According to research carried out by Metrica Research Limited for Northgate IS (HR Division), HR staff spend half of their time on administration. A fifth of large companies also said that HR staff spent 40% or more of their time on recruitment. In smaller companies the proportion was around one day a week.
Half of large companies interviewed said that HR staff are spending 2-3 days a week on administering and managing day-to-day HR functions. This figure was even greater in smaller companies where around 75% of HR time is taken up with these basic tasks. For both large and small to medium sized companies, a further 10th of their time – or half a day a week – is spent on keeping up to date with statutory regulations.
Outsourcing is growing. Where it takes place in larger companies it tends to be largely in recruitment (42%) followed by benefits and pensions (26%) and payroll (22%). In smaller companies only 14% outsource recruitment, 12% payroll and 10% benefits and pensions. Although outsourcing is generally more common in larger companies, very few companies overall outsourced training or administration of personnel records.
76% of smaller companies said loss of a personal face-to-face HR service was a barrier to outsourcing. Other concerns included the quality and commitment of external staff (74%); losing control (72%); privacy and security of data (72%) and cost (70%). For larger companies the biggest issue was loss of control (76%) and only 46% cited cost as a barrier.
