Human Resource Outsourcing Firms:
Companies that let your company do what it does best

Human Resource Outsourcing comes in many varieties

Human resource outsourcing companies, like ice cream, come in many flavors, and like ice cream should never interfere with the main course but should enhance and complete the meal.  Companies try all sorts of HR outsourcing solutions and eventually each develops a favorite flavor.  Is it a good idea to outsource your human resources activities?  What would you hope to achieve by outsourcing personnel support activities to the staff of a specialized company?  The concept of using a human resource outsourcing firm is the same concept companies use to focus their business ventures into their own strongest area of expertise—do what you know best.  A human resource outsourcing firm can allow your special business knowledge to focus and concentrate on the task of generating revenue for the company.  Your company can focus on those tasks and manage the staff without the distraction of the support issues necessary to keep the staff motivated and the company in compliance.  Companies, both large and small, can benefit from the spectrum of services provided by a professional employer organization.

Let experts manage your human resource functions

Human resource outsourcing firms, sometimes referred to as Professional Employer Organization or PEOs, have hit their stride only in the past 10 to 15 years.  ADP and Intuit are the most well-known human resource providers and focus mostly on payroll processing and tax reporting.  These companies have been around the longest time and are the vanillas of the HRO flavors.  More recently, human resource outsourcing firms have stepped up their offering to include all HR processes without taking the control away from business owners and managers. 

What is the goal of your company’s human resource activities?

What would you hope to achieve if you could free up your human resources staff to deal with more strategic goals for the company?  Would it help you if your HR department could focus more on recruiting top-notch staff and retaining well-trained talent as opposed to spending days involved in administrative paperwork and answering endless benefits inquiries?  Have you outsourced payroll and tax reporting?  Do you still have accountants and office managers more focused on employee expenses and administration at the expense of strategic business planning and profitability enhancement efforts? 

Anyone who runs a company is aware of the awesome gauntlet of insurance, government regulations, tax and payroll requirements, legal compliance issues and benefit programs needed to run a business. Such things are a matter of life in any company and each has to have regular attention.  Handling all these issues and tasks detracts from any company’s efforts to do what they do best—generate revenue from whatever product or activity is chiefly responsible for rendering a profit.  In addition, companies going through either reorganization or fast growth are rarely prepared to handle the rapidly changing dynamics of their human resources.

PEOs and how they can help with employer liability exposure

A PEO partner can also share the weight of employer liability with efforts ranging from development of firm, well-documented policies up to and including actually being the employer of record.  One part of that is the ability to monitor changes in regulations and regulatory compliance of the business.  PEOs who have their own HR and legal departments are able to lend additional expertise to reduce greatly an employer’s liability exposure.  (PEOs have no assurance from being sued, but they offer some administrative certainty that ensures the basics of HR compliance are covered.)

What could an HRO do for your company?

A professional human resource organization can be an effective partner in sharing the administrative load.  The most important information you need to begin your search is the range of administrative activities in which the PEO specializes matched against the needs of your company.  The following is a list of many tasks you can expect to be professionally and efficiently handled by a human resource outsourcing (HRO or PEO) company:

• Employee benefits administration
• Invoice reconciliation
• Providing workers compensation and insurance management
• Regulatory compliance
• Safety and risk management
• Employee recording and/or staff management responsibilities
• Recruiting and hiring strategies
• Retirement plans and administration
• Unemployment management

and, of course,

• Payroll and employer tax management

Some PEOs also provide even greater strategic assistance:

• Process management
• Consulting
• Audit assistance
• Employee Conflict resolution
• Employee assistance

Not everyone finishes a full-course dinner with ice cream but for those who like it, finding a good assortment of flavor favorites becomes the goal.  An outsourced, full-service human resource firm, such as CBR, can help you tailor a list of human resource management functions that can help your company re-focus on the strategic issues that make profits.  Your company is left to become the specialist in what you do best while the human resource duties are left to a specialist who can best do that.