HR Outsourcing

CoAdvantage HR Outsourcing

Vanessa Beaty — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 15:30:33 +0000

CoAdvantage is currently a leading HR Outsourcing provider. The company completed the SAS70 Audit successfully for 2007. The SAS 70 Audit was completed by an independent third party and verified the physical security, computer operations, information security, data communication and commitment to integrity and ethical standards in HR policies and procedures for CoAdvantage. Following the Audit, the firm was granted and unqualified opinion that regarded each of these listed areas.

Hr.com Offering an Informative Web Cast

HR Outsourcing — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 03:29:35 +0000

Hr.com is offering a web cast on how to use workforce analytics to drive strategic employee performance. The workshop is scheduled for June 3rd and will explain ways to find the effect on employees dealing with workforce performance issues. It will cover intermediate effects that lead toward the organizational effect. Other issues covered will include a deeper analysis of workday performances and the insight that you may need to manage your workforce performance better at the strategic level. The web cast is expected to teach employers how to think strategically about their employee and workforce performance overall as well as to introduce the best tools and practices that will help you to gain the insight that you need to impact the enterprise goals.

CareerBuilder’s Vacation Survey for 2007

Vanessa Beaty — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 18:35:29 +0000

During the annual vacation survey for 2007 conducted by Harris interactive for CareerBuilder.com, more than 6800 workers were found to have hectic schedules and were being forced to cut their vacation time down or spend some time in the office during their vacations. The highlights of this survey included key points such as:

20 percent of workers say that they plan to keep in touch with their offices during vacation time.
20 percent of workers say they would not prefer vacation this year, although 1 in 4 still take up to 5 days of vacation time.
Nearly 1 in 10 workers will limit their vacations to simple weekend getaways.
The majority of workers feel that if they had their way they would stay for 3 weeks or more on their vacations.
IT workers are considered to work the most while on vacation with more than 36 percent keeping in touch and regularly checking in with the office during their scheduled vacation time. Sales workers are next with 32 percent and banking/finance workers come in fairly close at 29 percent.
Only 9 percent of workers say that their employers expect them to check their voicemail or emails during vacation time while some may feel pressured to do so.
And, 14 percent of workers feel guilty that they are even on vacation and not at the office.

Einstein HR Services in Atlanta

Vanessa Beaty — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 05:15:09 +0000

In June, 2007 in Atlanta, Georgia in the US, Einstein HR announced the grand opening of its operations. Einstein is a full service HR outsourcing firm and began a partnership with PEO brokerage firm NetPEO. Layne Davlin, CEO of NetPEO announced that he is proud to be working with this new PEO after finding a constant lack of quality services in the Atlanta area.

“Einstein HR was born out of a need in the Atlanta marketplace for a full service HRO company. Through market research and years of experience in the PEO industry, the owners of Einstein were disappointed to discover that PEOs in the Atlanta area were not providing the kind of service that clients deserve” said Davlin. “Because of this, Einstein Human Resources was launched with one goal in mind: to help client companies cost-effectively outsource the management of payroll, workers; compensation, human resources and employee benefits while providing the best customer service possible. We are thrilled to be able to offer quality PEO services to the Atlanta community by adding Einstein HR to our network of providers.”
Einstein HR provides services such as payroll administration, employee benefits administration, group and individual health insurance administration, workers compensation administration, HR administration and additional HRO services.

HRO Report for 2007

Vanessa Beaty — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 14:25:49 +0000

In a recent joint flash report that was web cast by EquaTerra and IDC, interesting facts and forecasts have been predicted. The web cast was focused on HR Outsourcing changes in 2007. EquaTerra may be best known to the industry for their advisory and research expertise in HRO and does not need a special mention, as does IDC. During the web cast, EquaTerra founder, Mark Hodges, and IDC Program Manager, Lisa Rowan, both presented the report that dealt with HRO trends, market forecasts, contract analysis, market supply and demand, and lessons learned. For instance it was reported that:
HRO pricing has increased as has HRO provider profitability.
Global HRO deals are on a decrease with only 2 to 4 projected for 2007.
Large and more sophisticated buyers are seeking more global solution offerings although best in class solutions and regional approaches dominated.
Demand is outstripping supply and the capacity of providers are constrained.
All HRO providers suffer from multiple delivery service issues.
HRO renegotiations have begun.
New providers are consistently entering the market.
HRO is still an underutilized performance improvement option in Global 2000 organizations, particularly those in the mid-market range.
Lower cost, offshore delivery is still being underutilized and is less mature in HRO in general.

Interesting Developments for ARINSO

Vanessa Beaty — Tue, 25 Dec 2007 20:35:11 +0000

Revelation Software Concepts Pty Ltd is a member of the SAO Software Partner program. They announced recently that global HR specialist ARINSO International has chosen change management solutions for its SAP based business information infrastructure. ARINSO currently employs more than 2,500 people in 27 countries located on five different continents. They provide HR solutions to one in five of the world’s largest companies. Through the current HR management system that is has installed, ARINSO serves more than 6 million employees overall. Their HR outsourcing solutions also serve 600,000 employees throughout the world.
Rev-Trac provides enhanced change control capabilities to many major organizations with their SAP based IT systems. At ARINSO, Rev-Trac brings capabilities to manage customers more efficiently, change HR needs effectively in an auditable manner and at the lowest possible cost. It will help ARINSO to ensure their outsourced services remain cost competitive even in those highly regulated areas. ARINSO chose Rev-Trac simply because it has the capabilities to enforce change control processes, provide automated workflow and automated transport migrations and also has built in sequencing error prevention. These abilities are considered a compelling argument for the partnership with RSC in change management technology. The decision of ARINSO to partner with Revelation Software was made in order to enhance existing HRMS platform SAP and is likely to continue with SAP solution and migration, although HR is still uncertain.
Many know that when Northgate announced the acquisition of ARINSO, many analysts wanted to wait and determine whether or not ARINSO continues with its current technology SAP or migrates slowly to Northgate solutions. The current partnership with Revelation however, offers a hint that ARINSO may still want to continue with SAP. We can at least believe that they will continue for the near future.
This very interesting development was discussed during a recent web cast which was hosted simultaneously by EquaTerra and IDC on the Changes in HR Outsourcing. A participant asked a question about how the Northgate acquisition of ARINSO should be viewed and one panelist stated that it is an interesting development – rather a very bold move on the part of Northgate.

Indian HR Outsourcing Needs Pricing ReEvaluation

Vanessa Beaty — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 13:52:02 +0000

HR outsourcing companies in India need to seriously reevaluate their prices for the current and future contracts. This comes in light of the appreciating Indian Rupee vs. the US Dollar. The current exchange rate for $1 is fluctuating between 40 to 41 Indian Rupees which is approximately a 10 percent drop in US Dollar against the Rupee when compared to data from the past 6 months. There is already an impact on the earnings of Indian outsourcing companies in general due to the comparison. The impact is not only limited to HRO companies but also to every company that is dependent on US contracts. The current average pricing cost per employee per year is $677 for an HR outsourcing contract. This information comes from EquaTerra Research. Indian HRO companies will need to take a look at this pricing structure and compare their current and any future prices before negotiating with buyers.
Of course there is always two sides to a story. Indian HRO companies are also experiencing talent shortage currently and higher wage costs which are also contributing factors for a much needed reevaluation of their pricing ranges.

Caliber Point Looking Toward Big Numbers

Vanessa Beaty — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 07:10:18 +0000

Caliber Point which is a subsidiary of Hexaware Technologies, is expected to come forward as a strong HRO player in future years. Reports are evident that the company is putting most of their focus on major HRO wins this year. Caliber Point is a strong outsourcing player in the healthcare segment and is well positioned to handle major HRO contracts.
Caliber Point gets much of its technology expertise from Hexaware. Hexaware officers advanced technology solution to HR and other areas helping the HRO buyers enjoy a major cost benefit. The company’s offshore model helps buyers on the cost side as well.
Research leader EquaTerra is fairly optimistic on the growing company and predicts that it will be moving up the value chain quite steadily over the next few years.
The company signed with HRAmerica in January of this year and was subsequently acquired by Gevity. Mr. Ashok Bildikar, President of Caliber Point, won the HRO Super Star Award for 2007.

World at Work Survey Report

Vanessa Beaty — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 21:22:49 +0000

In order to gather information about performance management practices and outcomes, World at Work and Sibson Consulting recently invited members from World at Work to participate in a confidential survey that was conducted online. World at Work is an international association of HR professionals and business leaders that are focused on attracting, motivating and keeping employees. It supports its 30,000 members and customers currently in 75 countries through leadership, education, publications, research and certification.
The results from the 2007 State of Performance Management Study conducted by World at Work and Sibson Consulting indicate that improvement is needed in performance management for several organizations and that performance management is stronger in those companies that perform at a higher level.
The key findings of this study included points such as these:
Performance Management techniques for the effective and less effective organizations are really not that different. The biggest difference is the level of active leadership support and the championing of the process.
At least fifty percent of the respondents taking the survey used information from performance management to determine merit increase, promotions and annual incentive distributions.
Only thirty percent of those respondents reported that their employees trust their current performance management system.
The 2007 World at Work and Sibson State of Performance Management Study conducted the survey with more than 550 individuals. These were primarily senior level HR professionals. The demographic profile for the respondents are similar to those of the World at Work memberships. The organizations represented in this study range in size from small (fewer than 100 employees) to large (more than 100,000 employees).
The following industries were represented in the study: Finance and Insurance, HealthCare, Higher Education, Manufacturing, Professional Services, Public Sector and Utilities.

HR Roles in India – Time for a Transformation?

Vanessa Beaty — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 05:52:15 +0000

A few months ago when I first met Senior VP/ Human Resources in one of the top MNC, one of his comments completely threw me for a loop. I told him about how key decision makers on HRO currently look at informative websites for making their business decisions. Typically it is either a vendor selection or product selection. He believes that not many business leaders have time or interest needed to look at websites for this information or can influence their business decisions at all. This may be true to some extent when it comes to taking complex business decisions like whether or not to outsource their HR and such, but how much does this hold true for HR managers holding key responsibilities, particularly when they can not update themselves on the latest information in the HR industry globally?
I met another senior HR Manager in a Chennai call center and asked him if he looked at any HR informative websites or blogs and he answered a resounding NO.
The reason that he gave me was that his time was being directed away from this by hiring. This made me ponder for quite a spell. I wondered if this trend is visible only in India or globally. When I look at my Google statistics for HRO managers, 75 percent of the hits come from the US while only 5 percent come from India. I did also notice that 20 percent comes from Europe.
I thought that this figure may be realistic considering that my site does contain more articles that pertain to the United States, but only 5 percent of hits coming from India really concerns me. From my experience it has become very clear that Indian HR players are mostly concerned with hiring and are not in the position to go that extra mile with regards to a whole transformation into a strategic HR center that can compete with global HR standards. When viewing HR as a strategy business center, India still regards this as not really happening. An everyday job in the typical Indian HR department begins with viewing job requisitions from line managers, job postings, interacting with consultants, conducting entry and exit interviews, documenting for new employees and so on.
We have yet to see any HR leaders who play a vital role in key executive meetings. Most of the key HR decisions are still being made by the CEO or COO. The HR leaders simply implement these decisions once they are made.
Can you hear the cry among the community to bring a new role to the HR officers? Those in India however, are still so far from accepting this. It may be time for Indian HR to transform into strategic HR centers.