MIDDLEBURY — As small businesses grapple with labor shortages, recruiting needs, rising benefit costs and retaining employees, the ability to access human resources support in a cost-effective manner is becoming more and more essential. Most small businesses, however, can’t afford a fulltime, dedicated HR executive.

Community Barn Ventures recently announced the addition of Sally Rigney, SPHR SHRM-CP, a seasoned HR executive with over 20 years of experience supporting business leaders, to the team of the Middlebury business. Rigney will be focused on building Community Barn’s HR fractional practice, which provides small businesses with access to HR resources, support, benefit planning, change management, talent acquisition and development. Through this offering, small businesses can have an HR executive on their team, without incurring the cost of a fulltime HR employee.

Rigney comes to Community Barn Ventures after supporting large businesses with responsibility for over $1 billion in annual revenue. She has been responsible for providing leadership to teams of over 1,000 people and has led hundreds of hours of training, onboarding and leadership development. For the past two years she has worked with Community Barn Ventures in a consultant role and has dedicated her focus to helping small businesses define and scale their HR strategy in a way that supports their mission, culture and business goals. During this time she has supported many Vermont businesses, such as Aqua ViTea, Bee’s Wrap, Silver Maple Construction and more, demonstrating her ability to become part of a team while bringing expertise and perspective to their organizations.

Established in 2017, Community Barn Ventures helps entrepreneurs and growing businesses succeed.