How £225.60 a month reduced our overheads by almost £40,000 a year and at the same time empowered our Management Team. Mike Woodfine, comments on how, through outsourcing our HR functions, we didn’t need to recruit a replacement HR Manager.

Mike Woodfine, Director of The Money Centre, comments on how, through outsourcing at a cost of £225.60 a month, he didn’t need to recruit a replacement HR Manager and reduced overheads by almost £40,000 a year and at the same time empowered our Management Team.

Is it possible to find one person who knows all the Health & Safety and Employment Laws? That was the question we had to consider when we needed to replace our HR Manager. When we put the dilemma to our Directors and Management Team, their preference was to handle all HR issues themselves but with the backup of a highly skilled team. They listed these as:

1. Job advertising
2. Recruitment and selection
3. Contracts of employment
4. Induction and training
5. Everyday issues, e.g. smoking breaks, sickness, absenteeism, time-keeping, computer abuse, dress code, professional conduct etc.
6. Disciplinary and dismissals
7. Employee grievances
8. Redundancy
9. Exit interviews
10. Risk assessments
11. Reviews
12. Rewards, promotions and pay-rises
13. Maternity
14. Bereavement

That was 8 years ago. I’m delighted to report that it worked. Our outsourced HR team now look at and approve every job advert, every official letter and contract to an employee and offer quality advice and support where necessary. If our managers have an HR issue of any kind they get straight on the phone to our HR team and they make sure we don’t fall foul of the law. The employees themselves feel confident that we do everything by the book and the Managers feel completely empowered.

As a Director, I feel secure in the knowledge that the advice and guidance our Managers receive is fully underwritten, i.e. if we were ever to find ourselves in an employment tribunal situation, our HR company would represent us and engage barristers to defend us at no extra cost to us.

This has unfortunately happened to us in the past so we have first hand evidence that it works. We’ve never lost a case at tribunal but if we were to do so, providing we had accepted and acted upon the advice from our HR Company their insurance would even pay out the compensation and any fines imposed on us. All this comes at a cost to us of £225.60 regardless of how many employees we take on over the next 5 years.

Best of all, me be being a Yorkshireman and a bit careful with the pennies, we save £36,292 and 80 pence per annum compared to what it cost us to employ an HR Manager who had no insurance backing for their decisions and advice.

If you employ people yourself and want to have a chat about our experiences of outsourcing by all means give me a call. My direct telephone number is 01603 428505.

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