Concern over outsourcing of HR services
EZULWINI – Human Resources (HR) practitioners have raised concerns about a trend in companies of outsourcing HR services.
These concerns were raised on Wednesday during the Institute of People Management Eswatini (IPM) Industrial Relations Transformation seminar, that was held at the Happy Valley Hotel in Ezulwini. The seminar had local and international speakers. The guest speaker was Kenya’s Employment and Labour Relation Court Judge, Nzioki wa Makau.
The delegates of the seminar were responding to one of the seminar’s topic on navigating the management of disciplinary processes. The delegates, who included managers, HR personnel and others, noted that there was a growing, yet disturbing trend that companies had adopted. The practitioners stated that companies were getting rid of full-time HR officers. Instead, companies were now outsourcing the services from law firms and HR consultancy firms, when the need arose. The officers and managers noted that this was a threat to the industry.
There were also discussions about the lengthy formal process of disciplinary hearings that had negative effects on both the employers and employees.
Dr Siphephiso Dlamini, in response to the challenges that were raised during the seminar, mentioned that companies should be innovative in dealing with these issues. Dr Dlamini said companies should explore other means of dealing with issues, instead of the lengthy formal way. He highlighted that sometimes, the formal method resulted in information leakage, which then tarnished the reputation of the company.
Disciplinary
“HR officers should be on the lookout for other methods besides the formal method. HR officers should also protect the image of the company. If a certain formal disciplinary action might bring the company’s name to disrepute, they need to avoid them by applying other methods,” he said.
The delegates also highlighted on the danger of using a consultant instead of a full-time officer.
“Companies are setting themselves up for failure by getting rid of full time HR officers,” he said.
Dr Dlamini said the consultants should be engaged when a company felt it needed back-up or a strong team when dealing with a case. He mentioned that a full-time officer was an advantage, because he/she would know the workers and the workplace well enough to know what form of action and what other methods would work in a situation based on day-to-day engagements with the different types of employees in an organisation. On the other hand, he noted that the consultant would rush to implement what was practice in the industry, which may backfire bring the company’s name into disrepute.
During the seminar, delegates also discussed how they were made to look as the ‘bad people’ by managers. The delegates revealed that HR personnel in companies were set against the employees by line managers. It was revealed during the meeting that some line managers did not discipline their subordinates but instead, dumped the job to HR officers.
Warnings
One of the delegates, Leonard Dlamini, mentioned that there were cases that might not need to be dealt with by the HR, but by line managers. These include a late coming employee, verbal warnings among other warnings. However, it was alleged that line managers had dumped all of those duties to the HR officer, thus increasing the workload for the HR officer unnecessarily. During the meeting, the professionals said there was a need for HR officers to draw the line, and not let line managers delegate their duties to them.