pres·en·tee·ism – n. the practice of coming to work despite illness, injury, anxiety, etc., often resulting in reduced productivity.

Presenteeism only promises to continue as a major workplace problem in 2012, so the Global Human Resources Outsourcing (GHRO) thought we’d share some insights into the issue.

Speechly Bircham’s Employment group is a UK-based employment law practice.  In their in-depth 2012 survey of HR directors and senior HR professionals across the UK, they determined that working hour increases are linked with higher stress and staff turnover, while longer work hours and presenteeism are set for big increases in 2012.

A review of the survey can be read at The State of Human Resources blog.  Conclusions include:

• Greater business uncertainty is linked with higher stress, absence, presenteeism and workforce discontent.
• Talent shortages for 40 percent of organizations exist and are linked with longer working hours, stress and presenteeism.
• Presenteeism is now a major workforce issue, linked with more grievances.

Today’s workplace has changed from two or even one decade ago. Some of these changes have contributed to the growing incidence of presenteeism.

Causes of presenteeism

• Increase in dual-earner and “sandwich generation” households.
• Fear of note meeting Employer expectations.
• Little or no paid sick days available or accrued.

Employer Solutions

• Recognize the problem.
• Rethink the use of disciplinary action to control absenteeism.
• Develop a workplace policy on presenteeism and inform and educate employees.
• Provide Paid Sick Leave and/or Paid Time Off (PTO) to Workers.
• Make an Effort to Boost Employee Morale.
• Offer a flu vaccination program.

The image of a sick-as-a-dog employee who comes to work as being a dedicated and valued worker is no longer fitting. Presenteeism costs are a real and potentially significant drain on a company’s financial well-being. Employers need to make a concerted effort to develop a workplace with healthy and highly functioning workers. This will go a long way toward meeting goals for company productivity and profits, and fostering a healthy work culture and environment for employees.

A talent management system (TMS) is an integrated software suite that addresses the “four pillars” of talent management: recruitment, performance management, learning and development, and compensation management.

Talent management systems focus on providing strategic assistance to organizations in the accomplishment of long-term enterprise goals with respect to talent, aka “human capital.”

HRO Today has announced its 2012 TMS Baker’s Dozen Customer Satisfaction Ratings.

The Global Human Resources Outsourcing (GHRO) team took a look at the Top Five apps on the list:

1. 1.     Lumesse
2. 2.     myStaffingPro
3. 3.     Kenexa
4. 4.     iCIMS
5. 5.     SilkRoad

Lumesse

Lumesse, Europe’s largest independent talent management solutions company, has released a new version of its Lumesse Mobile app for Apple iOS, with an enhanced user experience, multi-lingual capabilities and improved usability. The Lumesse Mobile app allows businesses worldwide using Lumesse TalentLink 12 to give managers access to key process steps and employee information in multiple languages from their iPhones (the app is also iPad-compatible.)  Lumesse Mobile is designed as a true native iOS app to ensure a responsive, high quality user experience on mobile platforms.

myStaffingPro

myStaffingPro is a full-featured applicant tracking and recruiting software system with advanced applicant screening capabilities.  myStaffingPro provides professional staffing software tools designed to help users achieve hiring goals while saving time and money.  myStaffingPro Elevate: social recruiting and employment branding software that harnesses social media, job distribution, network building and career site techniques.  myStaffingPro Express: economical solution for companies looking for the essentials in applicant tracking.

Kenexa

Kenexa offers unified business solutions for human resources that support the entire employee lifecycle, including:

• Recruitment Solutions (RPO)
• Employment Branding
• Employee Assessments
• Talent Management
• Compensation Solutions
• Engagement Surveys
• Leadership Solutions

iCIMS

iCIMS is a leading provider of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) talent acquisition software for growing businesses.  iCIMS’ Scalable Talent Acquisition Software offers:

• Secure Web-based platform accessible from anywhere, anytime
• Fully automated job publishing to social networks
• Electronic onboarding documents and communication
• Robust searching and reporting functions
• Free 24×5 access to award-winning customer support

SilkRoad

SilkRoad Technology is a leading provider of social talent management solutions.  RedCarpet, SilkRoad’s HR onboarding program, helps organizations better plan and manage employees during transitions using tools that include:

• Onboarding management – Automated workflows, standardized task assignment, reporting, global localization and an intuitive user-interface designed to help HR professionals and managers efficiently streamline the onboarding process.
• Employee portals – Branded content, social network integration and ongoing communication help transition employees into company culture and keep them in-the-know during transitions.

Electronic forms – Auto-populated fields, electronic signatures and instant delivery help HR managers keep compliant with E-Verify and I-9 while eliminating time and cost associated with paper-based administration.

Employee health insurance coverage is in the news these days, so the Global Human Resources Outsourcing (GHRO) team thought we’d take a look the situation regarding coverage for an increasingly important part of the U.S. workforce – contingent workers.

Contingent workers – such as temporary employees, project consultants, contractors, seasonal workers, freelancers, and other non-core employees – now represent 30 percent of the entire U.S. labor force, according to the Advisory Council of the U.S. Department of Labor. The number of contingent workers employed in the U.S. is predicted to quadruple over the next 10 years.
Hiring employees on a contingent basis is emerging as an increasingly commonplace practice for today’s cost-conscious companies striving to improve workplace productivity and profitability, while minimizing costs and overhead. Particularly in light of the significant budget cuts and layoffs that have taken place over the past few years, contingent employment has become an integral part of the overall business strategy of many companies..

Unfortunately, the majority of companies today don’t provide competitive benefits programs to their contingent employees. The Department of Labor Advisory Council reports that less than 18 percent of part-time workers have employer-provided health or retirement benefits, fewer than eight percent of temporary workers have such benefits, and no independent contractors receive these benefits.

This is largely due to the rising costs of medical and other insurances, coupled with the high costs, overhead, and risks of administering benefits for non-core employees. The time, costs and risks involved with managing benefits for non-core workers is much greater than for permanent employees because of the temporary nature of these types of employment arrangements.

Benefits Outsourcing

One solution to the dilemma is benefits outsourcing.

Outsourcing the HR and benefits administrative processes to a specialist is enabling more companies today to offer a competitive benefits package to their contingent staff and, as a result, better capitalize on their contingent staff resources.

A payroll and HR administrative service provider acts as the client company’s employer of record for their contingent workforce.

Among all the services that a payroll, benefits and HR administrative specialist should offer, benefits administration can be critically important.  It involves management of medical, dental, vision, disability, and life insurance, COBRA, 401K, and other employee benefits plans.

Look for a specialist that:

1. Has a solid industry track record.
2. Offers a comprehensive, diverse level of HR and benefits administrative services.
3. Provides tailored HR and benefits administrative service packages, so that the company pays only for the services needed.

This type of service provider will be much more likely to accommodate your company’s specific HR and benefits administrative needs.

You need it, but so do your contingent workers – an increasingly important part of your staff.

The rise of the free-agent labor force includes at-home offsite workforces, so the Global Human Resources Outsourcing (GHRO) team thought we’d revisit this article from HRO Today on the subject.

An at-home workforce is much more than a shift in location. It’s a customer interaction strategy that requires a new paradigm in the way companies recruit, hire, train, and manage customer-facing employees.

Companies with offsite workforces have reported:

• 10 percent higher customer satisfaction.
• 30 percent more (or even greater) flexibility.
• 20 percent lower cost to serve customers.
• Highly educated employees with significant work experience.
• Geographic distribution of workforce with minimal disruption.
• Greater business continuity.

There are seven key practices that, when executed properly, create an at-home workforce that generates excellent results in an affordable, sustainable model:

1. Best-in-class security with high-speed connectivity and protocols. A computer can be locked down so the employee is not able to print, copy or paste except within his or her work application.
2. Flexible staffing with quick ramp-up or ramp-down time to meet fluctuating volumes. A targeted at-home workforce can be ready as needed, for far shorter shifts than traditional office-based staff.
3. Scalability and fluency in languages, skill sets, flexibility, and cultural settings. With recruiting boundaries largely eliminated, companies can handpick the best talent with fluency in whatever the languages and cultural settings that are needed, no matter where they live.
4. Seamless integration with virtual management tools.  Because they’re equally secure and productive, virtual workplaces blend easily with existing brick-and-mortar centers.
5. Expanded labor pool anytime, anywhere. Traditional contact centers and corporate offices are often limited by their geography when recruiting and selecting staff.
6. Higher quality of service.  At-home employees tend to be self-motivated, highly educated team members, with many years of work experience.
7. Return on investment (ROI) via the elimination of facilities’ costs and higher employee utilization. Through the elimination or reduction in of facilities costs, lower employee turnover, demand-based staffing models, and higher employee utilization rates, companies can save money.

Author P.J. Weyforth is senior vice president of operations at TeleTech@Home, a dispersed workforce composed of associates working from their homes in select locations worldwide.  Using TeleTech’s proprietary technology, these associates are able to securely access applications that are hosted at a remote location in order to support and assist customers with a variety of needs, as well as address various back-office functions.

In local news, eyes are focused on Costa Mesa, California, a city neighboring GHRO’s headquarter city of Irvine.  The City of Costa Mesa faces a budgetary dilemma: a dilemma it plans to solve through outsourcing many city services.  On the list to be outsourced are in-house information technology, maintenance services, employee benefits administration, and payroll staff, among others.  In six months, these employees will be looking for jobs.  It’s tough news and a tough lesson about how outsourcing has long kept the government afloat.

According to an article in Federal Computer Week, outside contractors have proved a long-indispensible government resource.  Outsourcing allows the government to perform work beyond its typical staffing, equipment, or monetary resources. It also creates a more efficient government through reduced costs and increased productivity.  In a time of budgetary concerns, outsourcing may be the only way the public sector, and even small private-sector businesses, can maintain necessary service levels.

Cost-savings occurs, in part, because contractors cost less than permanent employees.  Last year, USA Today reported that government employees received roughly $28,000 in annual benefits—over $12,000 more than their private-sector counterparts.  Data has also shown that pay rates in state and local government increase faster than private-sector rates.  Total compensation at all levels of government tends to be higher.

But lower pricing isn’t the only benefit of outsourcing services.  Outsourcing to private companies often results in new, fresh ideas beyond the government status quo.  Outsourcing is a great resource for small, private businesses, too!  It allows businesses to receive services they may not otherwise have been able to maintain or afford.  For instance, outsourcing human resources tasks to GHRO allows businesses to meet their HR needs, from hiring, payroll, employee benefits, to the latest in HR regulations and trends, at a fraction of the cost of maintaining an in-house HR department.  It is low-cost efficiency at its best.

How can HR outsourcing benefit you?  Contact GHRO today for a free quote!

It’s usually very clear why a company would invest in hiring an excellent law or accounting firm to represent their interests.  These two industries offer services that save their clients countless amounts of money annually. Business owners easily see the intrinsic value of investing in these firms, yet often have a hard time seeing the benefits of investing in their company’s human resources.

Recruitment Services: Attract Better Talent

It is necessary for a firm to identify the skill set that they are seeking in a potential employee in order to target their search appropriately.  An empowered Human Resources team is able to clearly identify their firm’s hiring needs and is less limited in the tools available when seeking out the best ways to fill those positions.  In the long run, better hiring practices will bring better employees.

Employee/Labor Relations: Minimize Employee Turnover

Maintaining high levels of job satisfaction amongst staff is the key to keeping long-term employees, especially in this tumultuous economy.  By investing in Human Resources, companies are able to stay on the leading edge of benefits; employees can trust that their employer cares about their health and happiness, adding to their overall opinion of their workplace.

Human Resources Management: Increase Productivity

By identifying and targeting productivity goals, firms are able to set realistic expectations for growth and monitor progress over time.  Additionally, maintaining long-term staff allows for growth and development within a position, allowing employees to bring more beneficial skill sets to the table and positively impact their work environment.

By putting these ideas into practice with Human Resources Outsourcing, companies are able to focus directly on the task at hand and become more productive and thus, more profitable. What would your company be capable of accomplishing if you streamlined your operations through HR Outsourcing?

Companies are finding that information management is evolving at a pace difficult to keep up with. Left with the challenge of filling and maintaining special skills positions that require savvy, businesses are looking for employees who are up to date on all of the latest advances in information technologies.

By utilizing some of the many outsourcing solutions available to them, companies are finding more sophisticated ways to make sure they have the human resource capabilities to process complex business transactions and information. With these advancements in Human Resources Outsourcing, they gain a competitive advantage that allows them the flexibility to expand their businesses by venturing into new fields and raise the level of competency in their present ones with little to no effort on their part.

Technology is responsible for greatly enhancing many industries including healthcare, education, transportation, engineering and manufacturing. Finding employees who have the knowledge to support current and developing technologies is vital for companies to effectively compete in today’s marketplace.

In the past, companies had to rely on in-house IT capabilities and were burdened with the responsibility of recruiting, training and managing their own teams of specialists to operate and maintain information systems.

Today there are other viable solutions to meet the challenges of finding talented employees who posses the skills to operate and maintain these complex information systems. Outsourcing IT is one way to meet this challenge.

Primary Benefits of Outsourcing IT:

• Organizations gain access to flexible infrastructure.
• Organizations achieve higher standards and levels of service.

IT Functions Most Commonly Outsourced:

• Data Entry
• Application Development
• Data Center Operations
• Network Management

As companies are increasingly reliant on IT to conduct business the price tag of recruiting, training, managing and developing capable employees has exploded, not to mention the long-term continuing education these employees need to stay at the top of their game. This is why businesses are choosing to transfer IT assets, employee leasing, HR Management, HR consulting and other HR services to a professional employment organization that will deliver cost reduction without losing ground to the competition.

Companies invest a lot of time, money and energy sending recruiters to job fairs conducted all over the world. However many employers are finding they are leaving empty handed, frustrated and without the qualified employees they were seeking.

Although job fairs are not completely unsuccessful, many companies realize that the resumes they collect at such events are far below the standards they were originally searching for. The fact remains that most employers are just not willing to settle, especially in an economy ripe with individuals seeking employment.

Top Reasons Why Job Fairs Fail to Find Talent:

• Low Caliber of Attendees
• Poor Turnout
• Disorganization
• Lack of Strong Candidates
• Insufficient Promotional Efforts

The failure of companies to effectively find strong candidates at job fairs is one of the major reasons they are turning to professional employment organizations as an alternative. By utilizing the staffing and recruiting services of human resourcing outsourcing specialists companies are finding talented employees when they need them. A PEO will provide the expertise to handle recruiting, pre-screening, position placement, training and even HR management.

Top Reasons Why Human Resources Outsourcing Works To Find Talent:

• Large Inventory of Candidates
• Thorough Pre-Screening Procedures
• Highly Skilled
• Invaluable Referrals
• Flexibility

By choosing human resources outsourcing over a job fair for finding talented employees companies can rely on the expert recruitment services of a professional team of HR specialists to assess each candidate ensuring the right fit for employers while saving them both time and money.

To the relief of consumers, a large percentage of United States companies are bringing their call centers back to American shores. Many have found it difficult to interact with call center operators, as the operators often find themselves easily confused by slang and vernacular used by native English speakers.  Because of this disconnect in communication between caller and operator, callers are becoming less likely to use information or help hotlines and often ending their phone calls more bewildered than they began­– without the help, clarification, or instructions they were seeking in the first place.

In response to the widespread disappointment from American consumers, companies are bringing their call centers back home meaning ease in communication as well as an increase in jobs available across America.  While companies have previously found it very profitable to outsource jobs, the payoffs are now nowhere near as high as they used to be.  Inflation, as well as a rise in the pay expected in foreign countries, has pushed the cost of outsourcing to popular “call center countries” such as India and the Philippines through the roof.  Once companies began to take the cost and quality of service provided through their call centers into consideration, many began to bring their business back home to the States.

Another bonus for American firms seeking a solution to their call-center dilemma: they are now able to contribute further to strengthening the American economy.  Experts currently estimate that hiring someone in Nebraska to work at a call center costs only 15% more than hiring an employee in India.  Take into account any potential tax-breaks the company may receive for hiring new (American) employees, as well as the impact that employee could have on their local economy, and the benefits of an American-run call center begin stacking up.

American consumers are voicing their opinion about their feelings about outsourcing customer service overseas. Reports have been conducted that have found customers expressed more favorable feedback when they perceived a call center in the U.S.

A few facts about American Call Centers:

• Consumer satisfaction is 1/5 higher when calls are (or are perceived) to be handled within the United States.
• Consumers are more likely to have their problems solved when the person handling their call can understand the issue and properly articulate the solution.
• The opportunity cost of employing operators in other countries is beginning to far outweigh the benefit.
• U.S. companies are looking for cost-effective, economy-building labor solutions across the board.  Housing their call centers at home, rather than abroad, brings more employment opportunities for unskilled laborers and strengthens the lower classes.

While outsourcing call centers may have not been a viable option in the long run, companies are still looking for cost-effective options for their businesses.  Human resource outsourcing, such as benefits outsourcing, employee and labor relations, employee leasing, government compliance, HR audits, HR consulting, HR management, payroll services, and recruitment services, are becoming popular ways for companies to save time and money, allowing them to bring you better products and services for less.

Human resource outsourcing is becoming a commonly used business solution for companies who want to lower their expenditures while expanding their labor pool. Most companies are seeking creative and effective strategies to improve their profit margin in a troubled economy.

One of the most popular alternatives is the outsourcing of non-core business such as HR management and payroll services to save money and increase output without cutting back on quality.  Human resource outsourcing is important to any business because it is more cost efficient and time saving to hire an agency to recruit and train employees rather than to do it in-house. Outsourcing workers also relieves companies of the burden of assuming all of the risks and responsibilities of employee/labor relations, safety and workers compensation.

From employee benefits services and payroll processing to HR consulting and technology services, more and more companies are relying on outsourced employees to bring specialized skills to their businesses. High quality employees are any company’s most critical asset.  Outsourcing for fields such as technology and professional services has been proven to be advantageous for companies who want to focus on their core business and but still progress in the marketplace.

Your company more likely than not already outsources some services for these reasons. The most common functions outsourced by employers include:

1.    Call Centers
2.    IT
3.    Distribution
4.    Security
5.    Customer Service
6.    Tax Advisory
7.    Applications Management
8.    Bank Tellers
9.    Technicians
10.    Front Office Administration

Using the recruitment services of a Professional Employer Organization (PEO) or an Administrative Services Organization (ASO) allows a company to rely on their recruitment services and employee leasing services without having to pay the additional high price of employee benefits.

Keeping up with the competition is more difficult to do in a down economy. Utilizing human resources outsourcing is an efficient way for businesses to raise their performance while lowering costs. HR outsourcing is an invaluable tool for recruiting the right people with the experience and expertise that will help a business stay competitive.