The five benefits of outsourcing your HR
HR plays a crucial role in any business, even those which are brand new, because of how it helps to recruit talent, build teams and establish a dynamic, empowering company culture. However, you don't need to appoint a full-time director or HR department to reap these benefits. The more appropriate option for you might be to outsource your HR requirements to a consultancy just like Lodge Court. Here's our case:
Outsourcing HR will save your business money
The average salary of a full time HR director in the UK, according to Morgan Phillips, currently sits at £150,000 per year, plus benefits. What's more, while that director will bring a huge amount of strategic value, they're paid too much to do the HR admin, so they're likely to want to bring in junior support to help them. Add to this the cost of staff training, equipment, temporary replacements during holidays etc. and you'll find that an HR team can quickly become a huge expense for your business.
Conversely, with most HR consultancies or external consultants, you can agree a set amount of support each month, which is priced at a blended rate reflecting the fees of each person in the team, from senior to junior. This means you get the right level of HR support for your business as it grows and you pay accordingly.
Constant cover
We mentioned holidays above and this is another key reason to outsource your HR requirements, rather than take on somebody full-time. This way, you don't need to worry about finding cover for holidays, maternity leave or illness because you have HR support on call 12 months of the year, making it easy for you to plan ahead and concentrate on growing
You'll get HR support sooner
If you have identified a need for HR, there chances are that you would need that help straight away. Unfortunately, the hiring of a new member of staff can take at least six months, from creating the job spec, the candidate search, the interview and offer process, right through to the successful applicant working their notice at their previous company.
By outsourcing your HR, you can gain the support you need within a few days, as there is no need for a new employee to be hired and trained on your systems, policies and processes. What’s more, most consultancies will have a highly efficient onboarding programme they will run upon signing a contract with you to ensure they are up to speed as soon as possible.
You'll get relevant expertise, whatever your problem
How can you be sure there are no gaps in your in-house team’s knowledge or experience? You can’t.
With an external consultancy, you'll get expert support for all your HR needs because they have a large pool of talent to draw from to support their clients. And as new issues or technologies emerge, they can respond by bringing in additional specialist support as they know they’ll make a return on that investment across multiple clients.
Outsourcing HR is more flexible and scalable
With job vacancies at their highest level for years, the talent pool is small, making the recruitment process incredibly challenging. While this presents a good case for having great HR support to help you recruit, it also demonstrates the value in outsourcing your HR requirements in order to give you access to a flexible resource that can scale up or down as needed. This means if you have short-term peaks in demand or your business suddenly takes off, or you need to reduce your requirements, it can be done with minimal disruption to your business.
Impartiality
A big part of HR's role can be to manage conflict or injustices in workplace decision making, but this is difficult for an in-house HR team because they are personally involved with their employer. That's why companies often turn to external agencies who have no allegiance to the company, so can be completely impartial.
So, if you're feeling overwhelmed with the prospect of appointing an in-house HR team, or just don't have the budget for it, outsourcing your HR needs is a great option. And luckily, there are plenty of companies who offer these services. Do some research and find one that fits your company culture and ethos - you won't regret it!
To learn more about how Lodge Court can help you, get in touch with us today.