Basic FAQs In Human Resources Outsourcing

In Western Europe, business process outsourcing is nearly universal. Nearly every company outsources at least something. Outsourcing in  human resources though, isn't that prevalent yet. Seeing as how it is one of the most expensive departments to run in any company though, interest in outsourcing HR should start growing. If your business is interested in this, there is probably some industry body in your country that you can look at. In Britain, the HR Outsourcing Association is the place to head to.

Outsourcing in HR is relatively new, and understandably, everyone has questions about it. Let's take a look.

The main question that anyone's likely to have to do with human resources outsourcing, understandably, is how much money they can save  doing it. Price Waterhouse Cooper, the auditing firm, puts the figure at 33%. That's how much your average company can hope to save by outsourcing the entire department. Even if businesses begin to look into human resources outsourcing for the cost savings potential alone, they do need to look into how it can possibly result in reduced quality of services.

It isn't just that when you outsource something, that the outsourcing service provider may not take enough of an interest in the whole thing or that they may not be equipped to deliver the quality required. It's also that  every company has its own way of running things, and when an outside company comes in and tries to take the whole process off their hands, it can be very difficult for them make sense of what goes where.

Basically these days, outsourcing service providers do not try to look at every client with fresh eyes. They won't try to provide a unique system for them. Instead, they provide a standardized service, and ask each client to rearrange  the HR department in the company according to the model provided by them. This way, one can be sure of an efficient, well-tested model.

Often, businesses stay away from human resources outsourcing for the simple reason that they see a lot of opposition among their ranks. Employees usually don't like the idea that HR should be outsourced. They fear for instance that they won't get the kind of support that they have always depended on.

If there's a mistake with their paycheck for instance, they worry about how they might get it fixed. Basically, it's up to the management at any company to make sure that the rank and file are made to completely understand and accept how these things work well.

And then of course, there's the actual move to outsource. How do you find a good company? Well, Accenture, IBM, Chen tax, HCL – all these major names in outsourcing provide excellent services in general. Basically, you need to look for monthly reporting, flexibility, great communication and so on.