Charting compliance to avoid risk and exposure

Published on Tuesday, June 08, 2010

BY JOSEPH SANTANGELO

To help businesses and nonprofits comply with ever-changing employment rules, Nadine F. Pfautz turned her human resources background into a full-time venture six years ago and has been going strong even through the recession.

As her company name suggests, C.H.A.R.T. Consulting usually starts with an assessment or chart of a company’s personnel and human resources practices.

Officially, the name stands for Conducting Human Resource Assessment & Recommending and Taking Appropriate Action.

Based in Hanson on the South Shore, she provides services on an hourly, project, contract, temporary or part-time basis. Her clients range from small businesses that have no human resources staff to large companies reviewing their existing human resources policies. Her task is to help them become more efficient, effective and compliant with employment rules and regulations.

“A number of consultants go in and do an assessment,” says Pfautz. “I go in with hands-on and follow up. I help companies when they say ‘Who is going to follow up and do this?’”

Her work may range from a single project such as conducting sexual harassment training to upgrading all the company’s compliance procedures. Firms with as few as six employees, she noted, are required to have a sexual harassment policy, distribute it annually and recommended to conduct training periodically.

Companies with more than 25 employees must meet additional human resources requirements. Nonprofit organizations that receive federal funds have special compliance obligations.

Also, employment laws, rules and regulation change frequently at both the federal and state level. Companies that fail to comply are at risk of lawsuits or financial penalties.

Because employment rules apply across many different industries, Pfautz can work for a bank or funeral home one day and then go to a large ambulance company with hundreds of workers on call 24 hours a day.

She works with a range of industries and business sizes in varying assignments from individual projects to retainer types of arrangements. The companies may be startups establishing benefits and policies, or mid-sized and larger firms with more complex issues.

She serves as a temporary human resource manager, conducts training courses herself and brings in subject matter experts as needed. Typical clients range from 12 to 250 employees, in fields from health care management to pest control to environmental engineering.

Pfautz has built community service into her business plan. She has been active in or served on the board of the South Shore Chamber of Commerce, the Plymouth Philharmonic, Kiwanis Club of Quincy and the South Shore Women’s Business Network, which recognized her as the 2009 Business Person of the Year.

She also teaches from Boston to Cape Cod as an adjunct professor and instructor on many human resources subjects, and developed a business education series at the South Shore Chamber of Commerce.

“To date, all my work has come through referrals, partly because I am active in organizations and people know me. They may not need my services but know of someone who does. I try to keep myself ‘top of mind’ so people understand what I do. One of the early lessons learned is that people will do business with others they know and trust.”

She stays current with the latest employment rules using information provided by law firms and the Society for Human Resources Management, where she has earned the designation Senior Professional in Human Resources.

Pfautz turned a challenge into an opportunity when an Abington bank where she was human resources director was acquired and she was laid off.

Luckily, she was prepared for a career move. She had earned a master’s degree in training and development at Lesley University and had 20 years of experience, including human resources director at an environmental engineering firm, a health care management consulting firm, Eastern Nazarene College and the bank.

“I saw an opportunity, where others might see an obstacle,” says Pfautz. “I said, ‘Yes, this is a challenge, but let’s go for it.’”

“It started off like gangbusters,” she adds, “but a year and a half into it, I had to reevaluate things. But it has been steady since then.”

“I had gotten a couple of clients right away and was busy on what I had to do for them, but I had not developed future relationships. I was too busy getting
work done and not concentrating on what happened when that work was finished.”

Pfautz recalls other early lessons: “In the beginning, oftentimes we just start without knowing what we’re doing, what we’re going to do and who we’re doing it for. We can’t be everything for everybody and we can’t do everything ourselves. We need to surround ourselves with paid and unpaid advisers.”

Her advisers include experts in data entry, graphic design, branding and computer technology, among the many support services that she lacked after moving from the corporate world to the self-employed. Her Web page (chart-consulting.com) and other marketing communications now project a consistent image.

Next on her agenda is more attention to electronic marketing and social networking as well as in-person networking.

“Another thing that is important for people who are in business for themselves is managing your time,” Pfautz adds. “I will continue networking, which is critical, in person but also online.”

She is packaging an e-mail marketing campaign with an offer to assess a company’s employee handbook, which contains its employment policies and practices, for a flat fee.

“Now that I’ve been in business a sixth year, I’m excited about it and will continue to be,” she adds.

Being a woman has been neither a benefit nor a detriment, she believes, because the human resources field is predominantly female and clients naturally expect to work with a woman.

Pfautz continues to work with nonprofit groups such as shelters, which have special concerns because employees are interacting with people 24 hours a day and the organizations have limited financial means to assure that all laws are followed.


Published in Cape & Plymouth Business June 2010