Every organization already pays for HR. The only question is whether it pays a professional, or pays in leader hours, employee relations drag, preventable turnover, and cleanup costs. This calculator compares your current hidden spend against published retainer levels.
This tool produces planning estimates using conservative published assumptions and your inputs. It is a decision aid, not a guarantee of savings.
Hours per month the owner or executive spends directly on employee issues, multiplied by the value of that hour, plus an estimated two hours of leader-equivalent attention per monthly employee relations issue. Together these capture the most understated cost in small-organization HR.
Each departure is costed conservatively at 50% of average salary, with 35% counted as preventable, the share research consistently attributes to management, clarity, and system factors an HR professional addresses. Claims, charges, and urgent attorney engagements are estimated at a conservative $7,500 fully loaded average per incident.
An organization with no current policies or termination review practice is not just missing paperwork. It is carrying every dollar above without any structure catching problems before they become expensive, which is why that answer adjusts the risk read on your result.
Yes. The levels referenced are the published Faulkner HR Solutions retainer tiers, from $1,000 per month for advisory access to $5,500 and above for fractional HR executive support.
Behavior. When advice is prepaid, leaders call before acting instead of after, and early calls are the entire economics of prevention: cheap questions replacing expensive corrections.
The assumptions run conservative on purpose: modest replacement costs, a minority share of turnover counted as preventable, and low incident averages. If your number still exceeds a retainer, the case is being understated, not oversold.
Then a retainer may genuinely be premature, and the honest recommendation is project work or hourly support when situations arise. The tool says so when the math says so.
Book a no-cost 30-minute consult. Bring your result, and leave with a straight read on the risk and a practical next step.