Human Resource Outsourcing
Exploring the Future of Human Resource Outsourcing: Trends and Predictions
Over the years, the scope of human resources (HR) has broadened from simply recruiting personnel and ensuring compliance to assuring a positive employee experience, crafting employee retention strategies, and advancing workforce development. We’re also seeing more and more organisations doing away with in-house HR departments and opting instead to outsource this critical function to third-party HR consultants. HR outsourcing gives small- and medium-sized businesses access to seasoned HR specialists who can help them create contemporary workforce management strategies that conform to prevalent regulations and labour laws. Dedicated third-party HR service providers are also adept at keeping up with the latest developments and trends in the ever-evolving business landscape so that upper management and employees can focus on core competencies and revenue-generating activities rather than worrying about updating their HR processes. Let’s take a closer look at a few emerging human resource outsourcing trends that HR professionals need to take cognisance of.
Remote work culture
While a large number of employers may have initially expected their staff to the return to office once lockdown restrictions were lifted, employees haven’t been as enthusiastic. Towards the second half of 2021, HR professionals found themselves in uncharted territory as millions of workers across various industries voluntarily quit their jobs en masse,citing reasons that included the rising cost of living, wage and career stagnation, rigid remote work policies, and overall job dissatisfaction.
This transpiration has been dubbed The Great Resignation or The Big Quit in workforce management circles and came about as the pandemic gave a large percentage of the global workforce the time to re-evaluate their careers and life goals and look to a future with a better work-life balance. Regardless of the lockdown restrictions being lifted and businesses resuming operations, workers wanted to continue enjoying the freedom and flexibility that working remotely afforded them. As a result, we saw a major chunk of the workforce resigning from their jobs, and flocking to employers that were open to offering them some measure of this freedom.
Fast forward to the first quarter of 2023, and it’s becoming clear that the hybrid workplace model is the way forward. This ideal compromise allows employees to split their time between physically coming in and working at the office on some days while staying home and working remotely on others.
To continue functioning effectively, HR teams need to keep up with and adapt to these developments and adopt modern workforce management strategies and measures that can benefit employees working from the office as well as those working remotely. These include using contemporary technology to integrate virtual office workflows, creating virtual training programs for new and existing employees, and crafting various team-building activities to ensure a unified company culture and positive work environment for all personnel. HR professionals would also need to address issues such as providing employees with laptops, other devices, and tech support for their remote work setup and establishing appropriate employee monitoring methods.
In-house HR teams, especially those of small and medium-sized businesses, may not have the expertise and technical know-how necessary to implement the necessary measures. This is why more and more organisations today rely on specialised third-party providers for up-to-date human resource outsourcing solutions.
Job automation
Technology is advancing at a rapid pace, and we can expect to see artificial intelligence and automation take on various roles over the coming decade. While automating repetitive manual tasks can boost productivity as well as cost efficiency, it could also lead to workers losing their jobs. While adopting cutting-edge technologies is the way forward for most successful businesses, it is important to remember that people are a core organisational asset and automating jobs doesn’t necessarily mean job loss; it could also lead to job transformation. It is the responsibility of HR to upskill and reskill employees, ensuring that talented personnel remain relevant to the organisation and aren’t rendered jobless.
Modern human resource outsource solutions can give organisations access to seasoned HR professionals with the expertise to craft appropriate training programs that focus on high-value human skills that are indispensable to the business. These include nurturing social connections and applying emotional intelligence and creative thinking to supplement the technical efficiency of automated processes.
A demand for wellness programs
Alongside a preference to work with organisations that offer the option to work remotely in the wake of the pandemic, another emerging trend is employees demanding that their employers provide them with comprehensive wellness programs that focus on mental well-being and behavioural health. Such programs are being given a great deal of priority today, and HR managers must be well-versed with corporate wellness initiatives, enabling them to take appropriate action and provide employees with the support they need.
For organisations on the digital transformation journey, agility is key in responding to a rapidly changing technology and business landscape. Now more than ever, it is crucial to deliver and exceed on organisational expectations with a robust digital mindset backed by innovation. Enabling businesses to sense, learn, respond, and evolve like a living organism, will be imperative for business excellence going forward. A comprehensive, yet modular suite of services is doing exactly that. Equipping organisations with intuitive decision-making automatically at scale, actionable insights based on real-time solutions, anytime/anywhere experience, and in-depth data visibility across functions leading to hyper-productivity, Live Enterprise is building connected organisations that are innovating collaboratively for the future.
How can Infosys BPM help?
As the demands on personnel evolve, HR professionals need to be qualified and highly experienced in the area of workforce management to be able to build and sustain healthy relationships between employers and employees. Business owners realise this and adopt the Infosys BPM hr business process outsourcing which is flexible enough to be adapted to organisations across various industries. Reach out to know more about how human resource outsourcing solutions can prepare your business to face these and other challenging trends that may emerge in the future.
