A Client Case Study about Human Resources Outsourcing

Background and Business Challenges

This Woodland Hills, California-based real estate investment and management company was founded in 1980. It grew to 35 employees and focused on property development and management throughout Southern California. Shortly after joining the firm in 2007, their new CFO quickly identified four critical challenges within the organization which needed to be quickly addressed.

Payroll: The processing and production of payroll was being handled by outside CPA firm. The CPA was charging exorbitant fees for the preparation of payroll, electronic tax deposits, quarterly tax returns, annual tax returns, and W-2s. Despite the excessive fees, the CPA firm had no system for tracking vacation, sick and other time off, and the organization constantly found itself requesting information that was unavailable.

Medical Benefits: Any questions, clarifications or employee health benefit issues needed to be handled through an outside broker or directly with the insurance company. All of the health plan administration was being managed through the organization’s accounting department. This process was extremely time consuming and did not provide them with accurate results. “The process caused a great deal of stress to myself, my department, and other employees within the company,” explains the CFO. “I knew we had to make a change”. Additionally, their benefit premiums were extremely expensive. It was one more reason they needed to look for alternative health care solutions.

Workers’ Compensation: While they did not face excessive workplace injuries, there were several incidents that required attention from the insurance company. They found that claims were not being addressed satisfactorily from their insurer, and as a result, faced increases to their workers’ compensation insurance premiums.

Employee Management: Lacking a dedicated personnel department, the company did not have proper Human Resources systems established. Employee termination issues were not handled properly, many employees’ exempt vs. non-exempt statuses were questionable, and employee personnel files were in disarray.

“There was no way we could continue managing our HR responsibilities as we were,” says the CFO. “We began researching alternative HR management options. After extensive research we selected a local HR outsourcing provider to assist us.

 

 

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