Are you interested in outsourcing the transactional parts of your HR services so that you can focus on the things that add more value? But are you also concerned about losing visibility?
In recent years, acceptance of the value of outsourcing transactional HR tasks has increased as organisations have come under cost pressure and, more importantly, as HR has embraced the business partner role. In this role, the ability of HR to contribute to employee development, organisation development, employee retention, and a positive, motivating work environment is critical to business success.
Outsourcing allows companies to offload work that isn’t part of their core business mission and can also save money. While some companies outsource their HR needs to a single external service provider, it’s more common for them to segregate and outsource individual functions to a range of specialised external providers.
There is no definitive list of what an organisation should or should not outsource. The decision is normally based on the type of company, strategic focus, and the role that HR needs to have in helping achieve the organisation goals.
♦ High-volume and contract recruitment
♦ Assessment and reference checking for new hires
♦ Payroll
♦ Benefits administration
♦ Creating/updating employee handbooks and policy manuals
♦ Training
♦ HR strategy
♦ Manpower and succession planning
♦ Performance management
♦ Organisation development
Here’s a step-by-step approach to help you decide what to outsource and what to keep in-house.
It’s important to start by re-defining the strategy for HR in your organisation. What is the role it needs to play to drive the company mission, what does it need to achieve and how will that success be measured? At this point you need to decide what HR functions have elements that are unique or strategic to the success of your organisation.
Any roles HR manages outside of the elements defined in Step 1 can be considered for outsourcing. Key factors to consider are potential cost avoidance, ease of segregation from associated functions for processing, and internal expertise levels compared to those needed to operate effectively, (i.e. those areas where regulations change frequently or require very specialised skills).
Compare location, benefits, costs, and approaches of different potential partners, and conduct background checks to ensure that you take a considered decision. The relationship you create with your service provider is critical to your outsourcing success.
Look at the option of having a one-stop-shop centralised service provider that can handle several functions if available. Also consider whether you can link external systems and processes with your HRMS to provide a seamless experience for employees and to protect integrity and accessibility to data for analysis and reporting.
Another potentially cost-effective option is a go between company that contracts the full range of required services on your behalf. This saves you time and effort for negotiating and managing multiple contracts, creates centralised accountability and speeds up the process of finding good quality local service provision.
Outsourcing enables a company to focus on HR activities with the most strategic value, while saving money and benefiting from the specialised expertise of outside firms.
You can maintain control of important HR functions and help HR become a more efficient and effective player, but you need to find trusted partners. Why not take a look at HRBluSky, a UAE-based HRMS that provides unique fully-integrated service provision for key functions such as payroll, visa processing, medical benefits, travel and more – and all with no need to worry about loss of visibility as you manage requests and track processing right from inside the system.
Providing employees with access to the company HRMS via their mobile devices goes a long way to meeting the challenges being faced. This approach means that employees can continue to access all core functions such as benefit information, claim processing, and training and development. In addition, HR teams can utilise the accessibility and availability of mobile devices to ensure that employees are kept informed of new regulations and new procedures, and connected to one central source of information – so critical in environments where being aware of, and following, the latest health and safety regulations can now literally be a matter of life and death. In addition to the practical benefits of this approach, the maintenance of a “normality” in routine cannot be underestimated in terms of impact on reducing stress and promoting positive mental health.
With a little creativity, training teams and management can post the latest “how to” videos on available platforms such as WhatsApp, Instagram, or YouTube. Employees can watch wherever they are on their own phone. This helps reach a wide employee base at different locations with a standardised message. This can simply be extended to employees being able to create content themselves and posting for colleagues to view – not only sharing good practices, but also giving employees a much-needed sense of “control” and engagement.
Setting up a group on an app such as WhatsApp encourages and spreads tacit knowledge between employees, while giving managers and supervisors a way to maintain open communication, and to identify and correct mistaken ideas, misunderstandings, or problem areas. Maintaining open communication channels helps people feel connected and safe. Many employees are now becoming more comfortable with virtual meeting applications such as Zoom, that enable team meetings to continue even when employees may be isolated. It’s also important to note that the use of virtual meetings provides a method of keeping employees who are working from home connected to colleagues who are in the workplace – essential for maintaining team dynamics and often dependent workflows.
Placing mobile use at the centre of work operations has benefits not only for the employees but also for management. In addition to the shared benefits from improved communication, the following are also important advantages of this approach:
♦ Ability to quickly reach teams and individuals with important new information
♦ Improved speed in resolving issues
♦ Ability to process management tasks remotely – such as approving claims and leave requests, or processing payroll approvals
♦ Enabling supervisors and managers to continually engage and motivate when face to face engagement is restricted
♦ Driving productivity that might otherwise be severely impacted by the new working environment and regulations
♦ Maintaining record keeping and data gathering for management reporting
In short, now is the time when organisations should put aside any concerns and embrace the benefits that the use of mobile technology can bring to the organisation, management, and employees. At the heart of this is the ability to share a central HR system via the widest possible range of mobile devices.
If you want your organisation to gain an advantage in these turbulent times, take a look at HRBluSky, a comprehensive HRMS solution that prides itself on providing a full range of feature rich services via mobile devices.
Employees need to show their Emirates ID card and/or their insurance card to avail of healthcare services.
No. The law stipulates that employers cannot pass on the cost of the cover to their employees. The renewal of an employee’s visa is subject to the employee having appropriate medical insurance in place.
If you want to see how you can simplify managing your employee medical health insurance, visit us at HRBluSky.
The information in this article was updated on 10 Sep 2020. For the latest information please refer to the official government website at https://u.ae/en/information-and-services/health-and-fitness/health-insurance
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