| Why should my company outsource? |
The reasons for outsourcing vary, depending on a company's size and location and a vendor's accessibility and specialization. However, common reasons for outsourcing HR activities include a desire to:
• Gain the expertise of specialists who can keep the company current on compliance issues, offer best-practice advice, and improve service to employees;
• Eliminate the cost of acquiring, updating, and maintaining in-house systems;
• Tap into new technology or capitalize on innovation;
• Better manage a multitude of organizational demands with limited resources, particularly if HR functions are not integrated; and/or
• Align internal HR functions more closely with business processes to bring about both organizational and cultural change. |
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| What size organization benefits most from Human Resource Outsourcing? |
HR Affiliates benefits companies of all size and across all industries. We customize our services to fit your needs. Our goal is to allow our clients to focus on their core business functions while we assist with complete human resource administration or by supplementing your human resource department by assisting with a project. Smaller to medium sized organizations benefit from complete outsourcing services by eliminating the need for an employee to handle those functions.
HR Affiliates provides a high value, low cost alternative to employing professional human resource staff.
Employees are used to having an on-site HR person to go to with questions and problems. How will my employees interact with your staff if you are located off-site?
HR Affiliates has a team of HR professionals available to your staff via phone, email or fax. We also make frequent visits to our clients and can plan to be on-site at the business for easy face-to-face availability to employees. Employees feel more comfortable communicating with us because their needs are being met professionally, accurately and when necessary, confidentially. |
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| Why do I need a recruiting strategy? |
A well-thought-out and effectively implemented recruiting strategy helps ensure the right employees are in place when needed. The strategy should reflect your company's overall plans and direction and should allow you to anticipate hiring needs throughout the year and develop recruitment methods and budgets to match. If your company plans to shift its sales focus in a new direction, for example, the staffing strategy should shift to obtain employees with the requisite skill sets.
A sound recruiting strategy can help attract top talent, beginning with the way open positions are advertised and continuing to the form of the actual job offer. The combination of a descriptive and user-friendly career site on your Web page and a smooth interview process, for example, can help make your company seem a professional place to work and encourage prospects to sign on. |
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| Are we required to run background checks on potential hires? |
Background checks are mandated by state or federal law under certain circumstances. For example:
• Education checks are required by some state licensure or accreditation agencies to verify applicants' degrees and courses;
• Criminal records checks sometimes are required for positions involving safety, trust, or children; and
• Driving records checks can be required for filling positions that require operating motor vehicles. |
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| Why are performance appraisals important? |
The performance appraisal process serves a number of important functions. Some of the uses of performance appraisals include the following:
• Motivation tool. Performance appraisals give you the opportunity to review work-related behavior with employees, reinforce what employees do correctly, and develop a plan for correcting any deficiencies.
• Promotion and pay justification. Documenting the definition of each job and the appraisal of employees' performance provide you with written justification for salary, merit pay, and promotion decisions. You'll find it's far easier to objectively make such decisions when comparing job definitions with appraisal results.
• HR decision justification. You can use performance appraisals to support HR decisions involving termination, layoffs, and other personnel actions.
• Career development tool. The performance appraisal is a central component of career planning programs. Performance appraisals allow you and your employees to review employees' career plans in light of their exhibited strengths and weaknesses.
• Training needs indicator. An analysis of performance reviews can produce valuable information about types of training needed. Although evaluations are based on individual performance, common problems that show up across work groups can reflect systemic problems that could be addressed by companywide training. |
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| What are some tips to help make training more effective? |
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Training is an important component of employee job performance and your company's success, but it's costly and time-consuming. Here are some pointers to help your company ensure effective training:
• Conduct a training needs assessment. A needs assessment can help identify specific deficiencies in employee skills, knowledge, and performance. Include an examination of the organizational, operational, and cultural issues that affect training. Also, the analysis can uncover learning barriers such as educational and cultural differences.
• Provide relevant content. The goal is to provide content that teaches workers the skills they need to perform their jobs more effectively. One way to ensure relevant content is to establish training objectives. Objectives should be clearly defined and measurable. Provide trainees with the course objectives at the start of the training course.
• Conduct follow-up. To determine if training has achieved its desired results, conduct post-training follow-up. Test trainees before and after training to discover what they've learned. You should measure any job or behavioral changes after training. If you don't see a change in employees' performance, skills, or behavior, the training might have been ineffective or irrelevant.
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