Transform Your Employee Relations with HR Outsourcing

Employee relations refers to how the people in an organization get along with each other. Traditionally, companies focused on the compliance obligations involved in employer-employee relations, and less on the employee relations. 

Now, savvy companies make it part of their business strategy to go well beyond those requirements. They create and maintain productive, positive relationships in the workplace between managers and their staff and among employees.

The goal is for everyone in the company to thrive and be empowered to do their best work.

Small and medium-sized businesses may lack the in-house expertise to fully implement an effective employee relations program. For many, leveraging HR solutions with HR expertise can help strengthen and support employee relations.

By outsourcing human resources functions, SMBs can access the guidance of experienced HR professionals who offer best practices to support strong employee relations. These HR experts may provide support in areas such as dispute resolution, policy development and compliance, helping businesses cultivate positive employee relationships that serve as the foundation of a strong company culture and drive

Key Benefits of Employee Relations

When SMBs work on strengthening their employee relations, they may reap several benefits, including:

Fair workplace policies and implementation

Employees who believe that their workplace policies are fair are more likely to stay and to be more productive. On the flip side, employees who feel that they are treated unfairly are more likely to bring actions against their employer. The EEOC collected $700 million from employers in a single year for the workplace discrimination cases it handled.

The ways that employee relations outsourcing can help create and implement fair workplace policies include:

• Development of comprehensive, legally-compliant policies.
• Consistent application across all employee levels.
• Regular policy updates to reflect changing labor market conditions.

Professional conflict resolution

Unresolved conflicts in the workplace hurt morale, lower productivity and can lead to claims against the company. A study by CCP Inc. (publisher of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator) found that:

• 36% of employees in the U.S. spend a significant amount of time dealing with conflict.
• About half of the respondents cited warring egos as one of the main reasons for workplace conflict. About one-third cited stress and one-third cited heavy workloads.
• In the U.S., 385 million working days are wasted every year because of workplace conflicts.

HR solution providers can support conflict resolution by offering services that can include:

• Best practices for effective dispute resolution.
• Guidance to achieve quicker resolution times.
• Risk mitigation to help prevention escalation.

Strengthened employee satisfaction and engagement

Employee turnover is a big expense for SMBs. Costs include recruiting, hiring, administrative costs, onboarding and training new employees. Add to that the downtime, reduced productivity, loss of institutional knowledge and lower morale among remaining employees.

The key to retaining talented employees and reducing turnover is to help employees feel satisfied and engaged with their work. Research conducted by Gallup found that:

• More than half of U.S. employees were watching for or actively seeking new jobs.
• To replace leaders and managers, businesses pay about twice the departing employee’s salary. Replacing technical employees costs 80% of the former employee’s salary and replacing front-line employees costs 40% of their salary.
• Employees who felt recognized at work were 45% less likely to leave in a two-year period.

Employee relations support can help enhance employee satisfaction and engagement by:

• Strengthening trust through fair, consistent treatment.
• Creating effective communication channels between management and staff.
• Having a positive impact on talent management and retention.

Compliance

An HR solutions provider can help SMBs navigate compliance with employment-related laws and regulations. They offer compliance expertise and guidance to their client companies. They can help create procedures and policies, provide best practices on compliance concerns, and automation tools that help mitigate risks. Some HR solutions providers, particularly professional employer organizations (PEOs), may take on certain risk.

HR outsourcing support for employee relations can help in several ways, including:

• Staying on top of evolving employment-related laws and regulations.
• Mitigating risk with expert best practices.
• Standardizing documentation and processes.

Why Do Companies Choose HR Outsourcing Services to Support Employee Relations?

A small business could optimize costs by entering into a contractual agreement with an HR solutions provider. By outsourcing HR services, an SMB can access specialized HR expertise that might be difficult to maintain in-house.

These providers can offer HR best practices and risk mitigation and can also help optimize efficiency through the support, resources, tools and advanced HR technology systems they make available to their client companies.

The HR solution provides strong, long-term support for employee relations. Its flexibility and scalability make it an especially attractive option for a growing business.

The Ripple Effect: How Outsourcing Can Transform Company Culture

When employee relations improve, the beneficial effects can ripple across the company, transforming its culture and setting the groundwork for success.

These positive effects can include:

• Creating a more positive work environment. Increasing employee engagement and reducing conflict can create an environment where people feel motivated to give their best efforts to contribute to the success of the company.
• Building employee confidence in HR processes. When employees can see that HR processes are consistent, they may feel more trusting and have more goodwill toward their employer.
• Strengthening strategic partnerships between leadership and workforce. When relationships between managers and staff are positive and strong, everyone in the business can pull together to work on the company’s goals as a smoothly functioning team.
• Long-term benefits for employer branding and recruitment. A company’s reputation spreads quickly in this age of social media. When a business becomes known for its positive company culture, it may attract more customers and potential employees.

Your HR Solution to assist with Employee Relations 

TriNet is a leading provider of HR solutions. Our most valuable resource is our people. You’ll have access to a team of HR experts and specialists who provide best practices, answer your tough HR questions, and support your strategic planning efforts.

You don’t need to build a large in-house team to handle HR challenges that may arise in the future. We’ll support you and your employees, helping them stay happy and productive, mitigate risk, streamline HR processes, and foster a positive company culture that plays a key role in driving business growth and success.

The first step towards strengthening your company’s employee relations is understanding where you stand today. Many businesses may not realize there are opportunities to enhance certain areas of employee relations and HR. We can help you identify potential HR challenges and explore effective solutions. Start by assessing your current employee relations landscape with TriNet’s HR needs assessment.