The Official Blog of Benifys HR Solutions

By outsourcing HR functions, a company can unleash its energy for its core areas of function

GOOGLE as a search engine provides an excellent common platform for personalised consumer experience, as individual users decide how to use it to suit their particular needs. Giving other similar examples, the top ranked thought leader in the world, CK Prahalad explains in his book The New Age of Innovation that unique personal experiences are permeating industries as diverse as toys, financial services, travel, hospitality, retailing and entertainment. He further says that no company has all the resources to create unique personalised experiences and flexible systems are a prerequisite and must be developed to access talent, components, products and services from the best source. In this context, he mentions outsourcing as one way to access low cost, high quality talent and explains that it should not be seen only as a means to reduce cost but also give personalised service.


In the book, the head of ICICI human resources function describes his job thus, “ICICI now faces a challenge in our aggressive growth and HR emerges as a strategic function in this increasingly competitive battle for talent. We run HR operations and recruitment as a production factory. We scan more than 3,50,000 applicants annually. We hold monthly recruitment planning meetings that resemble demand forecasting meetings by a manufacturer.” Considering the complexities involved, one wonders whether it is possible for all companies to manage HR operations of this magnitude in house. In a world where business suddenly grows astoundingly, not only recruitment but training and development of the staff along with compensation and performance management also have to be handled aptly. As people are supposed to be the most important resource and management of people involves a lot of subjectivity, any inefficiency in this area can prove to be disastrous. Can it not be done by outsourcing HR services?


Normally when one thinks of outsourcing, the BPO industry comes to mind. Apart from call centers, there are many companies which outsource financial accounting and legal services as well. HR outsourcing is relatively rare but has been taking fervent steps in recent times. One of the best companies to emerge in recent times is Benifys, which claims its mission to be “to provide value-based outsourced HR solutions, enabling client organisations to optimally deploy their people and fiscal resources by leveraging simplified, quality HR practices cost effectively.” The basic idea is that organisations should be able to outsource their activities to HR companies to enable them to focus their attention on their core competency and develop variable capacity or increased flexibility to meet changing business demands.


Bill Gates had said in an interview to Time magazine, “As a business manager, you need to take a hard look at your core competencies. Revisit the areas of your company that aren’t directly involved in those competencies, and consider whether web technologies can enable you to spin off those tasks. Let another company take over the management responsibilities for that work, and use modern communication technology to work closely with the people — now partners instead of employees are doing the work. In the web work style, employees can push the freedom the web provides to its limits.” Though this was said in the context of IT, it can be true for HR as well if the work is outsourced.


According to Benifys, the existing team in the client company might be working out fine, but there are no comparators to their performance, they operate on benchmarks that have been internally set, based on the limited knowledge of the HR function that most line managers possess. To enable dramatic growth for any organisation, and to have access to specialised expertise in each of the HR domains, a much larger team is required, which can work on a need basis, rather than add to the salary bill that’s probably already a large part of the client’s total expenses. The most important thing is that with outsourcing HR becomes a variable and not a fixed cost, which can impact profitability considerably, especially in adverse situations. For any client, costs are linked to their capability to pay. If the client company is growing, the probability is they are now able to allocate a larger portion to support services like HR. If they are shrinking, they would like the support services costs to come down as well. For recruitment, HR companies can help negotiate better rates, and put in place a vendor management practice that one might otherwise not have access to. They also have a pool of recruitment partners, and will be able to obtain better terms for recruitment requirements.
Where training and development is concerned, the expert trainers and content developers in an HRO company will understand the particular need for the client organisation and design customised training programmes to address the training requirements. Benifys has different methodologies for all scales of operations — start-ups, middle and large. For better effectiveness and efficiency there are many benefits like leveraging shared services, access to innovation and thought leadership, tighter control of budget through predictable costs, accurate and secure data flow etc.


In the words of the Benifys CEO, Ajay Chowdhury, “HRO need not remain restricted to transactional activities, even though that is already an established market in India, but needs to move into an end-to-end solution space, where the executive management of an organisation, specially in the SME space, can sit back and concentrate on what they do best — develop strong go-to-market and strengthen business processes. For larger organisations, there is obviously a need to outsource the transactional HR activities, and bank upon people like us to implement specialised projects, or customised L&D initiatives. Having successfully gone through the proof-of-concept stage, we’re on the verge of a big leap forward.”


One of the most well known corporate figures in recent times, former CEO of General Electric, Jack Welch had adopted a philosophy of getting out of all the businesses except those areas where the company could be first and second. Outsourcing to my mind is extending the same philosophy internally — get out of all the areas except where you are best, your core competency. Welch had a 70:70:70 rule. He has decided that 70 per cent of GE’s work will be outsourced. Out of this, 70 per cent will be done from offshore development centers. And out of this, about 70 per cent will have to be done here in India. One of the reasons of his stupendous success could have been his efficient outsourcing. Peter Drucker’s book Innovation and Entrepreneurship describes how the great Henri Ford’s empire began to crumble after James J Couzens, the man who used to look after all other management functions to enable Ford to focus on his engineering core competence, left the company. In his book The High Performance Entrepreneur, Subroto Bagchi, vice-chairman, MindTree Ltd, says, “Many times a startup fails when it tries to be too big too soon and does things which are not its core competence.” Bagchi is right. Outsourcing is actually in-resourcing; whether it is a start-up or otherwise, the shift in focus to core competence can unleash forces that can be one of the factors which can actually make the entire company a high performance entrepreneur.

This article is written by Hiren Shah and was published in the October issue of Management Compass.

Thanks to Leila Bulling Towne of the The Bulling Towne Group for sending in this submission, there are some great videos in this series from Leila which you can check out at BNET.com. You can follow Leila on twitter (@leilabt) or connect with her through LinkedIN.

Hope you find these links interesting and informative! Have a great weekend!

• 15 Networking Mistakes You Can’t Make. HRGuru
• Entrepreneurship’s 10 Commandments. Forbes.com
• How Lousy is HR Perceived at Your Company? ERE.net
• 5 Must-Use Social Media Tools For HR & Recruiting Professionals. Fistful of Talent
• LinkedIn – Is It Worth Being A Member? Integrity Career Transitions
  

1. Paint.NET is free image and photo editing software for computers that run Windows.
2. Wakoopa is a social networking site that monitors the software applications its members use.
3. KeePass is a free open source password manager, which helps you to manage your passwords in a secure way.
4. Diigo is a powerful research tool and a knowledge-sharing community.
5. Retaggr aggregate all your online social profiles and contact details into a portable interactive profile rich with content.
6. NetSetMan is a network settings manager which can easily switch between 6 different

In our first article on this two part series, we tried to explain what stress is, it’s most prominent symptoms and also it’s most likely causes. Being aware is important, but converting that awareness into actionable steps in order to solve a problem is a different task altogether – one that needs not only knowledge and awareness but the ability to follow through.

Carrying on from where we left – in this last piece on Stress Management, we will provide you with practical techniques that you can actually implement and validate instead of just reading.


Stressed? We recommend you…

Learn to say ‘no’ – Perhaps the most important step you can take to cope or completely evade stress is to start saying ‘no’ where it is required; nobody wants to be the ‘bad guy’, agreed! But you have to guard your time against what some like to call – time thieves. Time thieves will use all possible techniques like calling you, e-mailing requests and queries, and standing in your office. Just say no.

Avoid the ‘quick fixes’, instead of rationalizing them – There are healthy ways to manage stress, and then there are unhealthy quick fixes like smoking, drinking, doing drugs, either wiling time away or filling in every minute of the day to avoid facing problems. Stop right there! Don’t self talk yourself into believing that ‘it’s all good’, and ‘everyone does it’.

Don’t play along if you don’t want to – You have the choice; make conscious decisions instead of aimlessly drifting through meetings and conversations. Let’s say you like cheese too much, and hate it when someone says – ‘cheese doesn’t taste good’, let it be known you will not be a part of this! Topics to avoid – politics, religion, vested interests, personal bias, favorites. If certain topics, situations or people make you flinch – rest your case and move on instead of emotionally engaging yourself with things that don’t matter.

Take a ‘real’ break – We are not talking about the ‘going to the beach and curl up with a book’ kind of break, although it does sound good – we all know that’s not always possible. Next time when you really feel stressed, don’t let it overwhelm you, stop to think and ask yourself – How does it make you feel? Can I pin point the root cause of it? Am I over reacting to this situation?


If you are beyond the point of taking precautions, here’s what you do

Practice the ‘relaxation response’ – The term was coined by Herbert Bensen. Research has shown that practicing the ‘relaxation response’ helps to reduce the activity of the autonomous nervous system (read: lesser stress). Here’s how it’s done:

1. Sit comfortably with your eyes closed.
2. Pay attention to your breathing, and repeat a word or phrase or prayer silently to yourself as you exhale.
3. When you notice your mind wandering (It will) just notice it and passively bring your attention back to your breathing.
4. Practice for approximately 20 minutes every day (or at least 3-4 times per week). Don’t set an alarm, but sit with a clock in view if necessary.

Try mental imagery – This is a very widely used and proven technique of stress reduction, if you do a search you find no less than 824,000 results! Like with all health techniques every resource will tell you their own way to do this; regardless of which you choose to follow, what you can be absolutely sure about it that mental imagery works best when done with breathing techniques like the ‘relaxation response’.

At the most basic level, relaxation imagery is to imagine a scene, place or event that you remember as safe, peaceful, restful, beautiful and happy. The more detailed the better, i.e., feel the air, picture the view et al.

Use music and self-hypnosis – seen some of your colleagues put on their headphones and chug away at work? Yes, while it is not entirely true for all such people, but many of them are using the most easily available (and doable) stress buster. Music has proven therapeutic value. Go indulge in that iPod, or the MP3 player you’ve been eyeing for long, or just put on the handsfree of your mobile phone and immerse your thoughts in the music in the background. Remember, don’t put on the music too loud, it might hurt your hearing power in the long run, and don’t get totally immersed in it – don’t forget there is work to be done. At home, listen to music for as long as you can, or want to.

Find a hobby – many people use an avocation as a stress buster. This, obviously, cannot be carried out anywhere, but the general distraction in life is enough to provide a vent to your system. Find a sport, and nice partners to play with – do tennis, football, cricket, basketball, whatever. When at work, steal a few moments to think about the last long drive (or the hole winning chip and putt) in your last round of golf, or how you recovered a point in tennis from a seemingly lost position. Feel good about yourself, and look forward to the next round of your favourite sport. Alternately, pick up an activity, especially if you don’t have company in your neighborhood, or you lack local facilities, or you happen to live in a bad weather area of the world – grow bonsai, paint, read, do miniature models – anything to get your mind off the things that give you stress. Try it, we know from personal experience that it works.

And finally, resort to what your mom used to tell you – count till 10 after every stressful event. Better still, try calling up mom at such moments. If that’s not on, try calling anyone who loves you (not anyone that you love – they may not be the same people – there is a difference, be aware J)


Even in the downturn India is relaxed? Think again…

*Image Credit – Google Trends (this is raw data; authenticity and analysis has not been validated or checked, respectively)

A little deeper look at the search trends on the term ‘stress’ reveals that the most search requests come from India! Yes we have a bigger sample population, but despite that this is alarming! What is your take?

Don’t let stress come to this!

Further Reading

1. How “Stress” Works – Betty Burrows, PhD (http://health.howstuffworks.com/how-stress-works.htm)
2. Stress is a Bigger Problem than 1970s Strikes – By Stuart Woollard (http://blogs.bnet.co.uk/sterling-performance/2009/07/20/stress-is-a-bigger-problem-than-1970s-strikes/)
3. Articles on Stress Management by About.com (http://stress.about.com/)