Interim Chief Human Resources Officers (iCHROs) are quickly becoming a must-have among forward-thinking companies.

Rapidly growing firms have long turned to interim C-suite leaders to help them capitalize on the opportunities and mitigate the risks that come with achieving scale. They’ve found success bringing in temporary chief executives to handle strategic acquisitions or temporary chief technology officers to handle system upgrades, for example. Yet only a small proportion of firms have extended the interim leadership model to specifically ensure they’re properly managing their most valuable asset: their people.

Interim Chief Human Resources Officers (iCHROs) are quickly becoming a must-have among forward-thinking companies. With the ability to develop and create alignment around the right human capital strategy at the right moment in a company’s growth journey, they can help activate an organization’s talent, ensuring team members are in sync with the firm’s overarching goals. And like all interim leaders, they can be retained for as long or as short a time as needed, providing flexibility that can be essential to firms, especially during today’s uncertain times.

Of course, it can be challenging for organizations to identify whether they need an interim or long-term CHRO, or whether they’re even ready to add a HR professional to the C-suite. Here are five questions leaders should ask when determining whether an iCHRO would be a good fit for their company.

1. Does your company need to accelerate its HR strategy and prioritization now or does it have time for a four- to six-month executive search?

Experienced, full-time executives take time to identify and onboard into organizations, especially in today’s continuously tight labor market. Some companies have the luxury of waiting for the ideal long-term CHRO candidate to emerge, but others need the expertise and partnership right away. Firms growing at such a rate that they need an immediate strategic people and culture-focused roadmap, reflecting their specific business context, would do better bringing in an iCHRO.

2. Are other C-suite leaders within your company managing such HR issues as employee relations, recruitment and retention issues, and culture-building?

While people and culture-focused strategy should flow from the top of organizations, having non-Human Resources C-suite leaders heavily involved in human capital issues draws their focus from other essential business priorities. What’s more, such leaders rarely have the high-level HR expertise needed to handle these sensitive areas, adding risk and exposure especially in recessionary times. Organizations currently facing significant enough HR needs that well-intentioned executives are stepping beyond the bounds of their role and experience can benefit from the immediate support of an iCHRO.

3. Do you anticipate that your company will significantly expand in size over the next 12-24 months?

Companies poised to grow their employee base either steadily or rapidly over the coming months and years will see their HR and HR leadership needs dramatically change. With an iCHRO, scaling organizations can continuously dial up, in a bespoke fashion, the amount of top-level HR advisory they use. iCHROs can also identify, recruit and onboard the right level and number of full-time HR leaders to support companies at key inflection points in their growth journey, ensuring HR investments reflect precise organizational needs.

“Organizations currently facing significant enough HR needs that well-intentioned executives are stepping beyond the bounds of their role and experience can benefit from the immediate support of an iCHRO.”

— Jen Bales, FMG Leading

4. Is your company overly focused on HR tactics?

It’s not unusual for rapidly growing companies to find themselves with piles of HR processes, policies, job descriptions, and more without ever having seen these tactical elements activate their workforces. This reflects the lack of a strategic voice translating business imperatives into clear people strategies. iCHROs bring the ability to synthesize this information, ensuring organizations advance the right HR priorities – accounting for people, processes and systems – to execute the business strategy as the company grows.

5. Is your company becoming increasingly budget conscious in the face of a potential recession?

It is highly common for organizations to trim or freeze their hiring budgets when market outlooks sour. For such companies, iCHROs can be the most strategic HR addition because they come at much lower price points, reflecting the costs saved in search fees, benefits, signing bonuses, etc., and the fact that they can commit to short-term engagements.

Beyond their work in C-Suites, iCHROs also play an essential role in the development of an organization’s existing HR talent. They can offer these team members strategic advisory support, help them develop as leaders, or simply offer support during busy seasons. Best of all, their work is designed such that they ultimately hand over the reins to these teams, effectively and intentionally managing themselves out of their jobs and transforming their interim support into permanent solutions.

Jen Bales formerly led talent at human capital advisory firm FMG Leading. She currently serves as CHRO for Nashville-based Shearwater Health.