HR professionals in a modern business face many hurdles – be it finding quality staff, enhancing employee retention, or improving productivity through talent management. Combine this with the growing importance of managing mental health issues within their workforce, it can often seem like an impossible tightrope to walk.

Although outsourcing is commonly seen as a cost reduction exercise for businesses, at SBA we have seen first hand the ways our clients have used our services to improve in the areas mentioned above.

So, the inevitable question is – How can my HR team use outsourcing to improve these areas?

Tips for Using Outsourcing to Enhance Staff Retention, Productivity and Happiness

Bin the Big Roll Out. Once the decision has been made to outsource, collaborate with key employees to run a pilot program for tasks they find most time consuming or menial. This is important in gaining confidence to answer the inevitable questions and concerns that an organisational wide roll-out will bring.

No Minimum Volume. Always attempt to negotiate a flexible arrangement with your outsourcing provider, this is most important in the infancy stages of your partnership. Not all organisations will have overflow work to justify having a minimum volume deployment – so it is important to avoid these arrangements, especially if your businesses workflow fluctuates through the year.

What is in it for the team? The outsourcing deployment is going to deliver increased profitability but how does it benefit staff personally? An effective utilisation of outsourcing will allow team members to focus on more fee earning activities, thus enhancing their prospects come performance review times. It can also improve work life balance by allowing staff the ability to assign work to the outsourcing provider for completion overnight – how does less unachievable deadlines & overtime sound? At SBA we have noticed many tasks assigned by firm teams hit our desk from 3PM ET onwards, with an extra wave hitting at 5pm on Fridays!

Process Flow or Rocket Science? Any Outsourcing deployment must involve a flexible process flow which can fit within the existing external systems without the need to write a rocket science manual for team members to assign jobs! Having these simple systems in place will ensure team members feel comfortable with assigning jobs so they can better manage their workload.

Flexible Work Arrangements. By utilising outsourcing, team members can enhance the flexibility of their schedules to meet crunch times or to help accommodate any personal commitments that may arise. Not only can outsourcing be useful for these busy times, it can be deployed strategically to help ease the burden of employees who have fallen ill or must take extended breaks of absence.

Used effectively, an outsourcing solution can enable you to enhance staff retention, improve productivity and overall promote healthier mental and physical outcomes for your team members.

Brendan Hunt

General Manager

Strategic Business Alliance

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