About this Assignment
Senior management is often approached by an outside party with a proposal that purports to, and seems to, solve a major and growing problem. It is the job of management to perform independent research and analysis to weigh whether or not the offer will provide an overall net benefit without generating a new set of problems. In this assignment, you need to objectively assess if it will benefit your company to outsource its entire HR function.
Prompt
You are the Deputy Manager of Human Resources for ”Scooterpie,” a creator and marketer of interactive, educational programs and applications for various levels of the K-12 market. Founded just over 7 years ago, your creative team’s anticipation of core market needs is the best in the industry, and annual sales this year are expected to top $70 million. Some $12 million of the increase from last year comes from your acquisition of a competitor based in Westport, Ireland. You intend to use that EU base as a springboard to penetrate the European market over the next 5 years.
Naturally, your employment growth has kept pace with sales. You now have 215 employees, 49 of which are based in Ireland. Attracting and retaining qualified personnel will be a key issue for the foreseeable future for the following reasons.
- Plans to deeply penetrate the EU market depend upon finding qualified, multilingual employees who understand that larger-than-America market.
- Your employee expertise needs to shift due to market changes in the U.S. So far, you have had minimal need for salespeople and marketers in the U.S., as the bulk of your sales were obtained via educational trade fairs and specialized distributors. Now, you realize that the explosion of private schools, home schooling, and vouchers has fragmented traditional markets. Future U.S. growth depends on understanding these changes and what attributes future decision makers are seeking in their educational software.
Both of these factors, on top of organic growth, will challenge your current HR practices and capacity.
While your boss is on her required 2-week annual vacation, you are approached by EverHire, inc. A Toronto-based company with clients and operations in over 35 countries, Everhire promises to assist your company by taking over the entire HR function for approximately 95% of your employees (only the very senior managers would be exempt). Functions to be transferred include the entire hiring (and firing) process, benefits management, required tax and other regulatory forms and functions, and all employee training and grievance settlement. Scooterpie would be relieved of all of the legal and regulatory requirements and exposure, as well as the daily hassle of hiring and onboarding.
EverHire’s fee for this service, under a 5-year contract, can be either a flat fee per employee, or a percentage add-on to payroll when EverHire bills Scooterpie bi-weekly to cover that payroll. Scooterpie would be held harmless for any violations of employment or related law.
In a paper of 1,000-1,500 words, please do the following:
- Spend a maximum of one page listing and explaining no fewer than three benefits the proposed arrangement could convey to Scooterpie.
- Spend a maximum of one page listing and explaining no fewer than three problems the proposed arrangement could create to Scooterpie.
- Research and briefly summarize two real-world examples where such an outsourcing has been done by a major company: one instance in which it appears to have worked, and one instance in which it did not work as projected.
- Make and defend your recommendation for the proposal in no more than two pages. If you recommend accepting it, include two contract provisions that you recommend, along with your justification. If you recommend rejecting it, include two contract provisions (with explanation) that would make the offer more palatable.
Formatting & Sources
Please write your paper in the APA format. You may refer to the course material for supporting evidence, but you must also use three outside sources and cite them using APA format. Please include a mix of both primary and secondary sources, with at least one source from a scholarly peer-reviewed journal . If you use any Study.com lessons as sources, please also cite them in APA (including the lesson title and instructor’s name).
- Primary sources are first-hand accounts such as interviews, advertisements, speeches, company documents, statements, and press releases published by the company in question.
- Secondary sources come from peer-reviewed scholarly journals, such as The Journal of Human Resources. You may use sources like JSTOR, Google Scholar, and Gartner to find articles from these journals. Secondary sources may also come from reputable websites with .gov, .edu, or .org in the domain. (Wikipedia is not a reputable source, though the sources listed in Wikipedia articles may be acceptable.)