services for employers

VEA offers several ways to bring people on board, plus a back-office option for businesses that already have a crew:

• Temporary staffing for busy seasons, staff absences, sudden order spikes and short projects
• Temp-to-hire arrangements that let a company judge dependability and fit before making an offer
• Direct placement for niche, senior or difficult-to-recruit permanent jobs
• Specialty recruiting for trades, CNC machining and healthcare positions
• Hiring events that bring in a group who all start on the same day, such as for a new line or an added shift
• Workforce programs built around an on-site coordinator or a managed-service model
• Payroll and compliance, covering tax withholding and W-2 forms, workers' compensation, Affordable Care Act reporting and tracking of Vermont's earned sick time

Under the payroll program, workers move onto VEA's W-2 while the client keeps directing their daily tasks. An employer can transfer its current employees rather than recruit new ones. VEA says this differs from a PEO. It does not co-employ the whole company, only the covered workers.

The agency says this makes the arrangement easier to start or end and avoids a multi-year contract. Pricing is quoted in advance, and workers on its payroll can opt into early wage access. The service suits growing operators and family businesses that would rather not build an internal HR department.

How engagements work

Clients can start with a short online intake listing the job title, shift, number of openings and deadline. A recruiter then follows up with a brief call to confirm pay, location and required certifications. Candidates are pre-screened, drug tested and background checked.

The firm's central rule, written into policy in 2015, is that no one is presented to an employer until a VEA recruiter has interviewed them face to face. The agency also stresses local recruiters instead of a national call center, a few strong candidates over long lists, posted pay ranges, and a check-in 30 days after a placement.

Industries and team

Most placements are in manufacturing, light industrial, warehouse and logistics, and general labor. Healthcare support roles such as CNA, LNA, medical office and dietary positions are a growing priority. VEA also staffs construction, welding, electrical, HVAC and mechanical trades, administrative jobs and hospitality. Lilian Tacovici founded the agency with three local clients and serves as Owner and CEO.

Constantin Cemirtan is HR and Payroll Manager, and John Surujiu is Director of Marketing. Recruiters, field staff who visit client sites weekly, and payroll and office personnel all work from the same location. Workers are paid by direct deposit every Wednesday, and VEA kept that schedule running through the 2020 pandemic.

The website is offered in English, Spanish, French, Haitian Creole and Nepali, and the firm runs a veterans initiative.