Does an Outsourced Human Still Have a Life Cycle?
December 1st, 2004 by Adam Cuothe
I just read through bits of Dr. Jones’s HR Outsourcing report at Aberdeen. The report focuses on mid-size companies and it looks like ultimately, they may not be all that interested early on–some of its interesting stats:
- 71% of middle market respondents simply were not persuaded that HRO provided enough value to undertake it or add to what they outsource today.
- 51% were unconvinced that HRO would be better than their internal HCM management.
(Aberdeen offered a thirty day free trial for its research… might as well take advantage.)
For the little guy that doesn’t have to worry about inter-region tax accounting, and other issues that spring from the good growth, outsourcing HR just doesn’t appear a benefit. I’m waiting for the day when companies outsource all their departments. What’ll we end up with? A general manager and someone called the CEO who occasionally drops in from out of town to yell corporate hosannahs into the rowdy stock-traders before heading to another company in which he’s the outsourced chief visionary.
One section in the report is called Human Capital Life Cycle Management–In-house or Outsourced? This gets defined into categories like employee records, HR employee call centers, training, employee assistance programs, performance evaluation, outplacement, health and safety. Looks like the employee assistance programs are the most likely to be outsourced already whereas employee records are the least likely to ever be outsourced. Isn’t that a relief. Help from afar and one’s personal info stays private. Disturbing though, that we’re now talking about the “human capital life cycle management” area. I wonder what kind of SLA they offer for CEO life cycle.
I suppose marketing personnel will finally have a reason to talk “cradle-to-grave.”
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