How outsourced HR can help businesses and teach them about resilience

Outsourcing HR can be beneficial for both SMEs and larger organisations, according to the managing director of Just Global HR Services. And the experts that businesses outsource HR to are well equipped to share tips on resilience given the nature of their work.

Jayne Morgan, Just Global HR Services managing director, revealed to The HR Leader how outsourced HR can be helpful, what others can learn about resilience from those that deal with unpleasant HR issues day in/day out, and what to look out for when choosing an outsourced HR provider.

Ms Morgan explained that people often think of the benefit of outsourcing in terms of: “cutting costs essentially, because you don't get the recruitment costs, you don't get the training, you don't get the tax, national insurance, cost to benefits, and pensions, et cetera.”

In actual fact, Ms Morgan said that there’s much more to be gained from outsourcing than simply keeping headcount down. Ms Morgan commented: “It’s about saving brain power, essentially. It's about taking that extra function off somebody's day job, if it is on top of their normal day job. Not worrying about how they say things, what they do, Googling all the time and how they deal with issues.”

Ms Morgan then explained the different benefits for SMEs and larger organisations.

For bigger businesses, outsourcing HR admin might allow them to focus on more strategic work in-house, or this might work in reverse depending on the level of experience of the HR team. For SMEs, outsourced solutions might help when they can’t afford the HR staff. Ms Morgan said that an outsourced solution “allows them [SMEs] to compete with larger businesses”.

She observed: “They [smaller businesses] get access to other technology as well to improve their business, whether it's a payroll system, a benefit software system, HR … And that makes everything easier for employees as well as managers to have things in one place and to maintain records.”

Outsourced HR experts also bring a lot of new solutions to the table for their clients, by virtue of the fact they are mixing with lots of businesses all the time. Ms Morgan commented: “Working with different clients, you get all these great ideas from them, and you think, ‘Oh yeah, I could do that in another organisation’. So, I’m learning all the time as well, which is great and I can pass on that knowledge to other clients and my team as well, so it helps them.”

Resilience is a topic front of mind for many HR professionals, especially after the last couple of years. Ms Morgan explained that the key is “solutions-focused thinking”. She said: “HR come in to deal with problems, and it can feel like quite a negative vibe. And you just want to turn it around to be a positive vibe. So, it's all about solutions-focused thinking. It's about me saying to myself, ‘Don't believe that I can read people's minds or always guess what their intentions are’. I think it's about sticking to the facts, paying attention to what is actually happening.”

“Don't get into negative thought spirals. We all do it. How many times do we wake up in the middle of the night and think of something? You think, oh my God, I should have done this, should have done that. It's just not worth it,” Ms Morgan added.

On resilience, Ms Morgan concluded: “We're all human. We're not robots. And I think resilience has also sometimes been called ‘bounce-back ability’. So, it’s how do we reduce that bouncing effect to make it less?”

For in-house HR professionals or business leaders wondering why they might turn to an outsourced HR expert for resilience advice, Ms Morgan explained: “The things that we do that other people don't want to do, a lot of the time, it's generally just our bread and butter and it's easy to do.”

Ms Morgan provided some tips for choosing an outsourced HR person or business to work with: “You've got to get the right personality in... And somebody who is going to really get under the skin of the business. Obviously, understanding legislation within whichever country that they're working with, and make sure that they're able to deliver on what they've been promising.”

To vet that a business is making the right choice, Ms Morgan added: “It's a good idea to get some case studies from them, to just do your research for HR outsourcing companies. Sometimes, even a website can speak to you as a company to say, ‘Yeah, actually, I quite like what they do or their culture’. Look at their reviews, and just pick up the phone and say, ‘Can you do this? How would you do it? How would you work with me?’”

Ms Morgan continued: “So it is about how you work together to become part of a team because essentially, that's what we try to do. Our aim is to become ‘that’, a part of somebody's team.”

“It's about risk reduction at the end of the day, making sure that we've got their backs,” Ms Morgan said of outsourced HR.

Note from the editor

Just Global HR Services is based in the UK but is open to working with customers in Australia.

The transcript of this podcast episode when quoted above was slightly edited for publishing purposes. To listen to the full conversation with Jayne Morgan, click below: