Milestone helps BioFiltro build a confident, scalable HR function from the ground up.

“Working with Milestone gives me confidence and clarity. No matter how complicated the situation, talking it through with their team helps me see things clearly and make better decisions.” Cheri Harrington, BioFiltro – Chief Business Officer

Situation

As Biofiltro scaled its operations, Chief Business Officer Cheri Harrington recognized the need for dedicated HR expertise to match the company’s growing ambitions. Hiring a full-time HR manager wasn’t the right fit, so the company began looking for a smarter solution..

Solution

BioFiltro partnered with Milestone for HR management, payroll support, and specialized projects, gaining the institutional knowledge and California-specific compliance expertise a single in-house hire couldn’t have matched..

Outcome

Over four and a half years, Milestone helped BioFiltro build the HR systems, processes, and frameworks including a compensation study and career-pathing framework needed to support a growing team. Today, Cheri navigates even the toughest HR decisions with confidence, backed by a trusted partner.

When Cheri Harrington joined BioFiltro as Chief Business Officer in 2021, she saw an opportunity to build a people function that could truly support the company’s growing team and mission. With HR and accounting previously shared by one person, she knew that to do it right, the company needed dedicated HR expertise, not just someone filling the gap. “It just wasn’t sustainable for me to do everything,” Cheri explains. “And honestly, it’s better for the company to have multiple minds coming together to think through solutions.”

BioFiltro considered hiring a full-time HR manager, but ultimately decided that working with a third party was a better fit. As a mission-driven startup building wastewater systems, the company needed to stay focused on what it did best. A fractional HR partner offered cost savings over a full-time hire, and more importantly, it offered something a single hire couldn’t: the breadth of institutional knowledge that comes from working with a wide range of clients across multiple states.

“By connecting with Milestone, we were able to get templates and services that were specific to California and all the rules and compliance we needed to follow,” Cheri says. “That knowledge about HR was so broad and I think broader than it would have been if we had hired an HR manager.”

Over the course of the partnership, Milestone helped BioFiltro lay the groundwork for a functioning HR operation completing personnel files, establishing an employee handbook, and building the systems and processes the team could rely on. Beyond the foundational work, Milestone has also been a trusted advisor when things get complicated. “There have been some tough situations at BioFiltro,” Cheri acknowledges. “Being able to rely on Milestone to help us navigate them has allowed us to support our team members and protect the company at the same time.”

One of the most impactful projects the two teams tackled together was a comprehensive compensation study, completed earlier this year. Cheri admits she was initially skeptical of the full scope of the work the career pathing exercises and employee personas felt like more than what was needed. But the process proved its value quickly. “These exercises gave us a pathway for growth,” she says. “We have an engineering team, and we know this is the basic structure of the team because we did the career pathways with Milestone. It makes it a lot easier now as we recruit and grow — we can say, this is how the team is structured and where it’s headed.” The process also opened up meaningful conversations with managers about what career development could look like for their teams, incorporating their feedback into the final framework.

The comp study, personas, and career paths Milestone helped build are now actively shaping how BioFiltro makes decisions from hiring to team structure to compensation. “Each of those are helping us make decisions significantly over the last couple of months, more so than I thought they would,” Cheri reflects.

After four and a half years, Cheri describes the overall impact of the partnership in two words: confidence and clarity. Whether navigating a difficult personnel situation or working through a complex people strategy initiative, having Milestone in her corner changes how she approaches the work.
“When we are faced with a tough decision and I’m able to talk to the Milestone team, things become more clear,” she says. “I can get a little lost in the details, but the Milestone team has a way of cutting through the noise and helping me see the situation clearly.”

To learn more please contact:
Info@milestone.inc