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HR on a budget: Outsourcing in tough times and beyond
1 April 2009:
Preparation for when the economy turns for the better – and it will – should be a key part of every HR strategy. Indeed, we should regularly review our learning and development strategy to ensure it's aligned closely to the business' needs - and now is as good a time as any.
How are we supporting our managers and leaders to achieve even more from their teams? How can we free up our teams' time to concentrate on areas core to our business, yet reduce cost whilst increasing quality, flexibility and value to the business?
"We should regularly review our learning and development strategy to ensure its aligned closely to the business' needs."
Working with the business and leading learning initiatives to drive cost efficiencies helps to get learning and development further up the agenda as a boardroom topic; that is if you can demonstrate how you can achieve these efficiencies and deliver return on expectation.
Partnering or outsourcing can bring huge benefits. Apart from the obvious (and expected) cost efficiencies from having an 'extended' team without the fixed-cost overheads, the flexibility and improvements in quality achieved by organisations that do this for a living can far outweigh the hassle and often limited success organisations have by trying to do it all themselves.
Control over spend
There's never been a better time to introduce cost efficiencies and increase control over spend to increase the visibility of learning and development – especially if it's on a budget. Working with a managed training service partner whose role it is to drive efficiencies, increase quality and flexibility, whilst introducing innovative learning solutions will help you to achieve this.
It could be time to say goodbye to those tiresome calls from training providers with 'special offers'; trying to avoid them is equally tiresome and what if there was something they had to say that really would add value to your business in those precious few moments of your valuable time? Why not refer them to your managed service provider instead?
But what can you expect from a managed service? How is your time going to be freed up so you can focus on your core business?
Agreed, it takes a while to get to a point where you feel comfortable in sharing and committing to a 'long-term relationship'. Let's assume the 'courting' has gone well and both sides have started to feel more comfortable with each other – remember, this is a partnership.
You've agreed the commercials and, typically, your procurement team have done their best. The KPIs have been discussed and agreed. As part of the strategic consultancy stage, you've agreed those work packages which will drive the greatest benefits. You're aware of the management information that will whizz its way to your inbox at a time and frequency you've typically not experienced before, and you've probably been given online access anyway.
So now you can spend as much time as you like in splicing and dicing data. The learning strategy team is in place; you've agreed how often you are going to meet and how often the outputs from the continuous improvement model will be discussed, and how and when those service enhancements will be implemented.
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Source: HR Zone
