When the H.R. Office Leaves the Building
Here the Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/02/jobs/more-companies-are-outsourcing-their-human-resources-work.html
In my opinion,
the HR department is an important part of the company, especially when it comes
to personal contact, employee selection and know- how about the company. The HR
Managers need to be part of the company, to know the philosophy behind it, to
know which person fits in the company and which employee can e.g. be switched
to a department to be more productive, because they know each other. I think an
outsourced HR company does not have the ability to judge, what is good or bad
for a company they do not work for directly.
Without an
internal HR department the workers have barely people to talk to and the
problem solving process has to be done by telephone or E-Mail.
What do you
think – should companies outsource their HR departments, or maybe work with a
good mixture between in-house and external? Did the tasks and accountability
changed so much and became more and more complex, so that companies are forced
to search for help?
It is also my opinion, that the HR department should be part of the company itself. Maybe it makes sense when a small company is beginning to grow rapidly to have, from the very beginning, an outsourced HR-department which can provide you with its spezialized service an advantage to fucus on the growth strategy. But in the longrun it is very important that it is always possible to have personal contact. Especially to coordinate the business and recruiting strategy in order to find the right people as well as to promote and train existing employees.
AntwortenLöschenI totally agree with you, Felix. I think HR should only be outsourced to a certain degree. An "outsider" has no insight in the culture and processes in the firm and will never find the perfect fit. There should always be some trained HR staff to take care of the concerns of the employees, because, as mentioned in the article, the business is more successful, when the employees are satisfied/ happy. I also think that the small HR staff should do the recruiting (especially for higher positions). However, in my opinion the tasks became more and more complex through various factors, one of them Globalization. For that reason HR has to outsource some minor processes to be able to concentrate on the staff and main tasks.
AntwortenLöschenI also believe that HR is such an important part of a company that it should actually be at the physical company. As we already know, no company can succeed without good and motivated employees. Thus, HR should be as close to the employees as possible, which in my opinion also means physical proximity. Like this, employees can go there for advice anytime and have personal contact easily. A lot of business-related communication is done via internet and email already, and I think that especially in HR it would be advantageous to keep communication on a more „traditional“ way and therefore making it easy for employees to go and see someone.
AntwortenLöschenMoreover, as Felix has already mentioned, I think it is better for the company itself to have an actual HR department instead of an outsourced HR company. I think if HR is actually part of the company, it is more likely to contribute to the overall goals of the organization.
I agree with all of your statements. The Human Resources department is a vital contribution to employee satisfaction, since it supports a company's workforce in any (personal) matter. However, since the HR department is not exclusively responsible for hiring/firing people - which should actually be in the scope of a line manager's responsibility -, but rather has a vast number of different tasks and responsibilities, a company could opt for partial outsourcing of its HR, e.g. payroll and the like.
AntwortenLöschenIn Felix's article it is pointed out that some HR outsourcing companies are highly specialized on certain HR related issues and thus have accumulated extensive knowledge in their field and are true experts. Therefore, especially for small companies highly concentrating on their core business, outsourcing companies can relieve a big burden from.