Considering the Outsourcing Option?
Are you exploring or considering outsourcing options for your small business? Essentially, outsourcing involves engaging the services of another company to manage certain operations of your business externally. Common examples include IT support, call centers, payroll services and human resources benefits.
As your business expands and your employee count increases, the need for human resources expertise increases as well. Human resources responsibilities not only include payroll but benefits, staying abreast of ever-changing state and federal tax and employment laws, establishing personnel policy and employee recruitment, hiring and firing. Most small companies aren’t equipped to handle all of these matters. As a result, more and more small companies are outsourcing at least a portion of their HR functions.
Navigating through the human resources outsourcing field of options can be mind boggling. There are PEO’s (Professional Employer Organization) that generally assume full responsibility for your entire human resources function as well as companies that offer their services on an “a la carte” basis. There are also ASP’s (Application service providers) that host web-based HR software that manages payroll and benefits such as PeopleSoft. Pricing can be all over the map based on what services the company is offering.
The best plan of attack is to identify what functions you can handle in house and then start talking to service providers that offer those specific services that you think might be better handled externally. Obviously, if you’re new to outsourcing, the conservative approach would be to outsource one HR function such as payroll and benefits and see how it works for your business.
What are some of the advantages and disadvantages of outsourcing your HR needs? One key advantage is that you would be gaining the expertise of a company specializing in human resources administration. You will be advised on best practices that will protect your business and benefit your employees. And, if you decided to engage the services of a PEO, you could even have that organization assume the legal responsibility of your employees. However, the main advantage of human resources outsourcing is the potential to save money. Hiring a full time HR manager and supporting staff can be a very costly proposition for a small company.
Some of the disadvantages involved with outsourcing include relinquishing control of sensitive business information and relying on an outside company to service your needs. Typical complaints about HR outsourcing range from payroll mix-ups to payroll not being deposited on time as well as slow response time and inferior customer service.
In general, human resources outsourcing is a viable option that all small businesses should explore. If you are interested in outsourcing your employee recruiting and hiring legwork, Perfect Office Placement can help. We offer a unique hiring service for general office staff openings that handles all of the hiring legwork for you while you focus on running your business. Best of all, it’s extremely affordable and guarantees a hire. If you are interested in streamlining the hiring process, call a Perfect Office Placement hiring consultant today for more information.
Perfect Office Placement
705 North Mountain Road
Newington, CT 06111
(860) 953-8547 (local)
(800) 290-2168 (toll free)
(860) 953-8567 (fax)
