Outsourcing HR and Industrial Relations: 3 Questions Companies Should Answer
A company’s human resources and industrial relations departments are among the most critical aspects to success. HR and IR handle everything from the recruitment process, payroll tasks, admin, and ensuring that all internal and external processes are running smoothly. Staying on top of this ensures that your company maintains strong relationships with key stakeholders and ensures the organisation is advancing in your industry.
When problems arise in these areas, companies can suffer on a short and long-term basis and be time wastage, costly errors, higher turnover rates and lower productivity levels – leading to a decrease in revenue. It is essential to have a solid HR & IR solution to empower your company on all levels, and if you are looking to strengthen these departments, where exactly should you begin?
This article will explore three questions that companies can answer before outsourcing human resources or industrial relations to a staffing agency and how you can take action on your answers to make the best of this powerful exercise.
The three golden questions
If you outsource your human resources or industrial relations, it’s crucial to find a staffing agency that can provide services in line with your requirements. At MASA, we know that every company is unique, and by understanding your needs, you can get a personalised solution to fit these needs.
Suppose you are looking to partner with an outsourcing agency for HR and industrial relations. In that case, these are three impactful questions that your team and key stakeholders can ask and answer beforehand:
- What are your current challenges?
- How do you want your outsourced HR or IR services to look?
- What is your final goal or return on investment?
Each of these questions will lead you to uncover and establish your company’s exact needs and what type of solution will be best for you. Naturally, one powerful question can lead to many more questions, so take the time to explore each one thoroughly and do your due diligence in answering each one.
1. What are your current challenges?
With the above question, you can uncover your current problems and assess whether an outsourced solution is right for you. An important thing to consider with this question is who will be asking it. If the HR manager, CFO, or CEO are the ones to ask, you can get critical insights into your company’s goals and challenges.
Gaining insights from your workforce will also give you deeper insight into the challenges your company faces on a day-to-day basis. Find out which HR & IR-related tasks your employees are currently facing, where the bottlenecks are, and how you can potentially overcome them through outsourcing.
By listing out exactly your challenges and expectations in advance, an outsourcing agency will be clear on what to expect and how to best tailor their services according to your needs.
2. How will you structure your outsourced HR or IR services?
With this question, the company’s key stakeholders can establish precisely how they would like their human resources & industrial relations team to operate and how much autonomy should be given over processes.
With a fully outsourced solution, there will be no need for an internal team. However, if there is a requirement to have employees who can manage certain outsourced services internally, this question could answer how much autonomy should be given over HR and IR.
This is an excellent time to consult with prospective outsourcing companies, do your research and find out what services they can offer. Once you have this information, you can strategise on what your company needs, whether it’s a short or long-term commitment, and how it can benefit you.
3. What’s your final goal or return on investment?
An important thing to consider with this question is what value you want to get out of the outsourced solution. What are your goals for this partnership? To reduce costs or increase productivity – you must lay down these expectations before signing any contracts to ensure that both parties are on the same page.
This question is to establish the company’s final goal or return on investment (ROI). Setting an objective and knowing how you will measure it beforehand can help ensure that your outsourced team is working towards this end result, not just completing HR & IR tasks but also making sure they align with business objectives. If there are no specific requirements, outsourced services can be structured to meet the company’s overall goals.
Your team can lay out clear key performance indicators (KPI’s) and a projected timeline of your outsourced solution. This will help you outline milestones or targets for you and the outsourcing agency to reach in your partnership. It will help keep both parties aligned and ensure that you are meeting your goals of HR & IR
How to take action on your answers
If you want to make the best of this exercise, you should involve the key stakeholders within your company in answering all three questions. This will ensure that you cover all the bases before outsourcing your human resources and industrial relations and getting a personalised solution to meet your needs.
Develop clear goals and KPIs that your company would like to achieve and a timeline for your partnership with the outsourcing agency. Ultimately, it is about ROI and ensuring that outsourced HR & IR services meet your business needs. Use these key questions to help you get the results you want from your solution.
MASA supports companies with our Specialist HR & IR solutions throughout all stages of business growth and development. We are on-hand to help your team with their human resources or industrial relations needs so that you don’t have to worry about them again.
We take the time to understand our clients’ needs before recommending any outsourced HR or IR solutions because every company is unique and deserves custom-tailored services. If you are interested in outsourcing your human resources or industrial relations, get in touch with us today.
Check out our earlier article to learn more about outsourcing with the right agency.
