Finding a better way

My friend Kurt is awesome!

Keeping your team informed and engaged is never just one person’s job. When you are rolling out new programs, sharing updates from leadership, and managing day-to-day tasks, communication can easily become one more thing that doesn’t make the list.

That’s exactly where my friend Kurt found himself.

When your company has a marketing team, they are focused on attracting customers. Your customer service is focused on retaining the clients you have. HR cares about reaching employees, but they have a LOT going on. Lots of mid-sized businesses don't have a stand-alone comms function - and it shows.

A few years ago, Kurt and I worked together for a short time before our careers took us in different directions. Fast forward to today - he’s now leading HR at a growing company, and his team needed to roll out an entirely new healthcare plan. The catch? He didn’t have the internal bandwidth to design and execute a full communications plan on top of everything else on their plate.

So, he called me.

From project help to consistent support

We started with a project-based approach: assessing his current comms processes, mapping out a strategy, and building a clear timeline that helped employees understand what was changing, when, and why. We set up regular meetings, adjusted where needed, and kept communication frequent and transparent.

By the time open enrollment arrived, the team wasn’t scrambling. Employees knew what to expect, managers could answer questions confidently, and HR didn’t have to spend their days putting out fires.

It worked.

Yesterday, Kurt sent me this message from a VP:

This was a WONDERFUL way to start my Wednesday. I love it when things work out.

What's next?

Like many successful projects, once the project wrapped, the question became: what’s next?

Kurt still had plenty of communication needs coming down the line - but not enough to justify adding a full-time role. He didn’t want to start from scratch on every new project or go through a lengthy proposal process each time.

So we explored a new model - fractional support.

A win-win-win

With a retainer agreement, Kurt’s team now has access to strategic communication support every month. He knows he can tap into my help - whether that’s for writing, planning, or coaching leaders - without needing new approvals or added overhead.

Here’s what that means in practice:

• His people win because they’re informed, supported, and never caught off guard.

• Kurt wins because he can focus on leading HR instead of worrying about every memo, message, or newsletter.

• I win because I get to work with a great team over time - building on each success instead of starting over.

This kind of flexible partnership is becoming more common as organizations rethink what getting help looks like. Fractional or contract-based support brings senior-level expertise right when you need it - no recruiting, onboarding, or full-time salary required.

If you’ve got major change ahead (or just a backlog of communication tasks that keeps getting pushed down the list), having a dedicated fractional resource can make all the difference. Remember - powerful communication doesn’t have to wait until you’ve got the budget for another FTE - it just requires the right help at the right time.

Reach out if I can be helpful - I have several options available if you need fractional or contract support!