HR has arrived. HR outsourcing has arrived.
The HR department, long considered a box-ticker, performing back end tasks, has had to reinvent and re-engineer itself in line with the demands of the emerging business landscape to make itself highly relevant.
It has had to take on the role of a business partner, which performs core HR functions that have a direct impact on the revenue building capability of the company.
HR is clearly going through a process of evolution, gradually moving from the backroom to occupy a key place in the boardroom. It is fighting perceptions that place it in a non-strategic role and instead positioning itself as a strategic partner that addresses business issues. It’s role has now become strategic, from being transactional.
Previously, HR spent wasteful hours answering employee queries. Today, outsourcing companies take care of these needs, providing employees a window into aspects such as payroll and benefit details, at a mouse click.
This has happened as a result of outsourcing of peripheral but necessary administrative tasks such as payroll, benefits, education/training, recruiting, personnel administration, organizational development, contingent workforce management and workforce analysis by HR departments of companies.
While earlier, these comprised the bulk of the HR work of these departments, today, these activities are being perceived as a distraction that takes away from HR’s main job which is recruiting and retaining the best of the best in the business.
Size is no longer a barrier to outsourcing, In fact, it is not just the HR departments of larger companies that are undergoing this makeover and catalyzing the outsourcing trend. Smaller and mid-sized companies, traditionally out of this magic circle, are now also being driven by factors such as bottom line consciousness to take the outsourcing route.
Until recently, these companies were maintaining large headcounts and spending excessively on areas such as HR expenses.
The global economic slowdown has only served to heighten this movement, with companies narrowing their area of focus to only their core work, with the rest getting outsourced to large outsourcing services providers in often faraway destinations. HR outsourcing trends by region HR needs and outsourcing services, though often the same do differ from region to region.
