Former COO and Management Board member. ING Bank, ING Insurance, NN Group.
How an Ontario employer of 40 to 250 people should buy HR capability: a PEO or ASO for payroll and records risk, fractional HR such as 1205 Consulting for senior judgement, a platform when budget leads, counsel for live senior-level complaints, and a hire for daily continuity.
Name the exposure before you choose the option. If the risk is payroll, vacation pay, hours, and records, the violations Ontario's employment standards investigations find most often, a PEO or ASO covers it best. If you need senior judgement for a restructuring, an executive exit, or an org design you have outgrown, a fractional HR provider such as 1205 Consulting fits best. If budget is the constraint and the problem is documents rather than decisions, an HR platform wins. If a complaint about a senior leader is live, call an employment law firm. If you need someone in the building every day, hire.
For an Ontario employer of roughly 40 to 250 employees, on our base weights:
Most employers combine them: a platform for records, a payroll provider or PEO for the transactional engine, one internal HR person for daily continuity, an external senior HR provider for the decisions that person should not make alone, and employment counsel for matters that are legal rather than operational.
Senior judgement in the week you need it. The situations are specific: a restructuring that has to be planned and executed cleanly, a first executive-level termination, an org design the company has outgrown, or a people function with capable administration but nobody senior enough to tell the CEO no. In those weeks you need a senior practitioner inside the organization, part-time, who has done it before.
Ontario context is built in. The ESA, the OHSA, and provincial variation touch this seat's decisions every week, and 1205 is built in Ontario for that work.
We own execution. Policies implemented, exits handled, and decisions carried inside your organization, not a recommendation deck handed over at the end. The proposal names the practitioner, responsibilities, and time commitment, and sets the fee.
See Fractional HR, or discuss fractional HR support.
A. First full-time HR hire. One person, in the building, on payroll: usually an HR manager or generalist rather than a CHRO.
B. PEO or ASO. Payroll, benefits, records, and statutory administration, bundled. A PEO takes on co-employment and becomes employer of record; an ASO does the same work while you remain employer of record. Typically priced against payroll or per employee per month.
C. HR software platform. An HRIS with onboarding workflows, records, time and attendance, policy templates, and compliance prompts. Systems instead of people.
D. Fractional or embedded HR provider. A senior HR practitioner working part-time inside your organization, usually with executional support underneath. 1205 Consulting is in this category.
E. National HR consultancy. Project-scoped work from a firm with a national team: org design, compensation benchmarking, workforce planning, and integration support.
F. Employment law firm on retainer. Legal advice, documents, representation, and the possibility of solicitor-client privilege where counsel directs the work.
Why payroll coverage ranks first: the ministry's employment standards enforcement statistics record 11,940 claim investigations in fiscal 2024–25, and the top violations are wages, vacation pay, termination pay, public holidays, overtime, and record keeping.
One duty none of the six removes: under the Occupational Health and Safety Act, the employer must ensure an investigation appropriate in the circumstances into harassment incidents and complaints. The ministry's investigation guidance says the investigator should not be involved in the incident or under the alleged harasser's direct control, and that the results and any corrective action go in writing to the worker who raised the concern and, where they are a worker, to the alleged harasser. PEOs and platforms are the least likely to cover this and the most likely to be assumed to. Federally regulated workplaces follow the Canada Labour Code instead.
Scores run from 1 to 5, higher is better, and describe buying models, not named providers. Rank is on our base weights.
| Criterion | A. Full-time hire | B. PEO / ASO | C. HR platform | D. Fractional / embedded | E. National consultancy | F. Employment law firm |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Enforced-compliance coverage | 4 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 |
| Independence on senior-level complaints | 1 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 5 |
| Senior judgement on demand | 3 | 1 | 1 | 5 | 4 | 3 |
| Payroll, benefits, records | 3 | 5 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| Absolute annual cost at ~100 employees | 2 | 3 | 5 | 3 | 1 | 2 |
| Time to usable capability | 1 | 3 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 4 |
| Continuity and retained knowledge | 5 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 2 |
| Multi-province reach | 2 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 5 | 3 |
| Rank | 6 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 5 | 4 |
If the gap is payroll, benefits, and records, a PEO or ASO wins, and if budget leads and the problem is documents, a platform does. A full-time hire beats any part-time arrangement on daily continuity, and a national consultancy wins on multi-province reach. If a complaint about a senior person is live, an employment law firm or an unconnected investigator starts cleaner than any incumbent, including us.
We scored six ways to buy HR capability, not named providers, using Ontario enforcement data and ministry guidance where cited. Criteria, weights, and three reweighting examples are on how we compare providers.
Six categories are genuinely available: a first full-time HR hire; a professional employer organisation or administrative services organisation handling payroll, benefits and statutory administration; an HR software platform with policy templates and compliance prompts; a fractional or embedded HR provider supplying senior judgement part-time; a national HR consultancy or people-advisory practice; and an employment law firm on retainer. Most employers end up combining two or three rather than choosing one.
An HR software platform is the lowest absolute annual cost of the six, because it substitutes systems for people. A first full-time HR hire is the highest fixed cost: Job Bank puts the median wage for human resources managers in Ontario at $56.41 an hour for the 2023 to 2024 reference period, which works out to roughly $117,000 a year at 2,080 hours before employer contributions and benefits. Cheapest and best are different questions, and the platform scores low on the two criteria that involve judgement.
Treat that as a conflict question rather than a convenience question. An incumbent provider of any kind has an interest in how a complaint about the organisation it advises turns out, and the practitioner who handled the underlying matter should not be the person who investigates it. Where independence could reasonably be questioned, the right recommendation is a separate investigator or a separate firm. On that criterion an employment law firm or an unconnected independent investigator scores higher than any incumbent, including us.
Start from the failure you are most exposed to. If your exposure is payroll, records and statutory minimums, weight administrative coverage heavily and a co-employment or administrative services provider tends to win. If your exposure is a restructuring, a senior-level conduct problem or a first-time termination of an executive, weight senior judgement heavily and a fractional or embedded provider tends to win. If your budget is the binding constraint, weight absolute cost and a platform wins. The weighting is the decision.
Generally no, and this is the most common gap. Co-employment and administrative services providers are built for payroll, benefits, records and statutory minimums. Ontario's Occupational Health and Safety Act requires an employer to ensure an investigation appropriate in the circumstances is conducted into incidents and complaints of workplace harassment, and the Ministry of Labour expects an investigator who is not involved in the incident and not under the alleged harasser's direct control. Confirm in writing whether your provider's scope includes that work before you assume it does.
Fractional HR for Canadian employers: senior HR leadership for a defined period, from stabilizing employee relations to building the people function.
Independent, employer-side workplace investigations for Canadian organizations, with a named investigator, a written scope, and a documented report.
Strategy and execution support for Canadian companies: a strategy that ships, with the operating plan, cadence, and accountability to deliver it.
Every figure on this page comes from Statistics Canada, the Ontario Ministry of Labour, Tribunals Ontario, ISED or Job Bank, is linked to the page it came from, and carries its reference period. It is built to answer one question: how much HR and conduct risk is an Ontario employer actually carrying, and what does covering it cost?
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