by Elaine Coe, MAD-HR
Without a doubt, outsourcing your HR services to an experienced, trusted Human Resources consultancy can save both time and money. HR consultants can have a significant impact on your business and selecting a partner that aligns with your own company’s values and culture is crucial.
Choosing a partner who invests time to get to know you and your business – one that works in partnership with you to achieve your business plan and goals – will help ensure that you get the results you need.
Business owners can often think of outsourcing HR as having someone to handle HR-related compliance issues, draw up policies and procedures, deal with grievances and disciplinaries and look after HR administration. However, there is much more that we can do to positively influence your bottom line, helping you to achieve your goals much more quickly.
How will you know that you are getting the best from your HR consultancy?
Cost effective
Outsourcing can be very cost effective. For example, with a team of HR consultants, such as our team here at MAD-HR, you have access to HR professionals who have a breadth of experience and specialist knowledge, ranging from transactional to transformational and everything in between, which you can switch on and off, as and when needed. Having this type of flexibility helps you manage costs, work efficiently, and utilise the right “tool” for the job. Hiring a full HR department to provide the same level of skills and experience would be incredibly costly and add another line of reports to the business leader.
For smaller businesses, it can be more cost effective to hire a trusted HR consultancy who will do the job well and with efficiency, giving you access to what you need, when you need it, rather than increasing your overheads. You never have to worry about holidays, sickness or other types of absences; the service being delivered should be seamless, as you are supported by an outsourced HR team that knows your business, rather than an individual.
HR consultancy complements a business no matter where it is in its growth cycle. Start-ups, growing mid-market businesses and businesses focused on stability or reinvention can all benefit from an HR consultancy partner who can develop and implement a plan that aligns management and employees with business goals and objectives to achieve optimal results.
Efficiency
Experienced outsourced HR consultants can often deal with HR processes quickly and effectively, especially potentially complex HR activities such as recruitment, onboarding, employment contracts, employee handbooks, compensation and benefits, learning and development.
At a minimum, your HR consultant should free the business owner or management from having to handle many common, time intensive issues such as employee leaves of absence and updating policies due to changes in employment law and best practice, for example. An HR consultant should be looking at ways to automate, systemise and simplify processes, where possible.
Consistency and continuity is key. Having an HR consultancy with a robust infrastructure and resource plan will help keep the business on track, effectively delivering projects as well as dealing with the day to day people challenges, deploying the skills, expertise and resource required for each situation whenever, wherever and however.
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Recruitment
A good consultancy can help you source and select strong candidates for your job openings. First, they should have the skills and experience required for drafting job descriptions and identifying the core competencies and behaviours expected of a successful employee. They should also have good knowledge of the best places to advertise open positions to attract qualified candidates.
While it may seem like a small detail, the advert and job description may be a candidate’s first impression of your organisation and its culture and values. Poorly written, this not only places the organisation at risk of potential discrimination claims, it also misses the opportunity to showcase you as an employment destination.
The process does not stop there, however, as it is vitally important that you have a robust onboarding and induction process in place, in order to allow the individual to begin contributing to organisational success as swiftly as possible.
Learning and development
It is critical that any learning and development activity is aligned to the strategic aims of the organisation and to support the individual in their role or in preparation for a future role.
93% of people employees say they would stay longer with a company when they invest in their career development.
Learning and development or training and development, whatever you call it, is a must. Firstly, identify skill gaps among individuals and teams and then develop and deliver training to bridge those gaps. HR consultants should develop and implement learning strategies that meet business needs, through evaluating the business as well as the individual employee development needs, ensuring alignment of learning and development with business goals and optimising implementation and review to improve Return on Investment (ROI).
Benefits
You may have identified a need to improve on the benefits you offer as an employer to attract and retain the best and most desirable people to work in your business. Your HR consultancy should be able to assist you in developing your offer, undertaking market research to ensure you are aligned with where you would like to be and creating a benefits package, with several expected and desirable benefits, such as flexible working, employee assistance programs, wellbeing at work, etc. They can also help you to implement permanent remote work arrangements, which are popular now with employees especially after the pandemic.
Your HR consultant should be able to analyse your compensation and benefits across the organisation to make recommendations to keep your business competitive, your employees engaged and attracting top talent.
Regaining business focus
Business owners often get embroiled in the day to day running of the business, distracting them from the focus of planning for the future and implementing a mid-to-long-term business plan. Outsourced HR allows you to shift your focus back to what you love and need to be doing, while providing the comfort and peace of mind that the HR side of things is being effectively managed.
It can be lonely at the top and a big part of our role here at MAD-HR is working with business owners on a personal level, acting as a sounding board, a safe space, a champion and a critical friend.
Save time
By deploying the right skills for the job, you are more likely to get it done well and right first time. Your HR consultancy can help to create legally compliant, easy to understand documentation and processes that actually enhance and protect your business, rather than restrict it, such as employment contracts, employee handbook, performance management and other policies and procedures.
In turn the documentation builds the confidence and capability of the management team, as well as providing employees with consistent, comprehensive and timely answers to many of their questions.
Minimise risk
Appetites to risk vary from organisation to organisation and a great HR consultancy will be able to navigate the various risks along its journey, standing shoulder to shoulder with the business, achieving a win-win outcome wherever possible. Employment laws change regularly, and it can be difficult for employers to remain up to date on regulations that affect the workplace. It is the job of the HR consultancy to stay on top of these laws, so you do not have to. They should regularly review and update your documentation and practices so that you are always up to date and work with you in a pragmatic and commercial way that protects the business, the team and the reputation you work so hard to build.
Employee satisfaction and happiness
The quality of services your HR consultant delivers will have a direct impact on employee satisfaction. Having an expert speak honestly with your employees about their role, workplace and culture, responding to feedback and implementing changes that are fair and benefit everyone, will lead to greater employee satisfaction and happiness, increased productivity, and lower turnover.
Return on investment
Your people are what create a great product or service, which in turn generates profit, so ROI should naturally be a priority when it comes to managing people.
Every single person employed in your business is an investment, and by guiding your people to perform at their peak, reducing attrition, and investing further in their development, you will see maximized productivity and the subsequent returns.
Are you getting the best from your HR consultancy?
If you are considering outsourcing your HR function or reviewing the effectiveness of your current provision, call us to find out how we are Making A Difference to our clients as their outsourced partners. At MAD-HR we work alongside you to build capability rather than create a dependence and we are looking forward to speaking with you to begin our journey together, today.
If you would like to discuss how we can Make A Difference to your business through our provision of HR services, please get in touch on 01473 360160 or visit our contact page here.
