Outsourcing is not new however, when comes to critical functions such as Human Resources or People Function, here is the checklist:
- The nature of work that is going to be outsourced can it be supported remotely without affecting the overall operations? It is important to have a detailed breakdown of processes and sub-tasks / activities in these processes are clearly listed before they are being outsourced.
- Make sure that measurable SLAs and Targets are in place with the outsourced vendor for various critical deliverables so that seamless operations exists. These needs to be reviewed at a pre-decided frequency and identify continuous improvement areas.
- Interdependencies must be clearly established with robust workflows, there should not be any breakdowns in case there are multiple stakeholders involved in the process execution both at the vendor and company’s end.
- Check for the value-adds that an outsourcing model will bring to the table, one shoe doesn’t fit all, instead of going by what the industry practice, it is important to look internally and see if an outsourcing model goes with the present and future organization’s growth, it should act as an enabler.
- Competence versus Cost, it is important to evaluate that the competence need which is being fulfilled via outsourcing and if the company actually hires the talent as a full-time for similar competence, how much is going to be the cost difference and the time required to hire talent from the external market.
- The flexibility of operations should not be compromised while outsourcing, an outsourcing model should actually work like an in-house model, solutions, processes should be customized to meet the varied needs of the end-users and they must have a delightful experience.
- The size of the organization or the total headcount, it is advisable to initially outsource HR, if the organization size is upto 100 employees. The reason is that the organization requires lot of competence initially to set up its HR Operations and hiring full time resource for every process might not be feasible.
It will be costly plus retaining an experience HR resource might be challenging.